The Golden Girls
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The Golden Girls
Quotations
The Golden Girls was a popular NBC sitcom about four previously married over-50 women who live together in Miami, sharing their various experiences together and enjoying themselves despite hard times
For the follow-up series that aired on CBS, see The Golden Palace.
[Sophia comes home early, and sees Dr. Newman, a little person. She just stares for a moment.]
[Blanche meets her father's new fiancee who is a young woman]
[Blanche, Rose and Dorothy all nod]
[After meeting the triplets from St. Olaf that have come to interview Rose]
[on the "shuttle" to St. Olaf]
[after Dr. Harry Weston has delivered the girls' accumulated mail]
[Blanche tries to apologize to Rose]
[Rose walks to the door to answer it, but she doesn't open it yet]
[Sophia had just been hospitalized and Blanche returned to Dorothy and Rose with beverages]
[Stan's fiancé, Katherine, enters the bar at the hotel where they're getting married.]
[Stan's fiancé, Katherine, is talking to Dorothy without realizing that the woman she's talking to is Dorothy, Stan's ex-wife.]
[Merrill's being released from prison to see Blanche after she's written him letters]
[Sophia's running around with a small box putting things into it]
[Door rings. It's Merrill]
[Blanche shocked to see Merrill who was released from prison]
[Sophia and Dorothy return from a visit to the doctor]
[Blanche, coming from a date, bursts through the front door looking very upset]
[The girls and Stan are watching a commercial for his patented potato opener on TV]
[Dorothy delivers a meal on wheels to a hippie shut-in]
[barking doorbell sounds]
[bell rings again, the dogs bark, Sophia runs out of the kitchen]
[Rose does a mock interview on Dorothy for a reporting position she applied for]
[Sophia looks shocked as Dorothy freezes up]
[Blanche learns that Rose ate her tuna quiche and diet shake]
[the girls and Stan enter the barely furnished apartment]
For the follow-up series that aired on CBS, see The Golden Palace.
The Engagement [1.01]
- Rose: What a day. One sad person after another.
- Dorothy: Rose, you work at grief counseling. What do you expect, comedians?
- Dorothy: Ma, the taxi driver said you promised him a $67 dollar tip!
- Sophia: Don't be silly, I said a $6, $7 dollar tip! Why don't these people learn English if they're gonna live here? This is Miami - I'd have less trouble getting around Ecuador!
- Rose: Sit down, Sophia. You must be exhausted.
- Sophia: Why? I rode in the cab, I didn't push it!
- Harry: [to Sophia] You must be Blanche's sister.
- Sophia: You must be blind!
- Blanche: [to Harry] Sophia's home just burned down.
- Harry: [to Sophia] That's terrible!
- Sophia: Not to me. It was a retirement home, and you know what they did? They set off the fire alarm, in a retirement home. Who can rush? Half the people have walkers, the other half can't get out of their chairs. But they've got bells going off like crazy! You know what that does to hearts that only beat a few times a week? It's not pretty!
- Blanche: We're going to New York for the honeymoon. I just hope I don't get murdered.
- Rose: Oh Sophia, did we wake you?
- Sophia: I heard noise, I thought it was robbers, so I hid my jewels. Now I can't remember where.
- Dorothy: Ma, you don't have any jewels.
- Sophia: Thank God, because I can't find them.
- Dorothy: Let's go out and celebrate.
- Sophia: What, that she came out of her room?
- Rose: My hunches are never wrong! Mrs. Gandhi would be alive today if she had taken my call!
Guess Who's Coming to the Wedding? [1.02]
- Blanche: And then one day, Stanley is gonna be out of your life completely.
- Dorothy: Not completely. There will always be a little part of him that stays with me.
- Rose: Of course, Dorothy. After 38 years, there are always bound to be some memories that stay with you.
- Dorothy: I wasn't talking about memories. I was talking about this. [holding up Stan's toupee that he left behind]
- Sophia: Dorothy, anger is a lot like a piece of shredded wheat caught under your dentures. If you leave it there, you get a blister, and you gotta eat Jell-O all week. If you get rid of it, the sore heals, and you feel better.
- Dorothy: [pauses] Anger is like a piece of shredded wheat?
- Sophia: You want poetry, you listen to Neil Diamond. You want good advice, you listen to your mother.
- [Kate is hugging Sophia tightly]
- Sophia: Relax... Relax... You're already in the will!
- Rose: [to Dennis, a podiatrist] Have you ever met Dr.Scholl?
Rose the Prude [1.03]
- Blanche: [seeing herself in a mirror lying down] I'm going to have to meet men lying down.
- Sophia: I thought you did.
- Rose: I'll be fine.
- Blanche: Is this about Arnie?
- Dorothy: No Blanche, she's upset because they keep changing the taste of Coke.
- Rose: I don't know what to wear on a cruise.
- Blanche: A life jacket and a great big smile.
- Dorothy: Who cares Rose! Did you and Arnie hit the sheets or not?!
- Sophia: Dorothy!
- Dorothy: ...sorry.
- Rose: Some women don't like to kiss and tell.
- Blanche: Oh, shoot, honey, that's half the fun! Why, most of the men I've dated just for the stories!
- Dorothy: You must have more stories than O. Henry.
Transplant [1.04]
- [Dorothy walks in holding a baby]
- Blanche: Dorothy, what in the world is that?
- Dorothy: It's a flounder, Blanche.
- Blanche: We cannot have a baby in the house! My sister's coming.
- Dorothy: Does she eat them?
- Virginia: [about her and Blanche's other sister Charmaine] She never could help Mama because she had heart flutters and she never could take gym class, no, because she had a tipped uterus and she never did any housework because she had a spastic colon. Now, she has attached kidneys.
- Blanche That girl is some kind of mutant.
- Blanche: [about Virginia] It was the day before Christmas and we were playing and she jiggled the tree and the star fell off and broke. So she told me to pick it up and put it on my finger. And I did. Then she plugged it in.
- [wondering why someone could hate their own sister]
- Rose: Maybe it's Southern.
- Blanche: Sleeping with your brothers is Southern!
- Blanche: I need both of my kidneys. You know what'll happen if I give her one? My ankles'll swell, my eyes'll puff up. I'll look just like the Pillsbury Doughboy!
- Rose: The doctor says it's the first time he's ever been called because a baby was sleeping in the day. And then I think he called me an idiot.
- Rose: [about Blanche] Wherever she goes, she finds a man!
- Sophia: So do hookers.
- Blanche: Let's talk about you, it looks like you lost a couple of pounds.
- Virginia: I have.
- Blanche: You know at your age when you lose weight your skin just...hangs there, like...like leaves on a willow.
- Virginia: I don't think that happen I haven't lost that much weight.
- Blanche: Well I don't know. If I were you I certainly wouldn't wave goodbye.
- Virginia: And if I were you, I certainly wouldn't jog without a muumuu.
- Blanche: Is that so, well let me tell you something.....
- Virginia: Oh Blanche please, lets not do this.
- Blanche: Ok fine. Ever thought about getting a face lift? For your, how do I say this delicately.....turkey waddle or what?
- Blanche: She's dying.
- Dorothy: What?
- Blanche: My sister's dying.
- Rose: [entering] What?
- Sophia: Dying, she's dying.
- Rose: [assuming Blanche is dying] Oh my God, Blanche! I didn't even know you were sick.
The Triangle [1.05]
- Sophia: [angrily, after the girls choose Mama Celeste's pizza over hers in a taste test] You can't pick men and you can't pick pizza!
- Sophia: Let me tell you a story. Sicily. 1912. Picture this. Two young girls, best friends, who share three things: a pizza recipe, some dough and a dream. Everything is going great until one day a fast talking pepperoni salesman gallops into town. Of course, both girls are impressed. He dates one one night, the other the next night. Pretty soon, he drives a wedge between them. Before you know it, the pizza suffers, the business suffers, the friendship suffers. The girls part company and head for America, never to see one another again. Rose, one of those girls was me. The other one you probably know as Mama Celeste.
- Blanche: But [Dr. Clayton] wants me. I can feel it.
- Dorothy: Let someone else feel it.
- Blanche: But we were meant for each other. I'm a woman and, he's a man.
- Dorothy: And what am I, Little Richard?
- Sophia: I'm an old white woman. I'm not supposed to have color. You want color? Talk to Lena Horne.
- Rose: [trying to convince Blanche to tell Dorothy about Dr. Clayton's making a pass at her] What kind of a friend would you be if you let Elliot ruin her life? I mean, she could marry that man. They could have a child! [Blanche looks at her funny] They could adopt a child!
- Blanche: [introducing herself to Dr. Clayton] My name is Blanche Devereaux. That's French for... Blanche Devereaux.
- Blanche: The last time a friend's sweetheart made a pass at me, I lost my friend and her beau.
- Rose: And her beau?
- Blanche: That's right, Anderbeau Johnson. Clyde Whitehead, Anderbeau's beau, decided he wanted to see my cheerleader sweater from the inside. So when I told Anderbeau, she blamed the whole thing on me, and then Clyde would never speak to me again for telling! I lost Anderbeau and her beau! Now you understand why I can't tell Dorothy?
- Rose: I don't even understand who Anderbobo is.
- Rose: [pretending to flirt with Elliot to make him confess to hitting on Blanche] Did anyone ever tell you, you look just like Jerry Vale?
- Elliot: No...
- Rose: They should. He's the only man in the world that can make the hair on my arms stand up. [begins suggestively bobbing up and down] Can I fix you a drink?
- Elliot: No thank you. Is something wrong with your leg?
- Rose: Nothing you can't fix, [breathily] Doctor Man!
- Elliot: I beg your pardon?
- Rose: I know I look square, but I'm like my father's tractor. I take a while to warm up, but once I get going I can turn your topsoil till the cows come home.
- Elliot: Rose, please!
- Rose: Wanna see some Polaroids of me in my tennis skirt?
- Blanche: Elliot made...Elliot made...
- Dorothy: What, what did Elliot make? A ship in a bottle? What?!
- Blanche: Elliot made a pass at me.
- Dorothy: He winked at you. He's a very big winker.
- Blanche: No, this was no wink. He put his big masculine arms, around my tiny little waist.
- Dorothy: I don't believe you.
- Blanche: What?
- Dorothy: I don't believe he put his big masculine arms around your alleged tiny little waist.
- Blanche: Why would I make up such a thing?
- Dorothy: Because you're jealous.
- Blanche: Jealous?!
- Dorothy: You are used to getting all the attention around here and now someone comes along and wants me and not you and it is eating your guts out.
- Blanche: Eating my guts out?!
- Dorothy: You know, you could never be a real friend to a woman, and you wanna know why?
- Blanche: Why?
- Dorothy: Because you're a slut!
- Blanche: A slut!
- Dorothy: Don't repeat everything I say.
- Blanche: I'm not repeating everything you say.
- Dorothy: You just did.
- Blanche: I did not, nothing you say is worth repeating.
- Dorothy: You, Blanche, are an immoral, backstabbing Jezebel, and I'm very glad this happened because now I know exactly what kind of person you really are.
- Blanche: Well to hell with you and your oversexed boyfriend Dorothy Zbornak. I'm glad that little Mei Ling's coming out party was ruined.
- Dorothy: Who?
- Blanche: And, I'm glad that Elliot is bonging every woman at your country club.
- Dorothy: What the hell are you talking about?
- Blanche: Ask the towel lady.
- Elliot: I take it we're not playing golf.
- Dorothy: We're not playing anything anymore.
- Blanche: Nobody ever believes me when I'm telling the truth. I guess it's the curse of being a devastatingly beautiful woman.
- Dorothy: Oh, please!
- Blanche: The only other woman who could possibly understand what I've been through is Priscilla Presley. And Susan Anton. ...No, not Susan Anton.
On Golden Girls [1.06]
- Dorothy: I do not snore.
- Sophia: Please, I'll bet less disgusting noises come out of Ernest Borgnine!
- [later]
- Dorothy: Ma, I do not snore.
- Sophia: Please, I had to turn you away from the windows so you wouldn't inhale the drapes!
- Rose: This is like "The Long Day's Journey Into Light".
- Dorothy: [correcting her] Night, Rose.
- Rose: [heading to her room] Night, Dorothy.
- Dorothy: How am I supposed to study for my French final with a fourteen-year-old in the house? It's hard enough with an eighty-year old.
- Sophia: Are you referring to me?
- Dorothy: Of course not, Ma. I'm referring to Cary Grant. He's living in the broom closet.
- Blanche: [after Sophia slaps David for mouthing off] Is that all you Italians know how to do, scream and hit?
- Sophia: No, we also know how to make love and sing opera!
The Competition [1.07]
- Blanche: Oh, we've practiced enough! Every morning before work, every evening after work... all I ever wanted was to look cute in my bowling outfit.
- Rose: I wonder why Italian men are so romantic.
- Dorothy: It’s the tight pants, Rose.
- Blanche: Well, what do you know? Sophia has a past!
- Sophia: That's right! But unlike yours, I didn't need penicillin to get through it.
- [Blanche is asleep at the table. Dorothy wants to practice]
- Dorothy: Blanche, let's go.
- [Blanche murmurs in her sleep]
- Dorothy: Come on, Blanche, let's go!
- [Blanche murmurs again. Dorothy speaks in a manly whisper]
- Dorothy: Blanche, wake up. My wife will be home any minute.
- [Blanche shoots up]
- Blanche: WHERE ARE MY SHOES?
- Rose: [smelling Sophia's spaghetti sauce] Sophia, that smells heavenly! Is it Chef Boyardee?
- Sophia: [holding up a kitchen knife] Stick it in my heart, Rose, it'll hurt less!
- Sophia: [tasting her sauce] Mmm... if this sauce was a person I'd get naked and make love to it.
- Sophia: [to Dorothy] I can't believe you're denying your own mother.
- Rose: Denying her what?
- Dorothy: Springsteen tickets Rose.
Break-In [1.08]
- Rose: The name Madonna doesn't really fit her.
- Sophia: "Slut" would be better!
- Rose: Sophia!
- Dorothy: Oh, please, please! She did things on that stage I never did with my husband!
- Sophia: [after Rose fires her gun and shatters Blanche's vase] I manage to live 80, 81 years. I survived pneumonia, two operations, a stroke. One night I'll belch and Stable Mabel here will blow my head off!
- Dorothy: [on getting robbed] It has nothing to do with energy, it has nothing to do with being single. It has to do with a lousy lock on a sliding door and massive unemployment. Now, I'm going into my room. Call me when the cops come.
- Rose: We're all employed, Dorothy, except your mother. I wouldn't call that massive.
- Dorothy: Good night, Rose. Go to sleep, sweetheart. Pray for brains.
- Rose: [The robbers] were probably looking for drugs.
- Dorothy: We have Maalox and estrogen. And how many junkies have gas and hot flashes?
- Blanche: Well, this is not the end, I can promise you that. Justice will be done here! I hate criminals. I just hate 'em! Someone's gonna pay for this heinous crime! We're gonna have a good, old-fashioned hangin'! That's right, a hangin'! Only first we'll have a whippin', and then we'll have a hangin'! Nobody takes my mama's jewels without swingin' for it! Nighty-night.
- Sophia: [playing Scrabble with Dorothy] I win!
- Dorothy: Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. There is no such word as that!
- Sophia: There certainly is.
- Dorothy: Fine. I'll look it up, and if it isn't in the dictionary, I win.
- Sophia: We don't have a dictionary.
- Dorothy: Yes we do.
- Sophia: Not anymore, the robbers took it.
- Dorothy: They stole our dictionary?
- Sophia: That's right. Too bad.
- Dorothy: Ma, "disdam" is not a word! You made it up.
- Sophia: It's a word!
- Dorothy: Fine. Use it in a sentence.
- Sophia: [pauses] You're no good at disdam game!
- [after the robbery]
- Blanche: Oh, I'm gonna check the kitchen.
- Rose: Well, wait! Don't leave me! What'll I do if they come back?
- Dorothy: Show them your slides of Hawaii.
- Rose: Oh, no, Blanche has been attacked!
- Blanche: Sort of.
- Rose: Oh, honey, what happened? You poor darling.
- Blanche: I went to the police station today to get an update on my case. I borrowed your pocket hair spray; I took it from your dressing table. You know what this humidity does to my hair.
- Rose: I know. Cotton candy.
- Blanche: Well, just as I entered the police station, I saw there was this cute officer there who had his eye on me, so I took out your hair spray and gave my hair a final spritz. Only, surprise, it wasn't hair spray. It was mace. You had mace. Your hair spray was mace! I maced myself right there in the police station! I almost died! I fell to the floor, blinded, writhing in pain. Couldn't move for 20 minutes!
- Rose: Well, what do you know? It works!
- Blanche: Works? They thought I was on angel dust! They wanted to arrest me! I'm lying there, dying, and they're harassing me! Murderers are free, rapists are free, but a poor widow on the floor, they try to lock up! Who'd I hurt? Me?!
- Blanche: Sophia, where're you going?
- Sophia: To my room.
- Rose: But you can't, it could be dangerous!
- Sophia: Please, I'm 80! Bathtubs are dangerous!
- [Blanche enters in from the kitchen with flour on her face and blouse]
- Blanche: [stunned] They got my jewels.
- Dorothy: But I see they didn't get your cocaine.
- Rose: [shocked] Blanche has cocaine?!
Blanche and the Younger Man [1.09]
- [Blanche is exercising in a crouched position as Dorothy watches]
- Dorothy: The only time I get in that position is when I give birth.
- Blanche: [about Dirk] This is strictly off the record, but Dirk's nearly five years younger than I am.
- Dorothy: In what, Blanche? Dog years?
- Blanche: He was looking for a mother, not a lover. It was humiliating.
- Rose: I think it's sweet.
- Blanche: You would, Betty Crocker.
- Alma: I'll buy you some of that bikini underwear.
- Sophia: Nah, it rides up on me.
Heart Attack [1.10]
- Dorothy: You know, Ma, you don't look good.
- Sophia: I'm short, and old. What are you expecting--Princess Di?
- Rose: I'm sure it isn't a heart attack. A heart attack's bigger. I've seen a heart attack. Charlie had a heart attack.
- Dorothy: And it wasn't like this?
- Rose: Oh, it was much worse.
- Dorothy: I think the paramedics would get here!
- Rose: Charlie made me dress him when he had his heart attack, before the paramedics got here.
- Dorothy: But he wasn't dressed?
- Rose: We were... making love.
- Dorothy: Oh, Rose, honey, you never told me. He died while you were making love?
- Rose: Well, he didn't die then, he had his heart attack then. And, he told me to dress him.
- Dorothy: And?
- Rose: And I dressed him. And then we had a fight. I grabbed a pair of white pants, and I was putting it on him, and Charlie said it was after Labor Day and he couldn't wear white!
- Dorothy: In the middle of a heart attack?
- Rose: Oh, Charlie was very stubborn. And very dapper.
- Dorothy: And, then what happened?
- Rose: ...And he...told me he loved me...and then it was over. And I put a pair of gray flannel pants on him. And a blue shirt...and a striped tie. And he was all dressed when the paramedics got there.
- Sophia: Ohhhh!
