How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from The Breakfast Club.
Quote #1
BRIAN: Saturday, March 24, 1984. Shermer High School, Shermer, Illinois, 60062. Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. What we did was wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us—in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Correct? That's the way we saw each other at 7:00 this morning. We were brainwashed.
They were brainwashed because they all made assumptions about each other—letting their respective cliques and stereotypes determine their judgments. The whole plot of the movie involves reversing those judgments.
Quote #2
VERNON: All right people, we're going to try something a little different today. We are going to write an essay—of no less than a thousand words—describing to me who you think you are.
BENDER: Is this a test?
VERNON: And when I say essay, I mean essay. I do not mean a single word repeated a thousand times. Is that clear, Mr. Bender?
BENDER: Crystal.
Vernon is telling them to write an essay about who they think they are—but he already thinks he knows who Bender is: the kind of kid who makes a joke out of everything. Not that Bender doesn't do that, but, in a way, he's just fulfilling the expectations people like Vernon set for him. If they didn't have those expectations, maybe he would behave differently.
Quote #3
BRIAN: Who do I think I am? Who are you? Who are you? I am a walrus.
Brian is musing on the question Vernon's assigned them. It's possible that he's thinking of the first line from John Lennon's "I am the Walrus": "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together." That's basically what they all realize at the end of the movie: All the students identify with each other instead of with their personal stereotypes.
Quote #4
BRIAN: I don't like my parents either, I don't... I don't get along with them... their idea of parental compassion is just, you know, wacko!
BENDER: Dork...
BRIAN: Yeah?
BENDER: You are a parent's wet dream, okay?
BRIAN: Well, that's a problem!
It's a problem because it sets an unbearably high standard for Brian, just like Vernon's low expectations set an unbearably low standard for Bender. He has to live up a false and inhuman idea about himself that he ultimately can't manage—thanks to the elephant lamp he fails to make successfully in shop class.
Quote #5
BENDER: Look, I can see you getting all bunged up for them making you wear these kind of clothes. But face it, you're a neo-maxi-zoom-dweebie! What would you be doing if you weren't out making yourself a better citizen?
ANDREW: Why do you have to insult everybody?
BENDER: I'm being honest, asshole! I would expect you... to know the difference!
Bender claims he's not being a jerk—he's just assessing people accurately. But he's failing to look beneath the surface level. All of his judgments spring from what he thinks he knows, not from what he's actually perceived. Also, since Andrew is defending Brian, maybe it shows he's feeling guilty about how he bullied another kid who was sort of like Brian?
Quote #6
CLAIRE: Claire... it's a family name!
BENDER: No. It's a fat girl's name!
CLAIRE: Well thank you...
BENDER: You're welcome...
CLAIRE: I'm not fat!
Bender is razzing Claire up, telling her she has a "fat girl's name"—which obviously doesn't mean anything, since a name can't automatically be associated with anyone's weight one way or another. But it's effective, and Claire rises to the bait. This aggression on Bender's part lightly masks the sexual attraction he feels for Claire—he hides that attraction by being obnoxious.
Quote #7
ANDREW: Um, I'm here today... because uh, because my coach and my father don't want me to blow my ride. See I get treated differently because uh, Coach thinks I'm a winner. So does my old man. I'm not a winner because I wanna be one... I'm a winner because I got strength and speed. Kinda like a racehorse. That's about how involved I am in what's happening to me.
Andrew's not being dishonest, but he's also not telling the whole truth. That's how his father and his coach really do view him. Yet Allison wants him to tell her why he's really here, which he (at this point) refuses to do. The story about how he taped a kid's buttocks together is a little too embarrassing and repulsively bullying to trot out right now. He'll have to do it, tearfully, later.
Quote #8
CLAIRE: You know why guys like you knock everything?
BENDER: Oh, this should be stunning.
CLAIRE: It's 'cause you're afraid.
BENDER: Oh, God! You richies are so smart; that's exactly why I'm not heavy in activities!
What does Claire think Bender's afraid of? Maybe she thinks he's afraid of failing, afraid of engaging with life on a serious level and not having it work out. Bender probably doesn't see it that way: To him, his behavior makes total sense, and it's what he needs to do to cope with the abuse he suffers from his dad.
Quote #9
CLAIRE: You're a big coward.
BRIAN: I'm in the math club.
CLAIRE: See, you're afraid that they won't take you. You don't belong, so you just have to dump all over it.
BENDER: Well, it wouldn't have anything to do with you activities people being assholes, now would it?
CLAIRE: Well you wouldn't know; you don't even know any of us.
BENDER: Well, I don't know any lepers, either, but I'm not gonna run out and join one of their f***ing clubs.
Claire assumes that she knows Bender's deal—which gets him to rise to the bait and stereotype her and insult her and Brian and other people who do school activities. He compares them all to lepers, which is clearly unfair. But he's just judging Claire because he's being judged. It's an equal and opposite reaction.
Quote #10
BRIAN: Chicks, cannot hold their smoke! That's what it is!
CLAIRE: Do you know how popular I am? I'm so popular, everybody loves me so much, at this school...
BENDER: Poor baby.
Brian is doing a Richard Pryor impression after smoking pot with Bender. Under the influence of the drug, Claire starts spouting her own high self-estimate—the kind of junk that's floating in her head is spontaneously manifesting itself. She doesn't realize that only the other "popular" kids hold this high estimate. She's not really popular with the Bender and Brian types.
Quote #11
BRIAN (VO): Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you're crazy to make an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain...
ANDREW (VO): ...and an athlete...
ALLISON (VO): ...and a basket case...
CLAIRE (VO): ...a princess...
BENDER (VO): ...and a criminal...
BRIAN (VO): Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.
This is the big realization at the end of the movie. They've all been through so many emotional ups and downs with each other and revealed so much about themselves that they've finally discovered that their social identities are artificial. They're not really who people perceive them as being, or who they perceive themselves as being. They've actually had a lot of similar experiences, and there's no bar to prevent them from relating to each other on a deeper level.