Question: What did Sister Mary Patrick mean when she said "you don't have to bite the donut to know it's sweet"? I believe this was in the scene when she was teaching her class when Deloris was looking for hers.
Answer: You don't need to learn about sex to know what it is about.
Question: When Deloris asks the class where their music books are, and they point to the ceiling, what is on the ceiling, and why do they point to the ceiling in the first place?
Answer: Because they have torn all the pages out and used them as spit balls and stuck them to the ceiling.
Answer: The students point to the ceiling because the books are ripped up on the ceiling because the kids did not need to learn anything to the class and that is the reason they ripped them up.
Question: During the medley at the beginning of the film, does anyone know what the first song is that Deloris begins to sing? It sounds like it starts off "Starlight..."
Chosen answer: The first song is "Love Child" by Diana Ross and the Supremes. The first words in the medley are "I started life".
Question: What does Whoopi mean at the end when saying she is a 'headliner'?
Chosen answer: A headliner is someone who receives top billing for a show or concert. She is the main attraction, and probably has a lesser known band/act perform before her, or "open for her".
Answer: Sister Mary Patrick is being challenged by Sondra, one of her students, who says, "you can't answer any questions about... Sex." The sister's reply is, "oh, don't be so sure - you don't have to bite the donut to know it's sweet." She offers this as an analogy, in order to posit that one doesn't have to have engaged in sex acts to know what sex is all about, or that it may be enjoyable even when it isn't necessarily good for you.
Michael Albert