- Dorothy: What, ma? What?!
- Sophia: Pain.
- Dorothy: What kind of pain?
- Sophia: The kind that hurts!
- Rose: Is there anything else we can get you, Sophia? A little tea, perhaps?
- Sophia: I'm not in England, I'm having a heart attack!
- Sophia: Didn't Aunt Teressa have a heart attack?
- Dorothy: No, Aunt Teressa didn't have a heart.
- Sophia: Uncle Nunzio?
- Dorothy: Uncle Nunzio died to get away from Aunt Teressa.
- Sophia: AAAAAAAAAAH!!
- Dorothy: What, ma? What?!
- Sophia: "What???" You're sitting on top of me! I open my eyes, I see pores like that, I think I'm on the moon!
The Return of Dorothy's Ex (a.k.a.) Stan's Return [1.11]
- Dorothy: Please, please Stan. No hugging, no kissing. Let’s just do it and get it over with.
- Stan: Sounds like the last few years of our marriage.
- Dorothy: I wish it was that good.
- [after Stan leaves]
- Dorothy: Why did I ever marry that man?
- Sophia: Because he knocked you up!
- Dorothy: Why did I let that happen?
- Sophia: Because he got you drunk!
- Dorothy Why am I even discussing this with you?
- Sophia: Beats the hell out of me!
- Stan: [sobbing] Chrissy left me for a younger man!
- Dorothy: Younger than Chrissy? Where did she meet him, Camp Snoopy?
- Stan: I didn't want to say anything. What the hell, you deserve to gloat a little.
- Dorothy: I deserve to gloat a lot! But I can't. I know what the pain is like and I wouldn't wish it on... I don't know how to finish that sentence. I usually say, "Stan."
The Custody Battle [1.12]
- [about Sophia moving out]
- Rose: Who’s going to keep after us? Make us linguine and tell us stories about Sicily?
- Dorothy: I don’t know, Rose. Maybe Mary Poppins has an Italian cousin.
- Sophia: Oh Dorothy, can I make a little suggestion when you go for your makeover?
- Dorothy: Sure. What is it?
- Sophia: Don't expect a miracle.
- Sophia: When I thought I was moving, I was going to give each one of you a gift, but I want you to have them anyway. [hands a wrapped package to each of the girls]
- Blanche: Why Sophia, how sweet!
- Rose: Oh honey, you shouldn't have!
- Dorothy: [opening her package] Oh Ma, this is so lovely... and so familiar... this is mine. I thought the cleaner lost it.
- Sophia: I told you the cleaner lost it. I took it. I needed something to go with my black sweater.
- Rose: [examining the sweater in her package] This is my black sweater!
- Sophia: I know. It goes great with...
- Blanche: ...my pearls.
- Sophia: Well, enjoy and be healthy! [leaves]
A Little Romance [1.13]
- Dorothy: [in Rose's dream, about the wedding] You can't disappoint your guests.
- Rose: The guests? But I have to think about what's best for me!
- Dorothy: That's only in real life, Rose. In a dream, you do what's best for the guests.
- Sophia: My son married a welder. Too bad she didn't weld his zipper shut; they got ten kids they can't afford.
- Blanche: He analyzed my dream.
- Dorothy: What dream?
- Blanche: Oh, that recurring dream I have where I'm running naked through a train that keeps going through tunnel after tunnel while a sweaty bodybuilder chases me. He said he thinks it's sexual.
- Dorothy: He thinks ? For God's sake, Blanche, you smoke a cigarette after that dream.
- [in Rose's dream]
- Rose: Jeane, could you tell me what the future holds?
- Jeane Dixon: Sure. In January, Brooke Shields and Lady Di will star together in a Broadway musical comedy. Senator Edward Kennedy will once again-
- Rose: [interrupting] No no no, I mean what the future holds for me and Jonathan.
- Jeane Dixon: Rose, I'm not getting a clear picture on that. However, I do know that Jackie O. will tie the knot again-
- Dorothy: [cutting in] Oh, uh, thank you very much Ms. Dixon, [shows her out of Rose's room with Blanche] enjoy the wedding.
- Blanche: [just as Sophia is entering the room] So Rose, you're seeing a psychiatrist.
- Sophia: It's about time! The woman gives names to her gingerbread men!
- Dorothy: Ma, have a wonderful trip and call me the minute you get there. And please, Ma, try not to argue with Phil's wife.
- Sophia: We get along okay. Phil's wife has her good points. She's sweet, she's reliable, and when her father gets out of prison, she'll be a wealthy woman!
- Blanche: Dorothy, get the door. [walks towards Rose and Dr. Newman] Shrimp? [runs towards the kitchen]
- Dr. Newman: She's a little uptight. I'm gonna have fun with her tonight.
- Dorothy: Why don't we start dinner.
- Dr. Newman: Good, what are we having.
- Dorothy:[freezes for a couple of seconds] Short ribs.
[Sophia comes home early, and sees Dr. Newman, a little person. She just stares for a moment.]
- Dorothy: [Nervously] Uh, Ma, this is Dr. Johnathan Newman.
- Sophia: Hello. I hope that this doesn't sound rude... [Blanche and Dorothy are holding each other, looking like they are waiting for a disaster.] ...but I just came from a long trip, and I'm very tired. If you'll excuse me.
- Dr. Newman: Of course. Lovely to have met you.
- Sophia: Likewise. [Begins to walk away] Dorothy, can I see you for a minute? [Dorothy walks over. Sophia speaks in a hushed voice.] That man over there, is he a midget?
- Dorothy: Yes
- Sophia: Thank God, I thought I was having another stroke!
That Was No Lady [1.14]
- [Rose and Sophia are playing Trivial Pursuit]
- Rose: Who was known as the world's fastest human being?
- Sophia: Dominic Tanzi.
- Rose: It says Jesse Owens here.
- Sophia: Trust me, it was Dominic Tanzi. He got four women pregnant in one night. Two in New York, two in New Jersey.
- Dorothy: I am going out with a new man tonight and he is not Italian.
- Blanche: Oh, who is he, Dorothy?
- Dorothy: Oh, his name is Glen O'Brien.
- Rose: Where'd you meet him?
- Sophia: His name is O'Brien. Two to one she met him at a gin mill.
- Dorothy: Hi, Ma.
- Sophia: So you've started up with your married man again.
- Dorothy: How did you know?
- Sophia: I'm The Amazing Kreskin! I was listening outside the door.
- Dorothy: Oh Ma.
- Sophia: Oh, I can't put my ear to the door but you can put your....
- Dorothy: Ma!
In A Bed of Rose's [1.15]
- Rose: I can't tell her her husband died in my bed.
- Sophia: Tell her you went to turn on the sprinklers, and you found him on the lawn.
- Rose: That's not bad...
- Dorothy: Oh, Rose.
- Sophia: [to Rose] There's a man in your bed.
- Rose: ...Sophia, there's not!
- Blanche: [to Rose] Why, you devil, you!
- Dorothy: So that was what we heard! Rose!
- Blanche: Rose got lucky!
- Sophia: Not so lucky. The man in your bed is dead.
- Blanche: Who is he?
- Rose: His name is Al.
- Blanche: No, I mean what does he do?
- Rose: He imports diamonds.
- Blanche: Oh, damn, I hope he's not dead!
The Truth Will Out (a.k.a.) The Will [1.16]
- Blanche: Do you know what they just uncovered in the Duncan Osgood murder case? That the day before she was murdered, Tippi Paxton Osgood had changed her will, making Duncan the sole heir to the Paxton Napkin fortune! [Dorothy stares at her] That man is guilty!
- Dorothy: Oh come on, that's circumstantial evidence, I mean, it's not enough to convict him.
- Blanche: Well actually, the more damning evidence was the snapshot of Duncan dressed in scuba gear dragging Tippi's body down the stairs, wrapped in a carpet. [Dorothy stares at her again]
- Dorothy: Maybe it was from their wedding album.
- Blanche: My whole life is an open book.
- Sophia: Your whole life is an open blouse!
Nice and Easy [1.17]
- Blanche: Let me get a look at you, girl! Terrific little figure, gorgeous hair, perfect skin! Just like looking in the mirror.
- Sophia: Get some Windex!
- [after Rose tells a story that is supposed to relate to Blanche's problem about Lucy]
- Blanche: Rose, that isn't a teenage rebellion story. That was a changing religion story. That is a big 'who cares' story. That is a 'why the hell tell it in the first place' story!
- Ed: Rose, you're just incredible on Miami Vice trivia! I've never met anyone so smart!
- Dorothy: Ed, for a policeman, you've led a very sheltered life.
- [Dorothy sneaks up on the mouse in the kitchen, carrying a broom]
- Dorothy: Gotcha! You're trapped like a rat. Okay, so you're a mouse. Either way, you're out of here. [The mouse looks up at her] Oh, listen, you had your chance to- to leave and you didn't take it, and now I have to kill you. I mean, I'm probably doing you a favor. I mean, what kind of life are you having? What, you hang around sewers, you eat garbage. That's not living, honey. Believe me, you'll be better off once I put you out of your misery. [she goes to hit the mouse with the broom but stops] I have never killed another living thing in my entire life. All right, a bug, yes. I have killed bugs. But they don't count. [The mouse looks at her again] I don't know why, they just don't! I don't believe this. I'm talking to a mouse. The scary part is, I think you're listening.
- Lucy: I hope I wasn’t too much trouble.
- Rose: Don't be silly.
- Dorothy: We enjoyed having you.
- Sophia: So did half of Miami.
- Rose: It wasn't a rat! It was a cute little mouse.
- Dorothy: Rose, it doesn't wear white gloves and work at Disneyland! We're talking about a rodent!
- Rose: Sophia, do you think it's wrong for a girl to sleep with a man she's only known a few hours?
- Sophia: It's a sin.
- Rose: See! Sophia agrees with me.
- Sophia: All I said was it's a sin. Personally I'd go back to eating fish on Fridays if His Holiness gave that one the green light.
The Operation [1.18]
- [Dorothy has snuck home from the hospital because she is afraid to have surgery on her foot]
- Rose: Blanche, call the police! I just saw a big, ugly man with a limp walk past my bedroom window. He was wearing Dorothy's coat! [she sees Dorothy sitting on the bed] But then again it was dark and I tend to overdramatize.
- Blanche: Rose, what I didn't tell you was... when I was five, Mamma enrolled me in a tap-dancing class. For six months we practiced. One hour a day, two days a week. And I was good. I was cute, and I was good. Real good. Then finally, it came time for the night of the recital. And there were thirteen little girls up there with our little Shirley Temple curls, and our little starched white pinafores, and our little Mary Jane shoes. Then they opened the curtain and the music started and twelve little girls started to dance. And one little girl wet her pants. That girl in the puddle was me. [laughs] I have never told that to another living soul, Rose. You see, I thought I had overcome my fear, honey, but I just haven't and performing is a nightmare for me.
- Rose: [sternly] Hey, we've all got our sad stories. Look, Blanche, we've practiced for six weeks, we've paid for our costumes, we told everybody we'd be there, now you're not going to wimp out on me. You're going to go to that recital. And if you end up in a puddle tonight, well, you'd just better break in to Singin' in the Rain!
Second Motherhood [1.19]
- Rose: Dorothy, if the Egyptians built the pyramids, now we can move this toilet.
- Dorothy: Fine, get me 20,000 Hebrews and I'll have it out of here in no time.
- [Rose woke Dorothy with her banging in the bathroom.]
- Dorothy: Honey, do you know what's behind that wall that you're banging on?
- Rose: A lateral fusion pipe.
- Dorothy: And do you know what's on the other side of that lateral fusion pipe?
- Rose: No...
- Dorothy: MY HEAD!!!
- Rose: I'm sorry. It's just that I was so excited - I think I might have stumbled on something that could change the future of plumbing as we know it!
- Dorothy: Great, Rose. Call the Ty-D-Bol Man. He'll jump in his boat and spread the news.
- Sophia: Was that a plumber?
- Dorothy: No, Ma, it was a little girl selling Girl Scout toilets.
- [Blanche is talking about Richard's son Little Richard]
- Rose: Little Richard was in Bermuda?!
- Dorothy: Yes, Rose, he was burying Fats Domino in the sand.
Adult Education [1.20]
- Blanche: Oh girls, I am devastated, just devastated.
- Dorothy: What happened?
- Blanche: I asked my teacher for help like you all told me to. He said the only way I would get an A on his final is if I sleep with him.
- Rose: No!
- Blanche: Oh yes. I just don't know what to do!
- Sophia: Get it in writing!
- Rose: [quizzing Blanche] Whose theory states a young man becomes intimate with his mother to get revenge on his father?
- Blanche: Well, I don't know who said it, but my second cousin Arlen did it.
- Dorothy: [on why she was afraid to talk in class as a child] I had a slight speech impediment. I mean, it's different for kids these days, you know, they have Barbara Walters to look up to. But in those days, it really stood out, you know? Oh, I don't know, it must have taken three months before I could muster up the courage, you know, to talk to Mrs. Lenhoff, but it turned out to be the smartest thing I could have done, because not only did she help me, you know, with the speech problem, she was the one who inspired me to go into the teaching profession.
- Blanche: You know what, I think tomorrow after class, I will talk to Professor Cooper.
- Dorothy: Good girl!
- Rose: Whatever happened to your teacher, Mrs. Lenhoff?
- Dorothy: Oh gosh, the last I heard, she retired from teaching and opened a bed and breakfast someplace in Whode Island. [pauses] ... Rhode Island.
- Rose: I got tickets too. This is such a coincidence. I was driving down Biscayne Boulevard--
- Blanche: No, no, no, no! Please, I cannot bear that again. She was listening to her car radio, Big Band, not All Talk. There was a contest. Something about a little voice, a lucky number, a dime and a doorhandle. Then bim bam boom, she won the tickets!
- Dorothy: Take a lesson, Rose. That's how you tell a story.
- Rose: I'm a very patient person. I once waited two whole weeks for a sty to go away. Every night I'd close my eyes and I'd picture it getting smaller and smaller, and one morning I woke up and it was gone!
- [Sophia leans back against the refrigerator with her eyes closed]
- Dorothy: Ma, you okay?
- Sophia: I'm fine. I'm just trying to make Rose go away.
- Rose: Nils Feelander attempted to harass me repeatedly.
- Blanche: What do you mean, he attempted to?
- Rose: He worked at Lars Eriksson's Drugstore and Tackle Shop, he was the soda jerk. Now that I think about it, he was the town jerk. Every Saturday afternoon I'd go in and have a sundae. Well, Nils would arrange the ice cream scoops in an obscene way. I could never prove it, because by the time I would take it home to show my father, the evidence had...
- Dorothy, Blanche: Melted.
- Rose: Yeah. To this day, every time I pass an ice cream parlor or a tackle shop, I blush!
Flu Attack (a.k.a.) The Flu [1.21]
- Dorothy: Rose, I took your stupid cup and you know why? Because I feel lousy and being mean to you makes me feel better!
- Blanche: Dorothy, where's my heating pad?
- Dorothy: How should I know?
- [Blanche lifts a cord running under Dorothy's blanket]
- Blanche: Well, if this isn't it, I'd like to know what other electrical appliance you're using under that blanket.
- Blanche: You really think selling candy is going to qualify you for that prestigious award?
- Dorothy: Oh, excuse me. I didn't realize that slipping my tongue to half the firemen in the county was the more lofty social achievement!
- Blanche: [to Dorothy] You are undoubtedly the meanest sick person I've ever met! Not to mention the most unattractive.
- Blanche: Oh, you don't have to worry about me, honey, I never get sick. I take very good care of myself. I treat my body like a temple.
- Sophia: Yeah, open to everyone, day or night.
- Blanche: [on why she isn't wearing the same green silk dress she wore to last year's banquet] I decided too many people would recognize it. It is such a stunnin' shade of green.
- Sophia: The only thing they'll remember is the way you fall out of it!
- Blanche: Sophia!
- Sophia: If you asked people the color, half of them would say, "Flesh tones"!
- Blanche: Sophia!!
- [Dorothy blowing her nose]
- Blanche: Must you do that?!
- Rose: She can't help it Blanche, she has to blow her nose. Or is that a banana.
Job Hunting [1.22]
- Dorothy:[to Rose] Sure you're five years older, so am I, so is Blanche. [Blanche gives Dorothy a dirty look] Alright, so you have a few more wrinkles, so do I, so does Blanche. [Blanche gives a dirtier look] Alright, you're a little thicker around the middle, so is Blanche. [Blanche now looks mortified]
- Rose: And nobody wants me around.
- Blanche: Oh, honey, we want you around, we just can't afford to pay you!
- Dorothy: I defrosted some chicken. We'll eat in half an hour.
- Sophia: I can't eat chicken. It repeats on me.
- Dorothy: Look, Ma, you don't have to make excuses. If you don't want chicken, just say, "I don't want chicken."
- Sophia: I don't want chicken.
- Dorothy: Good.
- Sophia: It repeats on me.
- [Dorothy puts her head against the cupboard door in frustration]
- Blanche: [after being waken up by the ringing phone] I'm as jumpy as a virgin at a prison rodeo!
- Dorothy: Boy, that's pretty jumpy.
- Dorothy: Barry [Glick] was the man that I wanted to be the first.
- Rose: First where?
- Dorothy: On Mars, Rose! My first lover!
- Blanche: Well, so what happened?
- Dorothy: Stanley, that's what happened, Stanley. I went to a drive-in with Stanley. He said he was being shipped off to Korea, would probably die, and it would mean so much. That was my part of the war effort. It took three seconds. I wasn't sure that we had done anything, actually, until nine months later when the baby came. Then I figured out that we had. You know, that was my only proof.
- Rose: (superior) I waited until my wedding night.
- [Dorothy puts her nose in the air and mocks Rose's superior attitude.]
- Sophia: We're out of pepperoni.
- Dorothy: [fake gasps] Did you call Dan Rather?
- Blanche: You've probably haven't noticed it, but I've put on three pounds.
- Sophia: On each side.
- Dorothy: If I don't get at least six hours sleep, I look like Buddy Ebsen!
- Blanche: [thinks] Now that you mention it-
- Dorothy: Shut up, Blanche.
- Blanche: Well, I certainly didn't wait for my wedding night, honey. I couldn't - I had these urges. You know, in the South, we mature faster. I think it's the heat.
- Dorothy: I think it's the gin.
- Rose: [while reading her phone messages] Why, oh why can't grief take a holiday?
- Dorothy: Oh, it does Rose, it does. Eventually, it comes to Miami like everyone else.
- Rose: It's terrible, just terrible! I am so upset.
- Dorothy: Rose, Rose, honey, sit down sweetheart, tell us all about it. Ma, would you get Rose some water?
- Sophia: What is she going to do with water? Has water ever made you feel better when you were upset? Have you ever heard anyone say: 'Thank God, the water's here'? Call me when dinner is ready.
Blind Ambitions [1.23]
- Dorothy: Listen, Mom. We cannot afford a new TV. We're using the household money to repair the roof and repave the driveway.
- Sophia: Great. And what I am supposed to do while every other old lady on the block is watching Cosby?
- Dorothy: Well, you can sit in the new driveway and hope that an amusing black family drops by.
- Sophia: [about television] We don't exactly watch it either, with our crummy TV. We get two channels at once. For a while there I thought Benson was having an affair with Miss Ellie.
- Dorothy: [sorting through items for their garage sale] Will you look at this? I got this doll on my tenth birthday. Oh, I can't believe I kept her after all these years. Her hair's falling out, her clothes are all worn. [sniffing as Sophia enters the room] And she smells of mothballs.
- Sophia: Hey, I may not be Ann-Margret but I'm still your mother!
- Sophia: [seeing Blanche in her old retro-like outfit] Who invited Gidget to the garage sale?
Big Daddy [1.24]
- Cowboy #2: Howdy, ladies. My name's Rusty. I don't recollect seeing you two fillies 'round these parts. Mind if a lonesome cowboy puts his saddlebags 'round your campf...
- Dorothy: Give us a break, would you mac!
- Rose: Oh Sophia, I want to explain about last night. When I was a little girl one summer we had a terrible thunderstorm...
- Sophia: Excuse me Rose, have I given any indication at all that I care?
The Way We Met [1.25]
- Dorothy: At that moment, I was convinced I'd blown it. I was sure I'd made a bad first impression. But then I met Rose and I realized I could've shown up naked and playing a ukelele and still gotten the room.
- Rose: [after she wins the coin toss to decide who gets the room Blanche had promised to both her and Dorothy] Don't worry, Dorothy, I'll make it up to you. If there's ever a night when you can't sleep, I'll come into your room and sing "Kumbaya".
- Dorothy: Rose, I don't know what to say... yes, I do. Don't ever do that.
- Madame Zelda: Was a young woman in a nurse's uniform murdered in this house with a handsaw?
- Blanche: Heavens, no!
- Madame Zelda: Are you sure? I'm getting a strong vibration. I see a woman in a white uniform, writhing and screaming. And there's a man kneeling over her.
- Blanche: Well, if it was last Wednesday, that was me and the gentleman I'm currently dating. But that was a French maid's uniform.
- Blanche: It was at that moment I realized that my bosoms had the power to make music!
- Dorothy: Didn't Bette Midler win a special Grammy for that?
- Blanche: [about the movie Psycho] It's the reason I prefer not to shower alone.
- Dorothy: Sure, Blanche, and Goldilocks and the Three Bears is why you prefer not to sleep alone.
- Rose: Excuse me, you made a mistake. Those peaches aren't 59 cents a pound, they're 89 cents. Honesty is the best policy.
- Blanche: What are you trying to do, qualify for some scout badge?
- Rose: Well, I can't help it if I'm an honest person. Obviously something you don't know anything about.
- Blanche: What are you talking about?
- Rose: Well, you bought pantyhose in petite. Anybody could see, you couldn't get those past your knees!
- Blanche: If you don't keep your voice down, I'm going to hit you in the head with this loin of pork.
- Dorothy: [looks at loin of pork] Oh, Blanche, c'mon, 15 dollars and 99 cents?! Now this is too extravagant! I'm not going in on this, besides, I don't even like loin of pork.
- Blanche: Well fine, I'm not going in on this night stick.
- Dorothy: This is a pepperoni.
- Blanche: It's obnoxious.
- Rose: Oh, excuse me, you made a mistake, that Windex isn't on sale this week. The regular price is $1.99.
- Dorothy: Rose, why don't you just save it for the The Price is Right?!
- Rose: Excuse me for trying to be a good American.
- Blanche: Would you two please keep your voices down?! I have shopped and dated extensively throughout this market!
- Dorothy: That does it, that does it, I am shopping for myself.
- Rose: Fine, Blanche and I will do very nicely on our own.
- Blanche: Oh no, I'm not shopping with you, Mary Poppins.
- Rose: Fine!
- Blanche: Alright, who put the Raisin Bran in the refrigerator?
- Dorothy: I did, do you have a problem with that?
- Blanche: Yes I do, I have two problems with it. First, there isn't room enough for it and second, it does not go in the refrigerator, it goes in the cabinet.
- Dorothy: It does not go in the cabinet. It stays fresher in the refrigerator.
- Blanche: No, it does not stay fresher in the refrigerator; if it stayed fresher in the refrigerator there would be a sign on it saying "refrigerate."
- Rose: Actually, you're both wrong. It does not go in the cabinet and doesn't stay fresher in the refrigerator, it belongs in a glass canister. Not only is it visually appealing but you could see if they cheated you out of raisins. I thought everybody knew that.
- Dorothy: You know until I met you Rose, I didn't know that people actually talked back to their Rice Krispies.
- Store Worker: Those are very nice cantaloupes.
- Blanche: [thinking he was talking about her breasts]Why thank you.
- Blanche: I also happen to have a room for rent, and the name is Blanche Devereaux.
- Rose: Why would you name a room Blanche Devereaux?
- Madame Zelda: Mrs. Devereaux, you must leave this house at once. It is possessed by an evil spirit.
- Blanche: Actually, it's possessed by Miami Federal. And at 7%, you couldn't blast me out of here.
End of the Curse [2.01]
- Blanche: I never had PMS.
- Rose: Neither did I. But I had a BMW.
- Blanche: No one in my family has ever seen a psychiatrist... except of course, when they were institutionalized!
- [After an emotional Blanche runs into her bedroom, Dorothy and Rose run after her]
- Rose: She's in there!
- Dorothy: Really, Columbo?
- [The girls discuss the strangeness of psychiatrists]
- Sophia: Did you see him? Total fruitcake! We're talking serial murderer!
- Rose: Well, if somebody tries to murder cereal, he should see a psychiatrist. [laughs]
- Dorothy: Don't talk for the rest of the afternoon.
- Rose: Do the minks have to be killed [for fur]?
- Sophia: No, Rose, many women like wearing coats that urinate.
- Dorothy: [on menopause] What is the big deal, Blanche? It's nothing. Look at it this way: you don't get cramps once a month. You don't go on eating binges once a month. You don't get crazy once a month.
- Sophia: You just grow a beard.
- Dorothy: Don't listen to her, Blanche.
- Sophia: You grow a beard, Dorothy! Believe me, I woke up one morning, I looked like Arafat!
- Blanche: Oh, my GOD!
- Rose: I never grew a beard!
- Sophia: You never grew brains, either!
- Dorothy: It is not a fly, Rose.
- Rose: Spanish Fly is not a fly?
- Dorothy: No.
- Rose: What is it?
- Dorothy: It's a beetle.
- Rose: They call it a fly, but it's really a beetle?
- Dorothy: Yes.
- Rose: How do they know it's Spanish.
- Dorothy: Because it wears a little sombrero, Rose!
- Rose: Why don't they call it a beetle...Spanish Beetle?
- Dorothy: Because it's called Spanish Fly.
- Rose: Well what do they call....
- Dorothy: I don't care, Rose! Forget it, the minks can just sit there and we'll lose all of our money. Just don't ever mention Spanish Fly to me again!
- Rose: Wow, you're really sensitive about these Spanish Flies aren't you.
Ladies of the Evening [2.02]
- Sophia: [upon learning that she's not invited to see Burt Reynolds with the others] Fine, break an old lady's heart. If you need me I'll be out back with the rest of the garbage!
- Sophia: I get to go with you? I don't have to stay here and get gassed with the termites? Oh Dorothy, you're such a good daughter.
- Dorothy: She'll get over it. And even if she doesn't, who cares? We're going to meet Burt Reynolds!
- Rose: Sophia did you come to bail us out?
- Dorothy: No Rose, she's dropping off a manicotti with a file in it.
- Police Officer: Where are your roommates, Mrs. Petrillo?
- Sophia: They're not here.
- Dorothy: MA!!!!
- Sophia: Don't "Ma" me, you cheap floozy!
- Dorothy: Ma, you would do this to your own flesh and blood?!
- Sophia: You'll get over it, Dorothy. And if you don't, who cares?! I'm on my way to see Burt Reynolds!
- [Sophia walks out of the police station triumphantly clutching the tickets in her hand, while Rose, Blanche and Dorothy cry out to her from their cell]
- Burt Reynolds: [to Sophia] Which one's the slut?
- Dorothy, Rose, Blanche: I AM!!!
- Dorothy: "Other girls who will take their money." Do you know who they think we are?
- Rose: Waitresses!
- Dorothy: No Rose, hookers.
- Sophia: Jealousy is an ugly thing, Dorothy. And so are you, in anything backless.
- Rose: Downtown? He means jail!
- Dorothy: Oh really Rose, I thought he meant Neiman Marcus.
- Rose: I’ve never been in jail. I won’t make it. They always prey on the weak and innocent. The others will taunt me for trying to excel at my work in the laundry. I’ll fall in with a bad crowd, whose leader looks like Ethel Merman. And I’ll be forced to engineer a daring prison break using my laundry cart. From that time on, I won’t know a moment’s peace. I’ll scar my fingerprints with battery acid and I’ll run from town to town, taking jobs that people have who got bad grades in school. And then one day, they’ll find me, holed up in a little shack in the Louisiana bayou. And a sheriff named Bull will call my name out over a megaphone and when I make a run for it he’ll riddle my body with bullets! Oh please don’t let them take me downtown! I want to live! I want to live!
- Dorothy: You're not very good in a crisis are you Rose?
Take Him, He's Mine [2.03]
- Dorothy: [upset because Blanche has been going out with Stan] I thought you were my friend.
- Blanche: I am your friend!
- Dorothy: Then why are you sleeping with my husband?!
- [everyone in the grocery store turns and stares]
- Blanche: What are y'all lookin' at? Get on back to your LeSueur peas.
- Rose: We wanted to get the best corner before Johnny No-Thumbs shows up with his lunch wagon.
- Dorothy: Johnny No-Thumbs ?
- Rose: Well actually, he has several fingers missing from each hand. It's remarkable to watch him make a veal and pepper hero. [heads for the door]
- Dorothy: Ma, you are trying to muscle in on a guy named Johnny No-Thumbs? Are you crazy? He's probably connected with the mob!
- Sophia: Relax! If they were his friends, he'd still have his thumbs! [opens the front door]
- Rose: He's a very sweet man, although the first time he waved hello, Sophia misunderstood and gave him the finger back.
It's a Miserable Life [2.04]
- [Mr. Pfeiffer is trying to set a date for Mrs. Claxton's funeral service]
- Mr. Pfeiffer: How about Thursday night?
- Rose: Thursday night?
- Blanche: Are you crazy?
- Sophia: Not Thursday, hell no!
- Mr. Pfeiffer: Sorry, I forgot. The Cosby Show.
- Dorothy: We're interested in arranging a funeral.
- Mr. Pfeiffer: Isn't that lovely. The three of you planning ahead for Mother.
- Sophia: Hey, Puh-feiffer, how would you like a punch in your puh-face?
- Dorothy: Mr. Pfeiffer...
- Mr. Pfeiffer: Oh, no, it's Puh-feiffer. The "P" is not silent.
- Dorothy: ...anyway, Mr...Puh-feiffer...about the puh-funeral -- about the funeral...
- Frieda Claxton: [to Blanche] Oh yeah, I didn't recognize you with your clothes on.
- Blanche: I beg your pardon?
- Frieda Claxton: With my binoculars I have a terrific view of your bedroom window. I think some of the stuff you do is illegal. I'm looking into it.
- Blanche: Why you miserable old... [Dorothy grabs Blanche as she lunges for Mrs. Claxton]
- Dorothy: Now Blanche, let's try to get along. Mrs. Claxton, I don't know if you remember me, Dorothy Zbornak.
- Frieda Claxton: Sure, I know you. You're the one with nothing going on in your bedroom.
- Dorothy: Why you miserable old... [Blanche and Rose grab her as she lunges at Mrs. Claxton]
- Dorothy: Ma, where are you going?
- Sophia: To throw some holy water on her [Mrs. Claxton]. If she spits up pea soup and her head spins around, we're in big trouble!
- Woman: [delivering a heatfelt eulogy at Mrs. Claxton's funeral] Yes, Celia Rubinstein loved all mankind! She was...
- Dorothy: WHO?!
- Woman: Celia Rubenstein.
- Blanche: This funeral isn't for Celia Rubenstein, it's for Frieda Claxton!
- Mr. Pfeiffer: The Rubenstein funeral is down the hall.
- Woman: Oh! Oh, I'm terribly sorry for the intrusion! ...Frieda Claxton, wasn't she the lady who lived in that old house on Richmond Street?
- Blanche: Yes.
- [The woman gives the coffin a good kick and then leaves the chapel]
- Rose: Mrs. Claxton's soul is part of that tree now, Sophia.
- Sophia: That's really lovely... and it's touching how that Great Dane is paying its respects!
Isn't it Romantic [2.05]
- Dorothy: Ma, did Jean sleep with you last night?
- Sophia: Dorothy, there are a lot of things I want to try before I die but that's not one of them.
- Sophia: For starters, Jean is a lesbian.
- Dorothy: Ma.
- Blanche: What's funny about that?
- Sophia: You aren't surprised?
- Blanche: Of course not. I mean I've never known any personally, but isn't Danny Thomas one?
- Dorothy: Not Lebanese, Blanche. Lesbian.
- Sophia: Jean thinks she's in love with Rose.
- Blanche: Rose? Jean has the hots for Rose?!! I don't believe it, I do not believe it!
- Dorothy: I was pretty surprised myself.
- Blanche: Well, I'll bet! To think Jean would prefer Rose over me! That's ridiculous!
- Dorothy: Blanche, please!
- Blanche: Now you tell me the truth, if you had to pick between me and Rose, who would you pick? Who?
- Dorothy: Blanche, pull yourself together!
- Blanche: Oh... I'm sorry. Does Rose know?
- Dorothy: No.
- Blanche: Oh good, I don't think you ought to tell her. After all, she's not as worldly and sophisticated about these things as I am.
- Sophia: Absolutely. If she finds out Danny Thomas is a lesbian, it'll break her heart.
- [Sophia is watching a dirty movie]
- Dorothy: Hi, Ma. Whatcha watching?
- Sophia: I dunno, one of those Steven Spielberger movies.
- Dorothy: That's not a Steven Spielberg movi-...what are they doing?
- Sophia: You know what they're doing. We had that talk when you were 12.
- Dorothy: Ma, I can't believe this! You rented a dirty movie?
- Sophia: Dirty is in the eye of the beholder. Okay, that's a little dirty.
- Dorothy: I cannot watch any more of this.
- Rose: [coming in with Blanche] Hi.
- [Dorothy is pressing buttons on the remote]
- Sophia: Wrong button. That's fast forward.
- Rose: Oh, my.. what are they doing?
- Blanche: I know what they're doing, but I never saw anyone do it at that speed.
- Rose: It reminds me of my Uncle Ricky's rabbit farm!
- [Dorothy presses another button]
- Sophia: That's reverse, Dorothy.
- Blanche: I did that once. [the others turn to look at her] It was his birthday.
Big Daddy's Little Lady [2.06]
- [Big Daddy announces his engagement, and Blanche lets out a scream]
- Big Daddy: [about Blanche] Is she happy or sad?
- Rose: I'm not sure. I've never heard her make that sound before.
- Dorothy: I once heard her make that sound, and I assure you, she was happy.
- Dorothy: Let's take it from the top.
- Rose: From the top. Oh, that's sounds so musical!
- Dorothy: [pointing at the piano] Tickle the ivories, Rose.
- Rose: [tickling] Goochie-goochie-goochie-goo! [laughs]
- Dorothy: Rose, play or die! [Rose begins playing]
- Dorothy: [singing the lyrics] "Miami is nice/So I'll say it twice/Miami is nice/Miami is nice/Miami is..." W-, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute! You put in an extra "Miami is nice"!
- Rose: I had to. It hurts the music if you don't put it in.
- Dorothy: Yeah, but the lyrics don't make any sense! I mean, it goes, "Miami is nice/So I'll say it twice."
- Rose: Oh, I see your point. Well, what about this: "Miami is nice/So I'll say it thrice!"
- Dorothy: "Thrice"?! Who the hell says "thrice"?!
- Rose: It's a word!
- Dorothy: So is "interuterine". It does not belong in a song.
- Rose: [playing and singing] Miami, you're cuter than, an interuterine...
[Blanche meets her father's new fiancee who is a young woman]
- Dorothy: Margaret, uh, please sit down.
- Blanche: Maybe we oughta get her a booster seat.
- Dorothy: [to Margaret] Can I get you a drink?
- Blanche: How 'bout chocolate milk?
- Rose: [sitting down next to Margaret] So, Margaret, you're from Atlanta.
- Margaret: Well that's right.
- Blanche: That child over there is trying to steal my daddy away. She ain't better but a tick on a slow moving hound dog.
- Dorothy: Why is everyone around here talking like Burl Ives?
- Rose and Dorothy's "Miami, Miami (You've Got Style)" song:
- [Rose:] I have to say what I feel
- [Dorothy:] Miami has so much appeal
- [Rose:] A great place to get a seafood meal]
- [Both:] Miami...
- Miami, Miami, you've got style
- Blue skies, sunshine, white sand by the mile
- When you live in this town, each day is so fine
- The coldest of winters are warm and divine
- Miami, Miami, you've got style
- Blue skies, sunshine, white sand by the mile
- There's golf clubs and nightclubs all within reach
- Dance the samba till morning, then lie on the beach
- Each view is a postcard, each day a great time
- It's the cream of the crop, it's the top of the line
- [Blanche and Sophia join in:] Miami, Miami, you've got style
- Blue skies, sunshine, white sand by the mile
- Miami... you've got style!!!
Family Affair [2.07]
- Dorothy: Ma, what are you doing!?
- Sophia: [caught sneaking Bridget's meal] It's a little habit I picked up, I call it eating.
- Blanche: Maybe Michael needs a little exposure.
- Rose: Exposure to what?
- Dorothy: To plutonium, Rose.
- Michael: [caught in bed with Bridget] Grandma, this isn't what it looks like!
- Sophia: Please! I'm eighty years old. I may not remember what it feels like, but I sure as hell remember what it looks like!
- [Rose is in denial about Michael and Bridget's affair]
- Rose: You know how it is when you can't believe something.
- Dorothy: Yes, I can't believe Alan Thicke has a hit series, but that doesn't mean it isn't so.
- Dorothy: Rose, what do you call a woman who sleeps with a man on the first date.
- Blanche: A damn good sport.
Vacation [2.08]
- Rick: [about having to share a bathroom with the girls] How do you think we feel having to gargle next to Grandma Moses and the Mosettes?
- Rose: You, you, you rude person!
- Dorothy: Go easy on him Rose.
Joust Between Friends [2.09]
- Dorothy:[hearing a bark from the bedrooms] What was that?
- Blanche: Rose brought a dog home from the supermarket.
- Dorothy: What, couldn't she just get stew meat like she usually does?
- Rose: [about the dog] He followed me home.
- Dorothy: Oh come on, Rose, you drive to the market. How did he follow you home, in a taxi?!
- Rose: [pretending the dog is talking to her] Don't explain Rose, I used to live with a couple of bitches myself.
- Blanche:[to Dorothy] Eat dirt and die trash.
- Mr. Allen: [Dorothy introduces him to her mother] Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Petrillo. What brings you to our humble home?
- Sophia: Is he gay?
- Dorothy: Uh, come on, honey, I'll walk you to the car.
- Mr. Allen: Goodbye, Mrs. Petrillo. Sorry you didn't have an opportunity to experience our museum. I'd love for you to see my most prized acquisition - a magnificent pair of Gauguins.
- Sophia: What are you, a pervert?!! I was married for 45 years, I never even saw my husband's gauguins!
Love, Rose [2.10]
- Dorothy: Tell me Blanche, have any of your relatives appeared in Deliverance?
- Dorothy: We have created a poetry-writing citrus farmer who writes his letters with a lavender felt pen, and Rose thinks he's the most fascinating creature on earth. Now what does that tell you?
- Blanche: About Rose?
- Dorothy: About the whole bunch of us!
- Isaac: I was wondering where the party got to.
- Dorothy: Isaac, this is the ladies' room! This is where ladies go to the bathroom.
- Isaac: [looking at a large sofa that resembles a toilet] Whoa, how do you lift this baby up? I guess you have to stand back when you flush this thing.
'Twas the Nightmare Before Christmas [2.11]
- [The girls have offered to watch Albert's diner for a little while so he can have some time with his family]
- Albert: Can you cook?
- Sophia: Are you black?
- Dorothy: Are you going to be very much longer?
- Rose: Not now, Dorothy. This man is still very down about his financial situation. He was one of the principal backers of Howard the Duck.
- Dorothy: Merry Christmas, Rose. Merry Christmas, Blanche.
- Rose: Merry Christmas Dorothy, Merry Christmas Blanche.
- Blanche: Merry Christmas Rose--
- Sophia: What the hell is this, The Waltons?
- [Blanche was telling the girls of one particular Christmas Eve where she met 3 or more men that night]
- Dorothy: Blanche, I can get herpes listening to this story!
- [Rose is singing The First Noel and as the rest of the gang joins in....]
- Rose: Did I ever tell you about the time....one Christmas, we launched the production of A Christmas Carol with an all-chicken cast.
- Dorothy: God, look at the time!
- Blanche: Is it that late? I'm so tired.
- [Dorothy, Blanche, and Sophia exit.]
- [Blanche compares herself to one of "Charlie's Angels"]
- Blanche: I once was told I bore a striking resemblence to Miss Cheryl Ladd ... although my bosoms are perkier!
- Dorothy: Not even if you were hanging upside-down on a trapeze!
The Sisters [2.12]
- Dorothy: Won't you try to work it out? Do it for your favorite niece.
- Angela: What's your cousin Graziella got to do with this?
- Sophia: If you didn't come here to apologize, why don't you leave?
- Angela: Why should I apologize?
- Sophia: I'll tell you why, because you're nothing but a back-stabbing Judas in sensible shoes!
- Angela: Oh, yeah? Well, you know what you are? You're a two-lire tramp with cheap bridgework!
- Sophia: May you put your dentures in upside down and chew your head off!
- Angela: May your legs grow old and gnarled and withered like an olive branch... [looking at Sophia's legs] you should be so lucky.
- Sophia: May your moles grow hair thicker than Jerry Vale's!
- Angela: May your marinara sauce never cling to your pasta!
- Sophia: Oooooh [biting her own fist], that's it! Come back here and say that to my face!
The Stan Who Came to Dinner [2.13]
- Stan: Ask me anything.
- Sophia: Alright, when the hell are you moving out?
- Stan: You kill me.
- Sophia: I'd love to.
The Actor [2.14]
- Rose: Sophia, is that a Captain Jack's Seafood Shanty uniform you're wearing?
- Sophia: No, Rose, I'm off to discover the Straits of Magellan. Yo ho!
Before and After [2.15]
- Blanche: I am abhorred!
- Sophia: We know what you are Blanche. I'm glad to finally hear you admit it.
- Blanche: Sophia, I said "abhorred".
- Sophia: A whore, a slut, a tramp, it's all the same.
- Rose: [describing what she saw] And at the information desk was this huge train schedule. And next to every departure it said "Destination: Heaven." My first thought was, "Gee, what a great title for a movie!" My second thought was "Damn! I'm dead!"
And Then There Was One [2.16]
- Rose: [about why the baby, Emily, is crying] She probably misses her mother, needs to hear a feminine voice.
- Dorothy: [holding Emily] And what have I been doing, my Ben Gazzara impression?
- Sophia: You're absolutely right Dorothy. And I'll tell you something else. A mother sometimes needs her children even more.
- Dorothy: Thank you, Ma. That's very sweet.
- Sophia: Give me twenty dollars.
- Dorothy: No.
Bedtime Story [2.17]
- Rose: Oh darn, I forgot something.
- Blanche: Go in your pajamas!
- Rose: No, it's not that, I forgot to say my prayers.
- Dorothy: Oh Rose, God wouldn't mind if you skipped a night! He's very busy these days, most of his spare time is spent talking to Pat Robertson.
- Dorothy: [deep voice, pretending to be God] Rose, thanks for the lovely prayer. Now shut up and get into bed.
- Rose: Amen! [gets into bed]
- Blanche: Nice work, Dorothy.
- Dorothy: Wasn't me.
- Blanche: [starts to look worried] Sweet Jesus, am I in trouble! [begins to pray] Now I lay me down to sleep...
- Sophia: I slept with my two brothers until I was seventeen. I was engaged to one for a very short period of time, but that's a separate story.
- Rose: What are you doing?
- Blanche: I am contouring my eyebrows. I use Miss Christie Brinkley as a guide because we have exactly the same bone structure. I just hope she doesn't let herself go to pot after that baby comes. I don't want that big-eyed husband of hers coming after me.
- Rose: I never do very much with my eyebrows.
- Blanche: That's why from the nose up, you look like Wilfred Brimley.
- Rose: [scared, in Blanche's bed] Tell me a story. It always worked when I was a little girl.
- Blanche: I don't know any stories!
- Rose: MAKE ONE UP!
- Blanche: All right. Once upon a time there were three bears---
- Rose: Not that one!
- Blanche: Pigs.
- Rose: No!
- Blanche: Elephants. And they lived with a little girl named Rose.
- Rose: The elephants lived in the house?!!
- Blanche: They were elephant dolls. Every night when Rose would go to bed, she would take the three elephants with her because they made her feel so safe and secure.
- Rose: Elephant dolls?!
- Blanche: Right, elephant dolls. Until [raising voice] finally one night they got so sick and tired of Rose annoying them that they went off to sleep someplace else, and two big ol' escaped convicts snuck in through the window and MURDERED ROSE IN HER SLEEP!!!
- Rose: [terrified, jumps out of Blanche's bed and runs into her closet, slamming the door]
- Blanche: Rose! Oh Rose, grow up!
- Dorothy: Ma, don't be ridiculous, just turn up the heat.
- Sophia: It's already on 9. On 10, you can cook a Lean Cuisine!
- Blanche: [hearing a noise] Did you hear that?
- Sophia: Yeah, and while I'm in my own bed, I'll do what I want! [others back away]
- Stationmaster: Y'all may think this sounds kinda silly, but we actually printed "Our trains leave early" right on the town seal.
- Rose: You have a town seal? Can he play a song on those little horns?
- Stationmaster: No, but he can balance a ball on his nose if you throw him a catfish first!
- Blanche: This is like the Twilight Zone. Somehow we got on a train that ended up inside Rose's mind.
Forgive Me, Father [2.18]
- [Sophia giving Dorothy advice on whether or not to keep seeing a priest]
- Sophia: Make the wrong decision and you'll burn in hell forever. Sleep tight, Pussycat.
- Sophia: Eighty-one years I've eaten fish on Friday, even when the Pope told me I didn't have to. I go to Mass, I light candles, I say novenas, and for what? So it could all be flushed down the toilet because my daughter insists on going out with Father Happy Pants?
- [Dorothy is embarrassed to find out that her date is actually a priest.]
- Fr. Leahy: You look lovely tonight.
- Dorothy: I look like the mother of a Solid Gold dancer.
- Sophia: Rose, I found my lucky handkerchief.
- Rose: Where was it?
- Sophia: It was in my bra.
- Rose: What was it doing in your bra?
- Sophia: I was blowing my breast, Rose.
- [Blanche and Dorothy are role-playing to rehearse Dorothy's plan to invite Frank over for dinner, Blanche as Dorothy and Dorothy as Frank.]
- Blanche: Why Frank, you know, I've been thinkin', this is the third Saturday of our relationship and I don't even know what you like to eat. Why don't you come over for dinner this Saturday night and let me find out what [breathy and seductively] whets your appetite?
- Dorothy: And what are you serving for dessert, Blanche, penicillin?
- Blanche: [meeting Frank for the first time, is stunned that he is a priest] Good evening, Father. My, my, this must be an important cause. Don't you usually make the nuns ask for money? I'll get my purse.
- Frank: I- I'm Frank. I'm here to see Dorothy.
- Blanche: You're the hunk? I mean... forgive me, Father. That is, forgive my language, uh- not in your official capacity. I'm not even Catholic, I'm a Baptist and you can't forgive us Baptists. ... Sweet Jesus, why am I babblin'? ... I meant that in all due reverence. I never take the Lord's name in vain. Oh God, now I'm lyin' to a priest! Why don't you just come on in and sit down? I'm, I'm Blanche, I'm Dorothy's roommate. Would you get the door?
- Frank: Dorothy's told me a great deal about you.
- Blanche: [nervously]] Well, she seems to have left out one itty-bitty detail about you.
- Frank: That I'm a priest?
- Blanche: Uh-huh.
- Frank: She didn't know.
- Blanche: What'd she think, you were just a boring dresser?
- Frank: She's never seen me in cleric's clothing.
- Blanche: I didn't know you priests could take your clothes off.
- Frank: We do a lot of things real people do.
- Blanche: Except for one very important thing. Boy, is that gonna put a hitch in Dorothy's plans.
Long Days Journey into Marinara [2.19]
- Blanche: I will not have that filthy beast in my house! It belongs in a barnyard!
- Rose: This is not a farm chicken. Count Bessie is a showbiz chicken! Wait'll you see this! [exits]
- Blanche: [to Dorothy] A showbiz chicken. What she do, play the piano?
- Rose: [re-enters with a mini-piano] She plays the piano!
- Dorothy: [sees Angela at the door] Aunt Angela!
- Angela: No, Sophia Loren. I stopped using Oil of Olay.
- Sophia: [on Tony] He's the best catch in town! He's got his own hair, his own teeth, and a totally unrestricted driver's license. Hey, at my age, that's like dating Tom Cruise!
- Blanche: Sophia says she has no appetite since she was stabbed in the back.
- Rose: Oh my God, who stabbed Sophia?!
- Dorothy: The chef at Benihana, Rose.
- Dorothy: [to Sophia and Angela] Gosh, you two made such a fantastic meal, I can't imagine what you came up with for dessert.
- Rose: I made dessert!
- Blanche: Damn.
- Rose: What'd you say, Blanche?
- Blanche: "Yum," I said "yum."
- Dorothy: Rose, is this another one of those Scandinavian Viking concoctions?
- Rose: Yes! It's called Geneuckenfluegen Cake. It's an ancient recipe, but I Americanized it.
- Dorothy: So one might say you brought "Geneuckenfluegen" into the '80s?
- Rose: Yes, but I'm not one to blow my own greteugenfruegen.
- Sophia: I can't even reach mine!
- Sophia: Everything I have, you try to steal. May the bags under your eyes grow so large your head falls in 'em!
- Angela: May your shampoo get mixed up with your Preparation H and shrink your head to the size of a mushroom!!
- Blanche: Rose, honey, you've got to stop torturing yourself like this! Now Count Bessie is gone!
- Rose: I know. It's just such a tragedy. Who cooks a musician at the height of her career?
- Blanche: Rose, you've got to put this in perspective. Count Bessie was a chicken. It's not as if Angela had fried up Doc Severinsen!
- Dorothy: [enters the kitchen] How are you doing, Rose?
- Blanche: Not very good, Dorothy.
- Dorothy: Oh, honey, now listen, you may not think so now, but in a few days, you'll feel better.
- Rose: No, I won't. Because Mrs. Butell will be back by then. What am I supposed to say? "Welcome home! How was your trip? Oh, by the way..." [holds up Tupperware and starts to cry] "...here's Count Bessie!"
Whose Face is This, Anyway? [2.20]
- [the girls are watching Rose's video]
- Rose: That's Sophia walking into the kitchen.
- Sophia: I didn't know Fess Parker was in this picture.
- Dorothy: Ma, what're you doing?
- Sophia: I'm mugging for the camera.
- Dorothy: You're mugging me! You're stealing out of my pocket!
- Sophia: I'm checking to make sure you have the exact change for the bus... now I'm stealing.
- Blanche: Oh my god is that me.
- Rose: Oh, that's my fault Blanche, I was out of focus.
- Sophia: You're always out of focus.
- Blanche: No, I look old, I look ancient, I look all wrinkled up and shriveled like a prune!
- Sophia: It could be worse, she could look like Fess Parker.
- Sophia: Dorothy, this could be my big break! With the exposure I get from Rose's movie, I could hawk my recipes all over the country!
- Dorothy: Oh, come on ma, that's ridiculous.
- Sophia: Ahh no, if you wanna move your product, you gotta have exposure. All the great Italian chefs had it! Mama Celeste, Chef Boyardee, and Chef Valducci.
- Rose: I don't remember Chef Valducci.
- Sophia: Oh yeah, he didn't have television exposure, that was indecent exposure. He should have stuffed the canneloni in the traditional manner.
- Dorothy: Will you put that thing down. What do you think you're doing?
- Rose: Well, I'm making a video for my class at the junior college.
- Dorothy: Oh, really? Gee it sounds like fun.
- Rose: Oh, I'm glad you think so, cause I want you to be one of the stars!
- Dorothy:Oh, Rose, I don't think so! You know how uncomfortable I am in front of a camera. Besides I always come out looking like Fess Parker.
- Rose: Don't worry. This is a documentary' it's okay if you're not good looking.
- Rose: Oh, Blanche, how do you feel about performing in front of a video camera?
- Blanche: I think it's okay as long as you've already had at least three dates.
- Dorothy: I never belonged to a sorority. I was blackballed.
- Rose: Oh, I think that is so cruel. The Alpha Yams didn't have blackballing. We believed that any girl who wanted to help her community and foster a feeling of sisterhood should be allowed to join.
- Dorothy: That's very commendable.
- Rose: As long as she could castrate a sheep.
- Sophia: There was a service organization in Sicily with similar membership requirements, except that instead of a sheep, it usually involved a mayor from a neighboring town.
- Dorothy: Ma...
- Sophia: Hey, some of Italy's finest sopranos were former mayors.
Dorothy's Prized Pupil [2.21]
- Dorothy: [watching a violent movie in a theater with Mario] Woah! Oh, I'm sorry, Mario. I just, I never realized that ripping off a nose would leave that big a hole!
- Rose: Where are you going?
- Sophia: The President is in town, so a bunch of us are going to his hotel to see his wife. I just loved her in Father Knows Best.
- Rose: Sophia, you're a little confused, honey. That was Jane Wyatt, the President was married to Jane Wyman.
- Sophia: That old crow from Falcon Crest ?
- Rose: Well, it doesn't matter, they're not married anymore. Now he's married to Nancy Davis.
- Sophia: From All About Eve?
- Rose: That's Bette Davis.
- Sophia: The one who beat her kids with wire hangers?
- Rose: No, that was Joan Crawford.
- Sophia: The fat cop from Highway Patrol?
- Rose: [thinks] That was Broderick Crawford.
- Sophia: The President was married to Broderick Crawford? And Mondale still lost, what an idiot!
- Blanche: Rose, I'm sorry, I just don't feel comfortable having you work for me.
- Sophia: I do. You wanna be my servant, Rose?
- Rose: Blanche, I'm not talking about big things. I'm talking about little things, like doing your laundry.
- Sophia: My laundry's more fun, Rose.
- Rose: It's the only way I'll feel better about losing your earrings.
- Sophia: Ever see panties from the '20's, Rose? They got pockets!
- [the girls are looking in the theater]
- Dorothy: I can't see a thing.
- Rose: What kind of a movie is this Dorothy?
- Patron: [yelling] Rip his throat out!
- Dorothy: It's a musical Rose.
Diamond in the Rough [2.22]
- Dorothy: Ma, you can't sleep either?
- Sophia: No, I'm sleeping so good I thought I'd come try it in the sink.
- Rose: I did learn that Baked Alaska can actually be baked locally.
- Dorothy: Rose, I have an even bigger scoop for you. Mars Bars are made right here on earth.
- Blanche: Oh, girls, this time I have really done it! Thanks to me, the hospital charity banquet is going to be held at the Versailles Room of the Bedford Hotel!
- Dorothy: Blanche, the committee is on a budget!
- Blanche: I know it, but don't worry, I worked out a special deal!
- Rose: But we can't afford that room!
- Blanche: I know it, but don't worry, I worked out a special deal! I told the manager, if he let us have that room, I would persuade my sister to sing for free in his piano bar!
- Rose: You mean your sister Virginia?
- Blanche: No, I mean my sister, Miss Susan Anton!
- Dorothy: Blanche, how could you tell such a lie?
- Blanche: He didn't believe me for a minute! He told me I was much too attractive to be related to her. But he gave us the room anyhow because he said he liked my moxie!
- Sophia: And I bet you liked showing it to him!
- Rose: Blanche, sometimes you act just like a woman I knew in St. Olaf!
- Sophia: Please, no one say "what woman?"
Son-in-Law Dearest [2.23]
- Blanche: Rose, let's go watch I Love Lucy in the kitchen.
- Rose: But that set is black and white!
- [Blanche and Rose are on the couch watching an I Love Lucy marathon. Ending music plays.]
- Rose: You know, I'm still a little confused. Who exactly is Ricky?
- Blanche: Lucy's husband.
- Rose: I thought Desi was Lucy's husband.
- Blanche: Not on the show.
- Rose: Desi wasn't on the show?
- Blanche: Desi played Ricky!
- Rose: Who did Lucy play?
- Blanche: Lucy.
- Rose: I know, but who did she play?
- Blanche: Lucy!
- Rose: Right, but who did she play?
- Blanche: Lucy played Lucy!
- Rose: Well, then why didn't Desi play Desi?
- Blanche: He wasn't tall enough.
- Dorothy: And do not call me Mother Dorothy. I hate it when you call me Mother Dorothy! I feel like I should be handing out rice on the streets of Calcutta!
- Dorothy: [referring to her daughter and son-in-law in the kitchen] How long have they been in there?
- Rose: Since Lucy went to Scotland!
- Dorothy: That would make it over thirty years, Rose.
To Catch a Neighbor [2.24]
- Al Mullins: I'd like to ask you about your next-door neighbors, the McDowells.
- Bobby Hopkins: They're not who you think they are.
- Rose: You mean we invited the wrong people to dinner?
- Dorothy: Oh, I don't know. Two policemen living in our house?
- Blanche: So what's that to be afraid of, Dorothy? Once you strip away the gruff exterior, the badge, the gun, the uniform-
- Dorothy: You've got a naked policeman.
- Blanche: Exactly.
- Rose: I'll do it, I'll be the plant.
- Sophia: You are a plant.
- Dorothy: Well, if anybody's going to do it, it should be me.
- Al Mullins: Why you?
- Dorothy: Because I am the best under pressure.
- Sophia: And she bears a striking resemblance to Barnaby Jones.
- Blanche: I would do it [go undercover], but I'm afraid I might be too conspicuous. It's a dinner party and I plan to show cleavage!
- Rose: [listening to a planted bug] They keep talking about the noodlehead in the red dress. Could that be code?
- Dorothy: Only to the noodlehead in the red dress!
- Al Mullins: We'll use the bathroom as a lookout and the kitchen as a base.
- Sophia: Fine. We'll just cook in the fireplace and pee in the broom closet.
- Rose: [about Martha, a new neighbor] I followed her through the store and wrote down everything she bought.
- Dorothy: Rose, they steal jewels, not Gino's Pizza Rolls!
- Dorothy: [about Sophia] She's really a very sweet woman. She just doesn't like to show it.
- Al Mullins: Is that a family trait?
A Piece of Cake [2.25]
- Rose: You're the one who always complains that her birthday parties are dull and boring. When I saw Mr. Ha Ha's advertised on television, it looked like fun.
- Dorothy: For a five year old, Rose. Or someone who thinks like one!
- Mr. Ha Ha: Well, it says here on my Ha Ha birthday list that Bobby is seven, Jeannie is nine, and Dorothy is...
- Dorothy: I'll punch your heart out, Ha Ha!
- Mr. Ha Ha: ...Dorothy is the oldest!
- Mr. Ha Ha: Come on, kids. Make a wish and blow out the candles. [the kids and Dorothy blow out the candles] I hope everybody gets what they wished for.
- Dorothy: Do you really, Mr. Ha Ha? [holds up the cake]
- Mr. Ha Ha: Dorothy, if I were you, I would put the cake down. You see, Mr. Music's brother is Mr. Lawyer.
- Dorothy: Did you finish the decorations, Rose?
- Rose: No, not yet. I, I kinda got sidetracked. [reveals a mouse-like balloon sculpture] Look. [laughs]
- Dorothy: This is what you've been doing for the past forty-five minutes?
- Rose: Uh-huh. Isn't he cute? I call him Scotty. [Dorothy pops the sculpture]
- Dorothy: Now you can call him garbage.
- Dorothy: We are throwing a surprise birthday party for Blanche. I want you to go out to the lanai and mingle with the other guests.
- Sophia: Check! ...What's a lanai?
- Dorothy: The porch!
- Sophia: Excuse me, Krystle Carrington!
Old Friends [3.01]
- Blanche: Girls, guess what I found. [takes a teddy bear from behind her back] Fernando!
- Rose: That's not Fernando.
- Blanche: Well what do you mean that's not Fernando? How could you tell?
- Rose: All you have to do is look in his eyes.
- Dorothy: Or at the price tag stuck to his back.
- Sophia: I'm making a scarf for a friend I don't have anymore.
- Rose: I know exactly how you feel. [holds up a pair of teddy bear-sized overalls] I made these for Fernando.
- Daisy: [holding a water pistol to Fernando the teddy bear's head] See this water pistol? It's loaded with red ink!
- [Rose walks in]
- Blanche: Oh Rose, don't move, honey! She's got the teddy bear and a water pistol!
- Blanche: Rose, see, honey, Fernando doesn't exactly belong to you anymore. Well I kinda gave him to Daisy by mistake. So, you understand now-just a silly misunderstanding! See? [everyone except Rose is laughing nervously]
- Rose: No. Get him back. I want my teddy!
- Blanche: But honey, she's a child! You can't expect a child to give back a toy! Now, you do understand, don't you?
- Rose: Just cut the crap and get back the damn bear!
- Sophia: [referring to the bench] Someone sitting there?
- Alvin: Cataracts or glaucoma?
- Blanche: She's not a sweet kid anymore. She is holding Fernando for ransom!
- Dorothy: Come on....
- Blanche: Dorothy, she sent me one of his ears!!!
- Blanche: So that's when this saleman from men's sportswear walks clear across the store into ladies' petite and says, "Oh excuse me, miss, but I noticed you've been having a hard time deciding between the turquoise strapless and the flaming red backless. Well, personally I'd like to see you in the backless." And I said, "When?" And he said, "How about Saturday night?" And I said, "How about in your dreams, sleazo!" Can you believe the nerve of that guy?
- Rose: What were you doing in ladies petite?
- Sophia: [referring to who's buying her breakfast] It's Alvin.
- Rose: Alvin from the boardwalk?
- Sophia: No Rose, Alvin from The Chipmunks.
- (Daisy comes over holding Fernando)
- Daisy: Hello.
- Dorothy: What do you want?
- Daisy: Well...I decided that it was wrong to ask for all those gifts.
- Blanche: Oh, see, Dorothy? I knew that she was a sensible kid! She just needed-
- Daisy: I've decided that cash is better. That way I can buy exactly what I want.
- Blanche: ...I'll get my purse.
- Rose: No, Blanche, I'm not going to let you do that. I've thought long and hard about this. Fernando and I had some wonderful memories together, but if it's time for him to move on, well...I guess I have to accept that.
- (She walks Daisy over to the door, and opens it for her)
- Rose: I guess we all learned something here today. Sometimes, life just isn't fair, kid.
- (She grabs Fernando and hurls Daisy out of the front door, slamming it behind her)
- (Sophia sits on Alvin's bench at the boardwalk at night, alone. Dorothy comes up behind her.)
- Sophia: He's not coming back, is he?
- Dorothy: No, Ma. His daughter took him to a clinic in New York.
- Sophia: You think he'll remember me?
- Dorothy: I don't know, Ma.
- Sophia: I'll remember him.
- (They get up and start to walk away)
- Sophia: It figures. I just finished the scarf today.
- Dorothy: That's nice, Ma! Next time we're in New York, you can stop by and bring it to him.
- Sophia: No, I think I'll mail it. That way, I can always think of him as being here.
- (A man comes along behind them, takes out a pipe, and sits down on Alvin's bench. Sophia turns and sees him.)
- Sophia: Hey! Someone's sitting there!
- (The man gets up and hurries away. Dorothy and Sophia slowly walk as the camera pans up on the empty bench.)
One For the Money [3.02]
- [Dorothy and Blanche enter the kitchen. Dorothy is holding a pizza box.]
- Dorothy: Hi, Rose.
- Blanche: We brought dinner.
- Rose: What'd you get?
- Dorothy: [gestures with the pizza box] A bucket of chicken. I hope you like it extra flat and crispy.
- [the doorbell rings]
- Blanche: Who on earth could that be at three o'clock in the morning?
- Dorothy: Maybe it's a Jehovah's Witness with a caffeine problem?
- Sophia: [in a flashback] Where are you goin'?
- Sal: To get some air.
- Sophia: We got air in the house.
- Sal: I like beer with my air.
- Blanche: I think I have a little more endurance than you.
- Dorothy: Blanche, we are not dancing on our backs.
- Rose: Girls, wait a minute! We're talking about the sacred institution of marriage here! Are you willing to sacrifice the happiness of these two kids for the almighty dollar?
- Blanche, Dorothy, Sophia: Yes!
- Rose: I just wanted to be sure we were in agreement.
- Dorothy: [handing Priscilla a crystal goblet after Priscilla announces she and Ramón are eloping] Listen, we were going to give you your wedding gift tomorrow, but since we won't see you, why don't you take it home with you tonight?
- Priscilla: Oh, thank you! [she quickly leaves]
- Blanche: Good night. [To Dorothy] Dorothy, are you crazy?! We're going to lose a fortune on this wedding!
- Rose: And you let her march out that door with your best piece of crystal!
- Dorothy: [into the telephone] Hello, police? Yes, I'd like to report a robbery.
- Rose: [arriving at the dance tournament and seeing Blanche and Dorothy there] Hi, girls!
- Dorothy: Et tu, Judas?
- Rose: No, it's me, Rose. I'm just wearing my hair a little differently.
- Rose: Well, let me give you a little friendly advice - you're wasting your time, because that $1,000 prize is going to be mine. When I was younger I was known as the Dancing Fool.
- Dorothy: How old were you when they dropped the "Dancing" part? [she and Blanche crack up]
- Rose: [to her dance partner] You know, this reminds me of the big dance back in St. Olaf to kick off Pretzel Week. My Uncle Gunther, after the Great Beernut Shortage of '29---
- Dorothy: Foul! Foul! Send a judge over here! [pointing at Rose] This woman is trying to put us to sleep!
Bringing Up Baby [3.03]
- Rose: [to Baby] There you are; you get into the kitchen and eat your slop before I spank that little pig fanny!
- Sophia: All right, I'm going, I'm going... oh sorry. That's the way they used to call us for dinner in the home.
- Blanche: Dorothy, I cannot let you do this.
- Dorothy: Blanche, get out of my way.
- Blanche: I want that car, Dorothy. I will give you anything.
- Dorothy: Blanche, we have to tell Rose the truth.
- Blanche: I'll give you one of my sons. I have given this a lot of thought, Dorothy. I have had four sons, I have never had a Mercedes. What do you say? Which one do you want? Biff, Doug, Skippy-- no, don't take Skippy. He's got asthma.
- Dorothy: Blanche, this has gone far enough.
- Rose: [about Baby] In a lot of ways, he reminds me of Jimmy Dean.
- Dorothy: The actor or the sausage?
- Sophia: Twenty-five grand in 10 seconds? Now I know how Johnny Carson feels!
- Sophia: [describing what happened after she broke her glasses] It took me six hours to find my way home.
- Dorothy: Ma, if you couldn't see, why didn't you call me to come get you?
- Sophia: I tried to, but every time I put in a dime and dialed, a condom popped out. I've got 5, here you go, Dorothy. A lifetime's supply.
The Housekeeper [3.04]
- Marguerite: Alright, I won't go on with this charade any longer... there is something else -- I'm black. If that's a problem for you, I'm white. Of course that will cost you extra.
- Dorothy: Oh, Marguerite, I could kiss you!
- Marguerite: And I don't go for that freaky stuff.
- Rose: [while Blanche is sitting next to them] Neither do Dorothy and I.
- Blanche: Girls, we can't fire her now. She's making me an aphrodisiac.
- Dorothy: Use vodka and black underwear like everyone else!
- Dorothy: I mean, when you look at it, has anything that out of the ordinary really happened?
- [suddenly a man in a crow costume parachutes down onto the lanai.]
- Man: This isn't the Orange Bowl, is it?
- Blanche: Well then everything was just a misunderstanding, and Norman really did dump me for a fat woman!
- Sophia: No kidding, fatter than you?
- Sophia: [to Marguerite] So what's all this about you putting a curse on my daughter?
- Dorothy: [doomed] We're all gonna be turned into kumquats.
Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself [3.05]
- Sophia: [about Dorothy's joke] Just because you have a chin doesn't mean you're Jay Leno.
- Blanche: What if you were giving a eulogy for me, Dorothy? What would you say?
- Dorothy: Well... I think I'd say that you were a kind, generous and loving person, and one of the best friends I've ever had.
- Blanche: Nothing about my looks?
- Dorothy: Okay, I'd say you were one of the prettiest friends I've ever had.
- Blanche: Only "one of"?
- Dorothy: The, Blanche! The prettiest. ... What would you say about me?
- Blanche: Dorothy...
- Dorothy: I told you, you can tell me.
- Blanche: Well, I think I'd say that... I always felt safe having you in the house. And I'd say that I always enjoyed talking to you when I came home from one of my numerous dates. And I'd say that I always looked up to you, like an older sister.
- Dorothy: Thank you, Blanche. Oh, and I forgot one thing: I would also say you're fat.
- Blanche: Night after night I had this Awful dream that I was trapped in an enclosed space Full of men!
- Dorothy: Now what could that mean? *short pause* Let's give this a second thought...
- Blanche: Damn! I don't have one thing in black that isn't see-through.
- Dorothy: Girls, I have some bad news. I am not going to be able to go with you [to the funeral].
- Rose: Why not?
- Dorothy: It's Ma. She's sick. I'm going to have to take her to the hospital.
- Blanche: Oh, Doro-... wait a minute! She - she left for that cooking contest about ten minutes ago!
- Dorothy: She called. She had a bad cannoli when she got there. Right now she is doubled over with cramps, crying out with pain and... [Sophia enters the house, looking perfectly healthy]... making the most spectacular comeback since Dennis Hopper!
- Rose: Are you all right, Sophia?
- Sophia: Of course I'm all right. It's just that halfway to the contest, I realized I forgot the wine.
- Rose: For your mussels marinara?
- Sophia: No, for me. I always drink wine during cooking contests and My Sister Sam.
- Rose: Dorothy, Sophia's not sick! She didn't eat a bad cannoli! So whoever called and said that was just making the whole thing up.
- Dorothy: Rose, do me a favor and fasten your seatbelt... over your mouth!
- Dorothy: Rose, I take it that no member of your family was ever a returning champion on Jeopardy!.
Letter to Gorbachev [3.06]
- Rose: I'm concerned about nuclear war!
- Dorothy: And just yesterday, her biggest concern was whether Bubbles the Chimp was traveling with Michael Jackson against his will.
- Sophia: [Singing to the tune of "Thanks for the Memory"] "Thanks for the Medicare / For Blue Cross and Blue Shield / For a hip that finally healed / Remember, on prescriptions, generic is a steal / We thank you so much!" Okay, what did you think? Now don't hold back, I can take the criticism.
- Blanche: Depressing.
- Dorothy: Awful.
- Rose: Stinky.
- Sophia: [Unplugging her boombox and storming out] Go to hell, all of ya!
- Blanche: Dorothy! I've just been speaking to that good looking reporter over there who just got back from Russia, and he told me some very interesting things. It snows there in the summertime, and they don't have many attractive women – do you realize what that means? When we go to Russia I will have my pick of any man in the country and you can make a snowman in June!
Strange Bedfellows [3.07]
- Blanche: [about the article in the paper about her supposed affair with Gil Kessler] You girls don't believe this. Well, I mean, I'm not denying that's me in the photograph but I am denying that anything happened. I just dropped off his folder.
- Dorothy: Then why does it say here that you were in his house for two hours?
- Blanche: We were just talking.
- Rose: Then why does it say the explosion was so great it shattered windows in the building next door?
- Dorothy: Rose, that's an article about an earthquake in Guatemala!
- Blanche: My backside is spread all across the front page! How could they do that?
- Sophia: They probably used a wide-angle lens.
- Dorothy: Ma, ma, you promised you'd stay in your room 'til the meeting was over.
- Sophia: Who am I, ALF?
- Sophia: Look at this picture of Kessler, Dorothy. There's a secret behind those eyes. Trust my hunch on this one, I'm never wrong.
- Dorothy: Oh, come on. Ma, remember your hunch about your nephew Angelo? You said one day he'd be pope!
- Sophia: Dorothy, you gotta pay attention! I said one day he'd sell dope! What do you think he went to Attica for? The volleyball program?
- Blanche: Dorothy, quick, turn on the television. Gil's press conference is about to start.
- Rose: Gosh, I'm nervous. I hope they're not too hard on him.
- Dorothy: Well, I wouldn't be too sure of that. Look at all of those reporters.
- Blanche: Yeah! There's Charlie Thompson, and Fred Leone, and Mike Devlin!
- [All of the girls give Blanche a funny look]
- Blanche: I had lunch at the Press Club once.
- Rose: Only once? Gosh, it took me two years to learn everybody's name on Eight is Enough!
- Blanche: [answers the telephone]) Hello. Yes, this is Blanche Devereaux. Yes, that Blanche Devereaux, and no, I did not! Absolutely not! I will tell it to a judge! I will yell it from the highest mountaintops! I will swear to it on a stack of Bibles! [hangs up telephone] Now did that sound like a liar?
- Dorothy: No. It sounded like Jim and Tammy Faye on Nightline!
- Rose: I'm still confused about the operation that Gil Kessler had. Is the man asleep during it?
- Dorothy: I think so.
- Rose: And what about the parts they put on? Do they test them first?
- Dorothy: Of course, Rose. You know, like windshield wipers.
- Rose: So they work?
- Dorothy: I assume so, yes.
- Rose: [Brief pause] ...What are they made of?
- Dorothy: [irritated] Silly Putty, Rose!
- Blanche: I don't normally speak to people who call me a liar.
- Dorothy: Oh come on Blanche, we're in public now. There's no reason to be hostile.
- Blanche: Oh, yes there is. I don't like you.
- Dorothy: And horizontal stripes make you look like Roger Ebert!
Brotherly Love [3.08]
- Sophia: Drink this. It's a secret potion from the old country, guaranteed to put you to sleep.
- Rose: Looks like milk.
- Sophia: Trust me, Rose. Drink it, slowly. That's right, down the hatch. [unbeknownst to Rose, Sophia takes a saucepan from the cupboard] We call this Sicilian Sominex. Now, you might feel a slight tingling. But believe me, you'll sleep like a baby. [walks up to Rose from behind and raises saucepan]
- Rose: I don't feel any tingling. When's it going to hit me?
- [Blanche walks in]
- Blanche: Sophia!
- Sophia: [Freezes with the saucepan in her hand] ...I was making a souffle, and it got away from me!
- Dorothy: Floozy.
- Blanche: Tramp.
- Dorothy: I, I am a tramp? Blanche, have you heard the latest ad campaigns? "Join the Navy, see the world, sleep with Blanche Devereaux!" "Join the Army, be all you can be and sleep with Blanche Devereaux!" "The Marines are looking for a few good men who have not slept with Blanche Devereaux!"
- Dorothy: Where did you come from?
- Blanche: Oh, I was hiding behind the drapes.
- Dorothy: What is this, Hamlet?
A Visit from Little Sven [3.09]
- Blanche: Rose tells us you're gettin' married.
- Sven: Yes, and I hope I'm good at it. I don't have that much experience vith vomen.
- Blanche: A big, strong, handsome thing like you? Get out of here!
- Sven: Vell, it vas nice meeting all of you. [runs out front door]
- Rose: [following Sven] It was an expression, Sven!
- Blanche: [to Dorothy] You know, I never thought I'd say this, but I think Rose got the brains in that family.
- Blanche: [explaining what happened with Sven] I did kiss him, but it was just pretend. We were having lunch at Fairview Gardens when Floyd McAllen walked in with another woman, so I pretended Swen was my boyfriend just to make Floyd jealous.
- Dorothy: Did you explain any of this to Sven?
- Blanche: I assumed he knew!
- Dorothy: Blanche, how could you assume anything?! The man offered to kill dinner for us last night!
- Blanche: Maybe I made a mistake, but I don't think I did anything so terrible!
- Rose: Well, I do! There is a sweet, innocent man in there whose heart is gonna get broken because you decided to use him in one of your little petty games.
- Blanche: Rose, that's only one side of it. Look at the other side - he did get to kiss me!
- Dorothy: Big deal. More people get to kiss you than the Pope's ring!
The Audit [3.10]
- Blanche: Still worried about the money you owe the government?
- Dorothy: Oh no, Blanche, I'm worried about whether Michael Jackson will be able to buy the remains of the Elephant Man.
- Rose: Really? Gee, I'd be worried about the money.
Three On a Couch [3.11]
- Dorothy: The whole problem is you, Blanche. You are selfish.
- Blanche: Oh, please! Everybody always says what a giving person I am!
- Sophia: She's talking about when you're in an upright position!
- Man: [in a flashback scene, responding to a personal ad of Dorothy's that Rose put in the newspaper] Dorothy?
- Dorothy: Have we met?
- Man: Not yet. I'm here because of your ad in the paper, "Willing to do anything - $8 an hour, no job too big or small."
- Dorothy: Yes, yes, of course, please come in. I'm sorry, I didn't expect people to actually come here, I just figured, you know, that I would be going to them.
- Man: That's the way it'll work in the future, when my video camera gets back from the shop.
- Dorothy: So tell me, what kind of work is it that you need done, Mr.---
- Man: Toto.
- Dorothy: ---Mr. Toto?
- Man: Oh, no "Mr.," just "Toto." You're Dorothy, and I'm Toto. At least for the next eight dollars.
- Rose: Dorothy, you owe me an apology; your ad's right here. [points to newspaper]
- Dorothy: Oh Rose, this is the Personals column!
- Rose: So what?
- Dorothy: So what? You put an ad in the personals column that said I will do anything for eight dollars an hour?! Right under an ad that reads, "History professor seeking non-smoking Oriental woman who is into Wesson Oil and bears a resemblance to Florence Henderson."
- Man: Is that signed "Doug"?
- Dorothy: Yes.
- Man: I know him; he's a sick man.
- Dorothy: [showing her visitor to the door] I'm terribly sorry for this mixup; goodbye.
- [The man leaves, and a priest then walks up to the open door]
- Dorothy: Oh my GOD, I don't believe this! I'm going to call the cops if you don't get out of here right away, you PERVERT!
- Sophia: [walks up carrying a large box and hands it to the bewildered-looking priest] Hi, Father Rossi! Here's the canned goods for the needy!
- Dorothy: [mortified] Oh, no... [to Father Rossi] I'm terribly sorry. I promise that I will say Hail Marys until Madonna has a hit movie.
- [Another man enters through the open door after the priest leaves and walks up to Rose]
- Man #2: [to Rose] Hi! Here's my eight dollars! Let's get started, Dorothy!
- Rose: Oh, I'm not Dorothy; she is.
- Man #2: [to Dorothy] I'll give you four dollars. Let's get started.
- Dorothy: How would you like your rear end kicked across the street?!!
- Man #2: Oh, great! Here's the other four dollars!
- [Dorothy throws Man #2 out of the house. Enter Blanche]
- Blanche: Girls! Girls, there is a busload of Greek sailors out front! They want to know how many drachma there are in eight dollars!
- Sophia: My name is Sophia Petrillo and my idea of a good psychiatrist is a bartender who pours without a spout.
- [A flashback scene. Blanche is trying to convince Dorothy, who is sick, to go on a double date the two had agreed on.]
- Dorothy: Blanche, PLEASE! My body aches!
- Blanche: Well, so does mine, honey. That's why I wanna go on this date.
- Blanche: It is mind over matter. Now, Dorothy, you can get up off that couch! You're not sick anymore, Dorothy! You can... HEAL YOURSELF! WALK, DOROTHY, WALK!
- Sophia: Hey, just because you put your makeup on with a butter knife, doesn't make you Tammy Bakker.
- Sophia: [to Blanche] You know what I can't stand anymore? That phony accent of yours. What is this, Designing Women?
- Dorothy: Ma, another hot toddy? I think I've had enough!
- Sophia: Shut up and drink.
- Dorothy: This is the fourth one! Ma, that's an awful lot of whiskey!
- Sophia: I only put whiskey in the first one.
- Dorothy: Oh.
- Sophia: The second and third were vodka.
- Dorothy: No wonder my head is spinning!
- Sophia: This one's part Amaretto, part Sambuca. That should kill everything. It killed your father.
- Rose: [on Blanche] I think she's a Gerchominochen!
- Doctor: Well, what exactly does that mean?
- Rose: Literally, it's the precise moment when dog doo turns white.
- [Pause, as Blanche is shown with a horrified and shocked look on her face.]
- Rose: But in general, it refers to the kind of person you don't want to share your Hoodencoggles with.
- Dorothy: Rose, if you say one more of those stupid words, so help me...
- Rose: Oh, blow it out your Tubenburbles!
- Blanche: [complaining about Dorothy] She wants everything to be just right. I'm surprised she doesn't check our underwear before we leave the house!
- Dorothy: [to Blanche] Those of you who wear underwear.
- [Blanche initially looks startled, then looks up at the psychiatrist and smiles]
- Sophia: [to Dr. Ashley] I knew you were a quack! If you were a legitimate shrink you would've strung us along for months!
- [A flashback scene. Blanche and Rose have just crawled into Dorothy's bed, where Dorothy is studying for an exam. Enter Sophia]
- Sophia: Okay, I wanna see six hands above that blanket right now!
- Rose: The only reason we're in bed with Dorothy is, we're scared.
- Dorothy: Scared? Of what?
- Blanche: Now Dorothy, don't you laugh, but we're scared of the aliens.
- Dorothy: Blanche, how many times have I told you not to call them "the aliens"? They are the Chungs and they happen to be very nice.
- Sophia: They're not very nice, they eat dogs.
- Dorothy: Ma, they do not eat dogs!
- Sophia: Right, it's just a coincidence that not one ever pees on their lawn.
- Dorothy: Ma, you made that up.
- Rose: Sophia, we're not talking about them anyway. We're talking about the aliens from outer space.
- Dorothy: Oh, those aliens. GET OUT! BOTH OF YOU!
- Blanche: Dorothy, now have a heart. Rose and I rented that movie Aliens, and it just scared us half to death!
- Sophia: It scared me too. That Sigourney Weaver's a sweet girl, but she really shouldn't go without makeup.
- Dorothy: I don't have TIME for this now, I have my education exam tomorrow morning!
- Rose: You mean you're kicking us out?
- Dorothy: Rose, I have to study!
- Sophia: That's my Dorothy, always with her nose in a book. Unlike your brother Phil, who was always with his nose in the dirty clothes hamper.
- Blanche: I cannot believe you would be so cold-blooded as to cast out your two dearest friends in this their time of need!
- Dorothy: And I can't believe that the two of you are so inconsiderate that you would disturb me with something this ridiculous when you know how important my exam is. If I don't pass it, I don't get my raise!
- Sophia: That's it, everybody out!
- Blanche: Sophia, we're scared!
- Sophia: I'm scared too, that we won't be able to afford meat on the table! You want to wind up swapping recipes with the Chungs? Out! Out!
- Rose: Sophia, are you busy?
- Sophia: Nah, I'm just drawing a line on the milk of magnesia bottle.
- Rose: Why?
- Sophia: I think the gardener's been sneaking a few sips!
- Rose: I have a problem.
- Sophia: All right. Take a sip, I'll draw another line.
- Rose: No, no, it's not that . . . my boss at the center made a pass at me!
- Sophia: Maybe you misunderstood; what exactly did he do?
- Rose: He called me in his office and threw me down on the couch and kissed me!
- Sophia: That's a pass . . . okay, I think I can help you. I'll tell you a story, Rose. Picture it--Sicily, 1922.
- Blanche: [rushes in] Sophia, I have a problem! I just saw the guy I've been dating out with another woman! Now, what do you think I oughta do?
- Sophia:I think you should sit down and picture Sicily, 1922. (Blanche sits) It was the worst of times; it was the worst of times. It was Sicily, 1922.
- Dorothy:[enters] Ma, I have a problem.
- Sophia: Just sit down and listen! First of all, is everyone who lives in this house here at this very moment!?
- Dorothy: Yes.
- Sophia: Then for the last time, PICTURE IT! Sicily, 1922! A beautiful young woman with breasts not unlike Brigitte Nielsen . . . except hers moved when she skipped! She comes walking down a picturesque country road when suddenly a yellow Rolls Royce pulls up and blocks her path!
- Blanche: Ohhh! Who was in the Rolls?
- Sophia: It doesn't matter, it's not important to the story. Anyway, the Rolls Royce moves on, and the girl finds her pepperoni is missing.
- Rose: What happened to it, Sophia?
- Sophia: Bambi ate it; how should I know?! You keep missing the point; the point is she has no pepperoni to bring to her family's table! She gets hysterical; she starts to run. She runs through the fields, the meadow, over the hill--until she comes to a raging river FILLED with pepperoni swimming upstream!
- Dorothy: Ma, pepperoni swimming upstream?
- Sophia: Yeah, I know, it's odd--pepperoni is a land meat. But there it was! She wades into the river, grabs an armful, and races home to feed her family. When she tells them the story, they think it's an act of God! But as it turns out a disgruntled pepperoni stuffer had blown up the factory in a neighboring town causing pepperoni to rain down over a hundred square miles--which is where the old Sicilian saying 'It's raining cats and pepperoni' comes from!
[Blanche, Rose and Dorothy all nod]
- Sophia: Is this helping anyone yet; cause this sure feels like an ending to me.
- Rose: Oh, it's helping me Sophia--what I got out of the story was that you should take a bad situation and make it better! [jumps up] I'm gonna tell my boss off! [rushes out]
- Blanche: That's not quite what I got out of it Sophia, I thought you were trying to tell me to dump my cheating boyfriend because there's lots of pepperoni in the sea!
- Sophia: Yeah...that's exactly what I was trying to tell you.
- Blanche: Thank you Sophia. [Blanche leaves]
- Sophia: What about you, Dorothy, did I help you with your problem?
- Dorothy: You sure did, Ma, I didn't know what to have for dinner. How about splitting a pepperoni pizza?
- Sophia: Sure, you buying?
- Dorothy: Does a pepperoni swim upstream?
- Sophia: It did once, let's go!
Charlie's Buddy [3.12]
- Blanche: [upon seeing that she and Dorothy have purchased the exact same dress] It can't be!
- Sophia: Hey, don't panic. Get one for Rose and you can go as The Pointer Sisters.
- Blanche: Dorothy, this is crazy! Since when do you care how you look?
- Dorothy: I think it started when I came down from the bell tower and had my hump fixed!
- Blanche: This dress looks sensational on me; people expect to see me in a sensational dress!
- Dorothy: And what do they expect to see me in, a yarmulke and a Hefty Bag?
- Blanche: Dorothy, it deserves to be displayed on a devastatingly beautiful body!
- Dorothy: Who you gonna to send it to, Kim Basinger?
- Blanche: And what is that supposed to mean?
- Dorothy: Why don't you think about it while you're inhaling your next cheesecake?
- [Dorothy walks out]
- Blanche: How dare she imply that I overeat! Makes me so mad... [she goes to the cupboard and opens it] Oh darn, we're out of Chips Ahoy.
- Buddy: Rose Nylund?
- Sophia: No, and if I start acting like her, pull the plug!
The Artist [3.13]
- Sophia: Who's Laszlo?
- Rose: He's a Hungarian sculptor we've all been posing nude for.
- Sophia: [looking chagrined] In the future, a simple "None of your business, Sophia" will suffice!
- Rose: Dorothy, was Sophia naked just now, or does her dress really need ironing?
- Blanche: I saw some of the sketches that Laszlo has done of me and they're horrible. The hair is all big and frizzy and the body is all droopy and saggy. The woman in those pictures is a dog!
- Rose: Blanche, the woman in those photos is me.
- Blanche: I know she sounds like you dear, but she's not.
- Rose: Oh, yes she is. [pulls out key], I wanted to tell you a long time ago.
- Blanche: Oh God, strike me here and now if Laszlo prefers Rose Nylund over me.
- Rose: He said he wanted someone with more innocence.
- Blanche: With more cellulite is more like it.
- Rose: You take that back!
- Blanche: I will not!
- Rose: Yes, you will!
- Blanche: No I won't!
- Dorothy: Girls, girls what's going on here.
- Blanche: Nothing, Rose here just stabbed me in the back.
- Rose: I did not, Laszlo asked me to pose for him.
- Blanche: I don't know why, he'd go to Sea World if he wants to see a naked whale.
- Rose: Or to your bathtub!
- Blanche: Oh, all right Missy, this is war, both of us will continuing seeing Laszlo.
- Rose: Fine, he is going to pick me.
- Blanche: No he's not, he's going to pick me.
- Dorothy: Girls, girls I can solve this.
- Blanche: All right Dorothy, tell her who he is going to pick.
- Dorothy: It's going to be me. [pulls out key]
- Blanche: You too?
- Dorothy: He asked me last Thursday.
- Blanche: Well, I am stunned.
- Rose: I'm relieved!
- Blanche: Relieved.
- Rose Yeah, the woman you saw in those horrible drawings must have been Dorothy!
Blanche's Little Girl [3.14]
- Sophia: [upon meeting Blanche's overweight daughter, a former model] What did she model, car covers?
- Blanche: [to Becky] Let me get a look at you.
- Sophia: This could take several hours.
- Rose: So Becky, what brings you to Miami?
- Sophia: My guess is a small barge!
- Rebecca: Mama offered to drive us over to Vero Beach to see the Dodgers play. Jeremy's a big baseball fan.
- Jeremy: Becky's a bigger one. Becky's a bigger everything.
- Dorothy: Not everything, Jeremy.
- Rose: [on Rebecca marrying Jeremy] It's her daughter, it's her choice. It's like something that happened back in St. Olaf...
- Dorothy: [furious] Oh, Rose, STOP! Rose, why is it when any one of us makes an observation, the first thing we hear from you is "Back in St. Olaf"?! Did it ever occur to you that we might be sick and tired of hearing, "Back in St. Olaf, back in St. Olaf, back in St. Olaf"?!!!
- Rose: [surprised] Gee, no, I never realized. I'm sorry.
- Dorothy: Oh, that's okay.
- Rose: Back in that town whose name you're tired of...
- Dorothy: ROSE!!!!
- Sophia: Picture it! Sicily, 1922. An attractive peasant girl who has saved her lire embarks on a glorious vacation to a Crimean resort on the Black Sea. For weeks, she frolics at the seaside resort and enjoys the company of many young men, all of whom adore her.
- Edna: ALL of them?
- Sophia: Shut up, Edna, I work alone. All of them. When it's time to return to Sicily, three different suitors beg her to stay. But she can't decide who to choose, so she chooses none of them. But she agrees to meet with them at the same resort many years later. To her trio of suitors, that eventful gathering was referred to as "Rendezvous with Sophia." But to the rest of the world, it was better known as the Yalta Conference.
Dorothy's New Friend [3.15]
- Rose: [on first impressions] I remember when I was a little girl back in St. Olaf. There was this old lady who lived up the street. She never smiled. I mean, she always looked angry. The kids said she'd kill anyone who even stepped on her property. We used to call her Mean Old Lady Hickenlooper.
- Blanche: Yeah, kids can be pretty cruel.
- Rose: No, that was her name, Mean Old Lady Hickenlooper. She had it changed legally, 'cause everybody called her that anyway.
- Blanche: Then how come your name isn't "Big Dummy"?
- Rose: Well, there were already three other people in town with that name.
- Blanche: Rose, what was your first impression of me?
- Rose: I thought you wore too much makeup and were a slut... I was wrong. You don't wear too much makeup.
- Dorothy: Oh Blanche honey, I hope you don't mind, I borrowed your rhinestone necklace.
- Blanche: No, that's alright, but I think I should point out it was designed for a dainty neck.
- Dorothy: Yes Blanche, but I don't know Mike Tyson well enough to borrow his jewelry.
- Blanche: Barbara, I picked up your first novel the other day.
- Barbara: Ah, yes. "So Dark the Waves On Biscayne Bay", I've grown so much as a writer since then.
- Blanche: Well, I should hope so.
- Dorothy: Blanche!
- Barbara: It's alright. Did you have a problem with my book, dear?
- Blanche: Yes, as a matter of fact I did, all those waves! Big waves, little waves, dark waves, rollin' in! Page after page! I had to take a Dramamine to get through chapter three!
- Barbara: Blanche, the waves are a metaphor. You see, a metaphor...
- Blanche: I know what a metaphor is, dear. I'm not a dummy.
- Rose: Blanche, what's a metaphor?
- Blanche: It's when you use a phrase to mean somethin' else. Like when I say "Men are blinded by my beauty." They are not really blinded. They get their sight back in a day or two!
- Blanche: Now Dorothy, if you're saying you can't get stimulating conversation around this house, I beg to differ.
- Rose: [enters, reading a tabloid newspaper] I can't believe it. It says here that since Michael Jackson can't buy the Elephant Man, he's now put in a bid for the remains of the Big Bopper.
- Blanche: Rose, you can't believe everything you read in that rag! It caters to people of the lowest intelligence.
- Rose: Then why do you buy it?
- Blanche: Because it's the only newspaper Elvis will talk to from beyond the grave!
- Rose: Barbara Thorndyke is coming here? Wow, I've never met a real author before.
- Blanche: I have. I once stood in line two hours at a bookstore for Arnold Schwarzenegger's autograph!
- Dorothy: You know, when I think of great literary figures of our time, it's usually Faulker, Fitzgerald, and, uh...
- Dorothy, Blanche: Schwarzenegger.
- Rose: Did he sign your book?
- Blanche: Yes. But only after he refused to sign my thigh.
- Dorothy: He was probably intimidated to see a thigh bigger than his.
- Blanche: Rose, honey, would you pass me the tuffie.
- Rose: With pleasure, Blanche.
- Blanche: Thank you, Rose.
- Rose: You're more than welcome, Blanche. You can always count on me to hand you the tuffie.
- Blanche: I know, that's why I always ask you.
- Dorothy: You know, I think I saw Jack and Janet give Chrissy this treatment on an episode of Three's Company.
- Blanche: Oh, at last a reference from Dorothy that even we illiterates can understand.
- Rose: I guess her well of knowledge has run dry. That's a metaphor Dorothy.
- Dorothy: Look, why don't you just admit that this is all because you don't like Barbara Thorndyke.
- Blanche: Alright, I don't like Barbara Thorndyke. I think she's a phony.
- Dorothy: Oh, this from a woman who tells her dates that she was Angie Dickinson's body double in Dressed To Kill.
- Blanche: That's just a little white lie.
- Dorothy: Oh yeah? Then why is it on your job resume?!
- Blanche: What do you think?
- Rose: There's something about her I don't like.
- Blanche: Me too.
- Rose: I find her hard to talk to.
- Blanche: Me too.
- Rose: She thinks I'm dumb.
- Blanche: Me too.
- Blanche: Sophia, honey, the key is to make a man think you're not interested in him! Offering to make him dinner just made you look too easy.
- Sophia: Please, black underwear and pasties couldn't make me look easy.
- Blanche: Well, Barbara, Dorothy tells us you're an author.
- Barbara: No, I'm just a writer. Malamud's an author.
- Rose: I thought Malamuds were chocolate cookies with marshmallows in them.
- Dorothy: Those are Malomars, Rose.
Grab That Dough [3.16]
- Dorothy: [on why the girls made up on their return flight] There was nothing else we could do. It was either that or watch Three Amigos! with a headset.
- Blanche: [suggesting a way to get to the TV studio] I have a better idea - we can hitchhike. See, I can lift up my skirt, you know, like in that Clark Gable movie, It Happened One Night. Boy, we'll have a ride in no time!
- Sophia: Please! You lift up your skirt, and someone might mistake your thigh for the on ramp to the freeway!
- Sophia: Dorothy, I'm in the ladies room, I look in my brassiere. What do you think I find?
- Dorothy: Hopefully, what we all find when we look in our brassiere.
- Sophia: Please, I haven't been able to find those since I nursed your brother Phil.
- Sophia: Rose is my daughter now. And you, Dorothy, are the biggest disappointment to hit the streets since the AMC Pacer!
- Guy: For 100 points, "Complete this famous saying: Better Late Than..."
- [Blanche rings in]
- Guy: Blanche.
- Blanche: Pregnant!
- Guy: That's incorrect, but certainly not untrue.
- Blanche: Nancy, honey. Now I don't generally like to throw my name around but you really leave me no choice. It so happens that I am Miss Angie Dickinson! And now, if you don't mind, I would like two rooms.
- Nancy: You don't look like Angie Dickinson to me.
- Blanche: I know, I have altered my appearance for a very important movie role.
- Dorothy: Yeah, it's about a woman who eats her way from behind the Iron Curtain.
- Guy: For another 100 points, "Who is the current Secretary of State?"
- [Willard Kaplan rings in]
- Guy: Willard?
- Willard: Charles Schulz.
- Dorothy: He created Peanuts!
- Willard: I thought that was George Washington Carver!
- Dorothy: Willard...don't ever touch your buzzer again.
My Brother, My Father [3.17]
- [rehearsing The Sound of Music]
- Rose: The Nazis are coming!
- [Sophia runs into the room]
- Sophia: Everybody grab a gun and run to the basement!
- Blanche: [in nun's costume, panties in hand] We're collecting lingerie for needy, sexy people.
- Dorothy: [upon learning that the airport is closed because of the hurricane] That means we could be trapped together for hours!
- Blanche: [still in nun's costume] Oh, JESUS!
- [Angelo, who is unaware that Blanche isn't really a nun, looks at her with a shocked expression.]
- Blanche: ...Please protect us and watch over us in this our hour of need!
- Dorothy: Amen!
- Blanche: Hurricanes can be kind of fun. I remember one when I was married!
- Angelo: Married?
- Blanche: Uh... Mary. When I was Mary in the Christmas pageant at the convent, remember that, Sister Rose?
- Rose: Oh, yes, Sister Blanche is quite an actress.
- Stan: She'd have to be, to make anyone believe she was a virgin!
- Dorothy: Stanley, you're a pig in a cheap suit!
- Sophia: [pointing] Angelo, look! Saint Francis of Assisi!
- [While Angelo is looking away, Sophia slaps Stan across the face.]
- Sophia: Shut up and play ball, you yutz! [To Angelo] False alarm, never mind.
And Ma Makes Three [3.19]
- Rose: You're gonna dump your own mother?
- Dorothy: Faster than CBS dumped Jimmy the Greek.
- Dorothy: Ok girls, I need your help the silver chain or the pearls?
- Rose: The chain.
- Blanche: An amateurs mistake. Can't you see that the chain eccentuates the many folds of that turkey like neck.
- Rose: Yes, but the pearls draw attention to the non-existent bosom.
- Blanche: Yes, but the chain leads the eye even lower, to this huge "spare tire," jutting out those square manly hips.
- Dorothy Why don't I just wear a sign that says "Too Ugly To Live."
- Blanche: Fine, where are you going to hang it from the chain or the pearls?
- Dorothy: Neither, I'm going to spray paint it on my hump!
- Rose: See Blanche, you know much about fashion than I do. I've decided I'm going to run.
- Blanche: Well you are wasting your time. Who on that committee is going to vote for you? I'm going to win.
- Rose: I don't see how, because all the people on the committee is female. Who are you going to sleep with?
- Blanche: Are you saying that I cannot win this on merit alone? ... All women?
Larceny and Old Lace [3.20]
- Blanche: [reading from Rose's diary] I don't know how much longer I can stand living with these two pigs. At first, moving in with them seemed like a good way to save money, but it's just getting out of hand. If one isn't keeping me awake all night with her squealin', the other one is belchin' in my face! [stops reading] You do that sometimes, Dorothy. After you've had a Denver omelet.
- Dorothy: No, I don't, and it's a Spanish omelet.
- Rose: [knocking on Sophia's door] Sophia?
- Sophia: I'm not in. Wait for the beep and leave a message. Beep!
- Rose: Hi, this is Rose...
- Sophia: Rose, shut up and get in here!
- Dorothy: I cannot believe my mother is hanging out with that cheap hood!
- Rose: You mean Rocco?
- Dorothy: No, Rose, I mean Spiro Agnew. He gave her a highway contract instead of an ID bracelet.
- Rose: Gee, what's my diary doing here? [picks it up from the table] Next to a pair of pliers?
- Blanche: Rose, whatever it is you're thinking, it isn't true.
- Rose: Good, then George Bush isn't married to his mother.
- Dorothy: The most romantic thing was when Stan proposed. I went to the powder room and when I got back there was two long stem glasses filled with Dom Perignon. We clinked the glasses and Stan gave me a coy smile and I winked at him and I just down the champagne in one gulp....and it didn't go down smoothly. Later he told me that he put my engagement ring at the bottom of the glass. It turned up three days later.
- Rose: Where'd it turn up, Dorothy?
- Dorothy: On the Home Shopping Network, Rose.
Rose's Big Adventure [3.21]
- Ernie: [about the guestroom] Mrs. Devereaux, please. Do you want it fast or do you want it good?
- Sophia: Before you answer that Blanche, the man's talking about a guestroom.
- Dorothy: Ernie, listen to me and listen good. If you walk out that door right now, you can forget about ever coming back. I sound like I'm on Ryan's Hope.
- Sophia: [translating for Vincenzo] Before we begin, [Vincenzo speaks between each line] let's make one thing clear. I am in charge. I am the boss. I am the master. I Am the Walrus.
- Dorothy: Ma, either your Italian is rusty or he's the world's oldest hippie.
- Dorothy: [sees Vincenzo's elderly crew working on the guestroom] Looks like the road company of Cocoon.
- Rose: [seeing Vincenzo's elderly working crew] Who are all these old men?
- Dorothy: The Osmond Brothers, Rose. The years without Donny have not been kind to them.
Mixed Blessing [3.22]
- Rose: You know Dorothy, I just thought of something. Lorraine’s family’s gonna be black too, aren’t they?
- Dorothy: Yes Rose. You know, you could probably make them feel welcome if you do your version of that dance that the Huxtable’s do at the beginning of The Cosby Show.
- Rose: Can I ask a dumb question?
- Dorothy: Better than anyone I know…
- Rose: What color is black people’s dandruff?
- Dorothy: Rose, black people don’t have dandruff. God figures they’ve been through enough already.
- Dorothy: [to Greta] Look, race is not even an issue. I mean, your daughter is twice my son's age! What can a woman in her 40's possibly have in common with a boy in his 20's?
- Blanche: Sex! At 20, a man is at his peak. And a woman in her 40's is also at her peak, so when the two come together, hot damn !
- Dorothy: Look, Mrs. Wagner, I’m not thrilled about my son marrying your daughter either.
- Greta: Oh yeah? Why, you got something against black people?
- Blanche: Of course not! And I resent the insinuation! Why, we firmly believe that all men are created equal!!
- Rose: That’s a bunch of bologna!
- Dorothy: Rose!!!
- Rose: Well it is! If you don’t believe me, just turn on your television set and watch a white person dance down the line on Soul Train.
- Dorothy: Rose, will you excuse us?
- Rose: Sure, where're you going?
- Dorothy: Nowhere. Get out!
- Greta: Honey, it's just a phase! Ever since Diana Ross started marrying white men, everyone's gotta have one!
- Sophia: [Sophia walks in and sees Lorraine and her family, of African American decent] What is this, a revival of A Raisin in the Sun ?
- Michael Zbornak: Grandma, this is my fianceé, Lorraine, and this is her mother and her two aunts.
- Sophia: Oh, wait-wait-wait-wait-wait... This is your fianceé?
- Michael Zbornak: Yep, that's right.
- Sophia: You couldn't find someone your own age?
- Greta: What is that supposed to mean?
- Sophia: No offense, but it means your daughter's been around the block more times then a Good Humor man!
- Greta: [turns to her sister] Hold my purse - those are fightin' words!
- Rose: Stop it all of you! What difference does it make that Lorraine's a little long in the tooth and Michael's a skinny white boy? Can't you see they love each other? We should be celebrating not arguing whether or not it's right. Now what do you say we all join hands and sing a chorus of 'Abraham, Martin and John'?
- Greta: [turns to Dorothy] Is she for real?
- Dorothy: Yep - frightening isn't it?
- Sophia: Is it true what they say about black men in bed?
- Blanche: Oh yes definitely...[everybody stares at her] Oh yes. Definitely, that is something I would like to know too.
- Dorothy: Come on Blanche, that's a stereotype.
- Trudy: Call it whatever you want, I'm just grateful it's true.
- Dorothy: Oh, Blanche, how would you feel if your son were marrying an older woman?
- Blanche: Dorothy, when my son was five years old, he nearly burned down our whole town. Since then, nothing he does upsets me. Hell, he could marry Lillian Gish and I wouldn't care.
Mister Terrific [3.23]
- [Blanche has been feeling guilty about keeping a bed she ordered that the company didn't charge her enough for. The doorbell rings and Fred walks in wearing his Mr. Policeman outfit.]
- Blanche: Oh, thank God! I can't live with myself anymore. Take me!
- Dorothy: Blanche!
- Blanche: Dorothy, please, stay out of this. I know what's best. Just slap the handcuffs on me, the bed's this way.
- [Fred shrugs and follows her down the hallway but first stops and turns to everyone sitting in the living room.]
- Fred: Y'know what's funny? I was supposed to be Mr. Mailman today.
- Rose: Oh Dorothy, I'm glad you're here. Meet Mr. Terrific.
- Dorothy: Oh, Mr. Terrific. Meet Mrs. Severely Depressed.
- Rose: Girls, you won't believe what happened to me this afternoon. I met Mr. Terrific!
- Blanche: Rose, don't be so quick to judge. I thought I had met Mr. Terrific. Turned out there was also a Mrs. Terrific. I found myself ducking a Mr. Vase.
- Rose: [seeing Mr. Terrific on the ledge] How's he doing?
- Dorothy: I'll be honest. Right now, Squeaky Fromme has a better grasp on reality.
Mother's Day [3.24]
[After Stan's mother thanks him for a conjoined-given present]- Stan: It's from Dorothy too.
- Stan's Mother: If I had to thank her I'd choke on the words.
- Dorothy: Please risk it.
- Blanche: Mama, do you remember that Mother's Day that I almost ruined when I ran off to get married?
- Blanche's mother: No...
- Blanche: Sure you do, honey, don't you know, I was a senior in high school, and I was madly in love with Deck Bovinglow. We'd been dating for nearly a month, so it seemed perfectly logical when he dropped by cheerleading practice and asked me to marry him. Oh, I thought he was a wonderful catch at the time. He was 40, out of work, twice-divorced, had three kids...but the real reason I wanted to marry him was because his oldest daughter was a rival of mine at cheerleading, and I figured if I married Deck, I'd be her mama. And I could kick her off the squad.
Yes, We Have No Havanas [4.01]
- Sophia: [to Blanche] Beat it, you fifty year old mattress!
- Fidel: My family once owned the largest tobacco plantation in all of Cuba. Do you know that at one time, I was the most famous Fidel in the entire country... until you-know-who showed up.
- Rose: Who?
- Dorothy: Rex the Wonder Horse, Rose.
- Sophia: Who would've thought Blanche would date someone that long in the tooth?
- Rose: I thought his teeth were nice. What I couldn't believe was how old he was! [leaves]
- Dorothy: You know, sometimes I really cannot believe my ears.
- Sophia: I know. I should've taped them back when you were seven.
- Blanche: Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go take a long, hot, steamy bath with just enough water to barely cover my perky bosoms.
- Sophia: You're only gonna sit in an inch of water?!
- Blanche: Of all the nerve! How could he possibly think I'd continue seeing him?! Blanche Devereaux has never shared a man!
- Sophia: Or a pizza.
- Blanche: And what does THAT mean, you wrinkled old crow?!
- Sophia: It means Fidel is interested in more than a cheap thrill, he also wants a mind!
- Blanche: Oh yeah?!! Well, we'll see about that!
- Sophia: You're on, baby!
- Blanche: [to Fidel] Midnight for dessert.
- [Fidel leaves]
- Rose: [perplexed] Dessert at midnight???
- Sophia: There's always room for Jello.
- Blanche: [walking over to Sophia] I just hate you. I regret the day you ever moved in here.
- Sophia: And I regret the day I gave birth to you!
- Dorothy: Ma, Ma! I'm your daughter.
- Sophia: Oh, yeah...I need a Bromo-Seltzer!
- Blanche: I need a cheesecake!
- Woman at Fidel's Funeral: I'm leaving. I'm not about to mourn a man who's been with every woman in this room!
- Dorothy: He was never with me!
- Woman: I guess even he had his standards.
- Dorothy: [reading the attendance] Jim Shu? [double takes and looks again] Jim Shu? Oh, I get it. Gym shoe, very funny. [Asian man stands up]
- Man: Excuse me, I am Jim Shu.
- [Dorothy realizes her mistake]
- Dorothy: I'm terribly sorry, I thought you were pulling my leg!
- Man: I don't think I can drink that much sake!
- Blanche: Oh, why would Fidel want another woman? After all, he's dipped his toes in the lake known as Blanche.
- Blanche: [confronting Fidel about the other woman] What is it? Is she younger? More attractive? More desirable?
- Sophia: [coming out from behind Fidel] You got two outta three, Blanche.
The Days and Nights of Sophia Petrillo [4.02]
- Sophia: Hey, you got any decent nectarines?
- Supermarket Stocker: There's nothing wrong with those nectarines!
- Sophia: Please. I've got a bowl of wax bananas that'll be ripe before these are!
- Supermarket Stocker: You're crazy! This nectarine is beautiful! I've never seen a more perfect piece of fruit!
- Sophia: No? Then try kissing my behind. It's a real peach!
- Woman at Supermarket: Sophia?
- Sophia: No, César Chávez. I got hungry.
The One That Got Away [4.03]
- Dorothy: Now look, all this nonsense has to stop, Rose. What we saw was not a UFO.
- Rose: Well, it wasn't a plane. Planes aren't that thin, or that bright.
- Dorothy: Neither is Oprah Winfrey, but that doesn't make her a flying saucer.
- Blanche: There's only one thing for me to do. I'm going to call him up, and tomorrow night I'm going out with that man again, and I don't care what amount of seducin' it takes. But, as God is my witness, I am not returning to this house until he has begged, besieged, and pleaded with me to go to bed with him. [leaves the kitchen]
- Sophia: You know, that was the original ending to Gone with the Wind.
Yokel Hero [4.04]
[Sophia is standing in front of an open refrigerator with her robe open, Dorothy, Blanche and Rose walk in]- Dorothy: Ma, what are you doing?
- Sophia: I'm giving the leftover meatloaf a thrill, what do you think? It's hot as hell in here!
- Dorothy: Close it before the food spoils.
- Sophia: OK. [closes robe]
- Dorothy: I meant the refrigerator!
- Dorothy: Morning, Rose.
- Rose: [cries and goes into kitchen]
- Blanche: Dorothy, sometimes you can be so cruel!
- Sophia: Look Rose, God doesn't make mistakes, we were all put on this planet for a purpose. Blanche, you're here to work in a museum so that art can be appreciated by humanity. Dorothy, you're here as a substitute teacher to educate our youth. And Rose, you're here because the rhythm method was very popular in the 20's.
- Rose: [preparing her bio] I just found out I'm the most boring person alive.
- Sophia: Did something happen to Regis Philbin?
[After meeting the triplets from St. Olaf that have come to interview Rose]
- Sophia: Which of you brothers has custody of the brain?
- Dorothy: I will never forgive that airline as long as I live!
- Blanche: I cannot believe they lost all our luggage! Now I have to go an entire weekend without underwear!
- Sophia: Yeah. You usually slip into a pair by Sunday afternoon.
- Rose: God, I hate fog!
- Sophia: Why? You spent most of your life in one!
- Rose: I meant, if it were clearer we could see Mount Losenbaden.
- Blanche: What's Mount Losenbaden?
- Rose: It's kinda like Mount Rushmore, except they sculpted four losers of Presidential elections in the mountainside. Let's see - there was Alf Landon, Wendell Willkie, and Adlai Stevenson and Adlai Stevenson.
- Blanche: Why are there two Adlai Stevensons?
- Dorothy: Oh, Blanche, isn't it obvious? He lost twice... [panicking] Oh God, it's making SENSE!
[on the "shuttle" to St. Olaf]
- Dorothy: [calling to Sophia at the front of the donkey-drawn wagon] How're you doing up there, Ma?
- Sophia: Fine!
- Blanche: Sophia, why don't you want to sit back here with us, honey?
- Sophia: Because after three days on the road with you guys, this jackass smells better!
- Driver: Thank you!
- Sophia: It's great bringing two idiots closer together.
- Dorothy: I think that's the motto of the St. Olaf telephone company.
[after Dr. Harry Weston has delivered the girls' accumulated mail]
- Blanche: He fairly screams "Blanche"! Or at least he will before I'm through with him!
- Sophia: Congratulations, Rose Nylund. You are St. Olaf's woman of the year!
- Dorothy, Blanche, and Sophia: Uff da!!
- Blanche: [to Fred, the repairman] Oh thank God you're here, this heat's driving me crazy!
- Fred: You're not the only one. The old lady next door is running through a sprinkler in her underwear!
- Dorothy: There's no old lady living... [looks through the kitchen window] MA!!! [runs outside]
Bang the Drum, Stanley [4.05]
- Stan: You see, babe, it's all part of the big guy's master plan. I am but a humble servant.
- Dorothy: Mr. Belvedere is a humble servant, Stanley, you're a horse's ass.
- Rose: At the counseling center, we learn that the first reaction to catastrophe is denial.
- Dorothy: Rose, I am not in denial.
- Rose: Oh, yes you are. You're just denying you're in denial.
- Dorothy: Rose, I am not denying that I am in denial.
- Rose: If you're not denying you're in denial, then you're in denial!
- Dorothy: Look, fluffhead, why should I deny being in denial when I never said I was in denial. You are the one who said I was in denial and don't you deny it!
- Sophia: Stanley, Stanley, don't worry. I'm eighty-two years old. My bones are brittle, my muscles are atrophied. My circulation is worse than U.S. News and World Report. There's no physical they can give that Sophia Petrillo can't fail!
Sophia's Wedding [4.06]
- Sophia: [enters kitchen, crying] Esther Weinstock is dead. We grew up together. She was my best friend.
- Dorothy: Oh, I'm so sorry! What happened?
- Sophia: [sarcastically] She was fighting an oil-rig fire in the Gulf of Mexico. [snapping] SHE WAS 88!
- Rose: Well, it's great that she was able to work right up to the end.
- Dorothy: When is the funeral?
- Sophia: Wednesday.
- Dorothy: I'll go back to Brooklyn with you.
- Sophia: [leaves kitchen] I'm not going, and you know why!
- Rose: I guess the body was lost at sea.
- Blanche: Do you know what I hate doing most after a party?
- Rose: Trying to find your underwear in the big pile?
- Rose: [On Sophia's wedding dress] Sophia, that looks beautiful!
- Blanche: It's absolutely gorgeous.
- Rose: But don't you have to be a virgin to wear a white wedding dress?
- Sophia: Please! The last time I was a virgin, the Louisiana Purchase was still in escrow. It doesn't matter anyway, no one's gonna see this dress.
- Rose: What do you mean?
- Sophia: According to Sicilian custom, I can't get married unless I have you-know-who's blessing.
- Rose: Whose?
- Sophia: Dick Clark! Dorothy, you idiot!
- Rose: Dorothy, your mother's talking to you.
- Sophia: Dorothy, I spoke to your Aunt Regina in Sicily this morning to tell her about the wedding, she told me I'm in for some very bad luck unless I get the blessing of my eldest daughter or my child with the most facial hair. Either way, all arrows point to you.
- Dorothy: Ma, you know how I feel. I cannot give you my blessing.
- Sophia: Dorothy, I love you, but if you ruin my happiness, I will put a Sicilian curse on you that will be like hell on earth!
- Dorothy: Ma, you can't put a Sicilian curse on your eldest daughter if the mother is marrying a man under five-foot-seven! You're not the only one with Aunt Regina's phone number.
- Sophia: Damn MCI.
- Rose: Blanche, I would be honored if you would be the first member of the Hunka-Hunka-Burnin'-Love fan club.
- Blanche: I graciously accept, and promise to do a good job as president!
- Rose: Why should you be president?
- Blanche: Well, because I saw Elvis in Harem Scarem over 50 times.
- Rose: Well, so did I!
- Blanche: I have every album he ever recorded.
- Rose: So have I, and every single!
- Blanche: I slept with him in a Motel 6 outside Chattanooga.
- Rose: [leaves kitchen, chagrined] Congratulations, Madam President!
- Dorothy: Blanche, why did you say that? You didn't really sleep with Elvis Presley.
- Blanche: Dorothy, back where I come from, there were a lot of hillbilly boys with mutton-chop sideburns named Elvis. The light was bad in the bayou, it could've happened!
- Dorothy: Blanche, you never slept with Elvis Presley.
- Blanche: All right, all right! But I did once make love to an unattractive boy named Ernest and in the middle of it, I cried out Elvis's name. Technically I think that counts.
- Blanche: Now listen Dorothy, you can quit smoking. Do it the same way I did it: just taper off - smoke only after sex!
- Sophia: Good idea. One pack'll last her a lifetime!
- Blanche: But before we adjourn, our secretary has a real special surprise: a genuine Elvis artifact!
- Rose: It's a partially eaten pork chop. He had beautiful teeth, didn't he? [passes around pork chop in glass collector's case]
- Dorothy: [holding pork chop in case] This has to be a fake. I mean, Elvis would have never left this much meat on a pork chop. [laughs hysterically]
- Blanche: [unamused, steals pork chop] Dorothy, you're out of the club. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you, ladies. See you next week. [other members depart] Well, I hope you're not too upset over this, Dorothy.
- Dorothy: I've just been thrown out of an unauthorized Elvis fan club. I'll try to pick up the pieces and go on with my life. I mean, there must be a support group for people like me.
- Rose: We're sorry, Dorothy, but the bylaws clearly state that any derogatory remarks about the King are grounds for immediate expulsion.
- Blanche: Maybe you ought to join an organization that is a little less fanatical in its devotion, honey.
- Dorothy: Oh, like what, Blanche, the PLO?
- Max: You're little Dorothy Petrillo!
- Dorothy: That's right.
- Max: You haven't changed a bit! Same gorgeous smile, pretty eyes, beautiful figure, long golden blonde hair...
- Dorothy: You have cataracts, don't you Mr. Weinstock?
- Max: [putting on his glasses] Since 1967.
- Rose: [seeing the Elvis impersonators] Uh oh. Either I mixed the Elvis list with the wedding list or everyone in Max's family appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show.
- Rose: Oh Dorothy, you're just cranky because you haven't had a cigarette in a while.
- Dorothy: Maybe a little, but I'll tell you the truth - I really think I'm over the worst part of it.
- Rose: That's great, I'm really proud of you. You think you'd miss that feeling you get with that first puff, that feeling of relaxation when you hold it in and then sheer exhilaration when you exhale smoke...
- [Dorothy takes a deep breath, holds it in and then exhales slowly as though she were taking a puff of a cigarette.]
- Dorothy: No, not really, I've, I've found other ways to ease my tensions. Honey, would you hand me that large saucepan over there?
- Rose: [grabs saucepan] Sure.
- Dorothy: No, the one behind it, the really big one.
- [Rose hands Dorothy the large saucepan. Dorothy takes the saucepan, puts it over Rose's head, and begins to beat on it repeatedly with her wooden spoon.]
- Blanche: You know, you really have to give Max and Sophia credit. This business was their dream, and they're going after it. I just wish I'd done that with my dream.
- Dorothy: Fine. Honey, would you check on the pizzas? One may be ready.
- Blanche: Well, why don't you want to hear about my dream?
- Dorothy: Because it is always the same thing with you, Blanche - sex, sex, sex! I am tired of hearing it!
- Rose: Maybe that's because you're not getting any, Dorothy.
- Dorothy: You want the pot again, Rose?
Brother, Can You Spare That Jacket [4.08]
- Dorothy: [trying to convince the bodyguard at the thrift shop to hand over the aviator jacket with the winning lottery ticket inside] Look, if you don't mind, I would like to see this Michael.
- Bodyguard: You and the rest of Miami! Sorry, the entire engagement is SOLD OUT! Michael! [tosses jacket over the heads of the other bodyguards and into the clutches of a person wearing a black sequined glove; the bodyguards leave]
- Blanche: OH! Do you know who that is?!
- Sophia: Sure! It's the guy from the Pepsi commercials!
- Rose: Pepsi commercial? ... Michael? ... Oh my God, that's Michael J. Fox!!!
- Rose: [after the girls lose the auction for the aviator jacket] I guess now I'll never get to fly on the Concord!
- Blanche: And I'll never get to buy that emerald pendant to dangle between my perky bosoms.
- Sophia: And I'll never get to buy perky bosoms.
Scared Straight [4.09]
[Rose tries to help Clayton tell Blanche that he is homosexual]- Rose: Tell her, Clayton.
- Clayton: I will, Rose.
- Blanche: Tell me what?
- Clayton: Well, I ran into Rose in the park and...
- Blanche: And?
- Clayton: And we had a long talk and....
- Blanche: And?
- Clayton: And....we slept together tonight.
[Blanche tries to apologize to Rose]
- Blanche: Rose, honey, there's something I have to say to you. It's just two little words but, they are the hardest two little words in all the whole world for me to say.
- Rose: "Not tonight"?
- Clayton: I shouldn't have got you mixed up in all this. It's just so hard to tell Blanche the truth.
- Rose: Clayton, you're selling your sister short. Now at times Blanche can be very understanding and compassionate, and forgiving.
- Blanche: Get away from my baby brother you cradle snatchin', empty headed, two-faced dummy!
- Rose: And then at other times she can be a real bitch.
[Rose walks to the door to answer it, but she doesn't open it yet]
- Blanche: Who's that at the door?
- Rose: It's me, Blanche.
- Blanche: The other side!
Stan Takes a Wife [4.10]
- Stan: I really have to run now. I'm fixing a terrific late-night supper for Katherine.
- Dorothy: Oh, really? In thirty-eight years of marriage, you never once cooked a terrific meal for us.
- Stan: Neither did you.
[Sophia had just been hospitalized and Blanche returned to Dorothy and Rose with beverages]
- Blanche: Any word on Sophia?
- Dorothy: None. Oh, I hate waiting.
- Blanche: I hate hospitals.
- Rose: I hate when the people put each other down on Love Connection.
- Dorothy: Stan came by and stayed with me. Brought me food, held me. Showed me that special part of himself.
- Rose: Right there in the waiting room?
- Dorothy [looking disgusted] Not that part, Rose!
- Rose: Blanche, we can't let Dorothy ruin Stan and Katherine's wedding. I mean, it's selfish, it's adolescent and it'd put a real cramp in their honeymoon.
- [Dorothy enters the room]
- Blanche: Rose!
- Rose: [continuing] For somebody who's supposed to be so smart, Dorothy's acting like a real goober!
- [Dorothy notices, but remains silent as she walks towards Rose]
- Blanche: Rose...
- Rose: And don't think I won't be able to say that right to her face. 'Course, I'd have to stand on a chair!
- [Dorothy puts a chair behind Rose as she laughs hesitantly]
- Rose: It's her, isn't it?
- Stan: Will you girls excuse me, my girdle is killing me.
- Rose: He's wearing a girdle?
- Dorothy: And padded shoulder.
- Blanche: And knowing him, a sock in his crotch.
- Dorothy: Bartender, give me another.
- Bartender: Come on, lady. You don't need another.
- Dorothy: Why not?
- Bartender: You've had three already!
- Dorothy: I said give me another!
- Bartender: Fine. It's your life. Just don't blame me if you get sick. [places a basket of popcorn on the table]
[Stan's fiancé, Katherine, enters the bar at the hotel where they're getting married.]
- Bartender: What can I get you, lady?
- Katherine: How about a shot of self-confidence?
- Bartender: Let me guess. You didn't come in here to drink. You've got a problem and need someone to talk to. Am I right?
- Katherine: That's right.
- Bartender: Then take a quarter and call a shrink. This ain't Cheers!
[Stan's fiancé, Katherine, is talking to Dorothy without realizing that the woman she's talking to is Dorothy, Stan's ex-wife.]
- Katherine: [about Dorothy] See, he's got this ex-wife.
- Dorothy: You better be careful what you say. I happen to be an ex-wife.
- Katherine: Not like his, I'm sure. No one's like her! She's superwoman. She was the perfect wife! Cooked, cleaned, had two kids, got an education, has never looked better, and now she has a career!
- Dorothy: That wasn't a marriage. That's a commercial for a mini pad.
- Katherine: Her name is Dorothy, and she's coming to our wedding. I mean, they're still friends! Listen to me. I'm so intimidated by a woman I've never even met.
- Dorothy: Well, that's understandable. I mean, she sounds pretty terrific. I bet she's gorgeous too.
- Katherine: No, the daughter had a nose job and she had her mother's nose. Evidently, it was a honker!
The Auction [4.11]
- Jasper: You're idiots. The only humor here is my own. It's your great stupidity. This picture no more echos Monet than any of you echo a beauty queen, and you will waste no more of my time. [turns and leaves]
- Rose: Oh yeah?!
- Dorothy: Go easy on him Rose.
- [after giving blood to save Jasper's life]
- Sophia: Gee, you save a guy's life and all you get is apple juice and a cookie?
- Sid: [about the damaged roof] Yeah, I could patch it up for you, but that won't stop more leaks when it rains again.
- Rose: What are you trying to say, Sid?
- Sid: You couldn't follow that?
- Dorothy: She has trouble following Murder, She Wrote.
Blind Date [4.12]
- Dorothy: [about football] Little bodies don't like it when big bodies fall on them.
- Sophia: Which is why Raymond Burr never married!
- Sophia: [entering the house with the football team] Make way for the victors!
- Rose: You won the big game?
- Sophia: [sarcastically] No Rose, we lost and we all changed our names to Victor.
The Impotence of Being Ernest [4.13]
- Sophia: Gin!
- Blanche: Sophia, we're playin' Hearts.
- Sophia: I know, I felt like drinking some. If I'm gonna get through a boring Saturday night with you two, I'll need a buzz.
- Rose: [to Dorothy, Blanche and Sophia] Were you three listening to our conversation?!
- Dorothy: Absolutely not. You know we would never eavesdrop.
- Sophia: They made me do it. When I turn my hearing-aid up to ten, I can hear a canary break wind in Lauderdale!
- Rose: If you ask me, people rely too much on sex in relationships anyway.
- Ernest: You're right. I mean, what is sex, after all?
- Rose: Two clunky old bodies thrashing around against each other. Like animals.
- Ernest: You get all sweaty, and flushed.
- Rose: Your hair gets mussed.
- Ernest: You lose your breath.
- Rose: You lose your earrings.
- Ernest: [steadily turned on] Your mouth waters...
- Rose: [steadily turned on] Your nose runs...
- Ernest: ...your heart races...
- Rose: ...your blood races...
- Ernest: ...Rose...
- Rose: ...say it, Ernie...
- Ernest: It's time, Rose.
- Rose: [raises hand] Check, please!
Love Me Tender [4.14]
- Eddie: I know I'm plain to look at, but everything I do seems to drive the opposite sex crazy! I don't do it on purpose, it just happens! The way I look at a woman, the way I make love to a woman, the way I kiss a woman, the way I make love to a woman.
- Rose: You said "make love" twice.
- Eddie: I know. It's my favorite.
- Dorothy: Honey, there is more to Eddie than meets the eye. But the only thing we have in common is under the sheets.
- Rose: What's under the sheets?
- Dorothy: His cappuccino maker. SEX, Rose! I am talking SEX! We don't go to dinner, we don't go to the movies, we just go to bed, and it is TERRIFIC.
- Rose: Wow, all that and cappuccino too?!
- Blanche: I don't look right in American clothes. I have a more European body.
- Rose: Oh, in Europe do they all have big butts too?
- Eddie: You see, after 25 years of marriage, my wife Roberta sent me a "Dear John" letter.
- Rose: That's terrible, married 25 years and she doesn't know your name is Eddie!
Valentine's Day [4.15]
- Dorothy: Blanche, Steve called and canceled your date, didn't he?
- Blanche: [voice quavering] Yes!
- Rose: How did you know that, Dorothy?
- Dorothy: I'm clairvoyant, Rose.
- Rose: You're so lucky. I get into a pool and I sink like a stone.
- Maitre' D: [to Dorothy, Blanche and Rose, who have entered the dining room at the nudist hotel naked, and are shocked to discover that everyone else in the restaurant is clothed] Excuse me, ladies, we always dress for dinner here. And in your case, we'd appreciate it if you'd do that for all three meals.
- Dorothy: [in a flashback scene, chewing out Rose for booking them into a "clothing optional" resort for their Valentine's weekend getaway] Thanks a lot, Rose. Oh, this is a great Valentine's weekend, stuck in a hotel at a nudist camp for ten hours!
- Rose: I'm sorry, Dorothy, it's all my fault. I misunderstood the brochure.
- Dorothy: [reading from brochure] "Fun in the buff at a mountain retreat! Hike, swim and play volleyball while the sun beats down on your fanny!" Call David Horowitz; I mean, how can they get away with this misrepresentation!
- [Dorothy, Rose and Blanche are in line at a pharmacy - flashback scene]
- Blanche: In this day in age it might be a good idea to take along some... protection.
- Rose: What kind of protection?
- Dorothy: Two armed Pinkerton guards. No, Blanche is talking about... [indicates a nearby counter]
- Rose: A Nestle's Crunch?
- Dorothy: One over.
- Rose: An enema bag?
- Dorothy: To the right.
- Rose: Dentu-Grip?!
- Dorothy: CONDOMS, ROSE! CONDOMS, CONDOMS, CONDOMS!
- Cashier: Calm down, lady! You just get out of prison?
- Blanche: There's no reason to be embarrassed! Now these are discreet professionals. This is a private matter. Whatever we buy is nobody's business but our own! [picks up a package of condoms off the counter and hands it to the cashier] I'd like a package of these, please.
- Dorothy: [grabs another package of condoms and hands it to the cashier] And I'll take these.
- Rose: [looks around nervously, then tentatively grabs a random package of condoms off the counter and hands it to the cashier] ...and I'll take these.
- Blanche: Now, that wasn't so bad, was it?
- Cashier: [speaking into his microphone] JOE, I NEED A PRICE CHECK ON SOME CONDOMS! THESE THREE LADIES HERE WANT A COUPLE OF BOXES OF THE KING GEORGE PROPHYLACTICS, THE LAMBSKINS AND THE ULTRA-SENSITIVE. TWO OF THEM HAVE THE LAMBSKINS, AND THE BLONDE HAS THE ULTRA-SENSITIVE IN BLACK.
Two Rode Together [4.16]
- Dorothy: Ma, we're going away for the weekend, just the two of us. So pack your bags, we are off to a cabin in the Keys!
- Sophia: Wait a minute, Dorothy, you pulled this one on me once before. Remember Shady Pines Retirement Village? [to Rose and Blanche] She told me we were going to a resort. We pull up to this place that looks like the Bates Motel, and two goons in white coats drag me inside and for the next year and a half I'm forced to make lanyards against my will.
- Dorothy: Ma, you know that's not how it was!
- Sophia: You're right, sometimes they forced me to make moccasins. No thanks, not again!
- Dorothy: Look Ma, all I want is for us to go away together, just the two of us. Ma, we'll go anywhere you want to go.
- Sophia: Great, I wanna go to Disney World.
- Dorothy: Then that's where we're going.
- Sophia: Oh? All of a sudden you're gonna take me, after I've been asking for years?
- Dorothy: That's right!
- Sophia: [to Rose and Blanche] Leave your shoe sizes, let me know whether you want your moccasins in brown or black!
You Gotta Have Hope [4.17]
- Blanche: Rose, will you stop being an idiot!
- Dorothy: So that's it, you're willing to give us the Donatello Triplets if we put your new boyfriend in the show.
- Blanche: That's blackmail!
- Sophia: That's show business.
- Dorothy: [to Rose, on the fantasy that Bob Hope is her father] I don't know whether to cry or commit you!
- Dorothy: You can't sing, you can't dance, you can't tell jokes. I'm sorry, you can't be in the show.
- Sophia: You can't be in the show, you can't be in the show, who are you, Ricky Ricardo?
- Dorothy: Ma, why do you constantly look for ways to amuse yourself at my expense?
- Sophia: Because we don't have cable and I can't crochet. This is who I am Dorothy. Learn to live with it, or medicate me!
- Rose: What you need is faith.
- Dorothy: And what you need is a psychiatrist who enjoys a challenge.
Fiddler on the Ropes [4.18]
- Rose: I still feel guilty about going through Pepe's things.
- Blanche: Me too. Although it was kind of exciting opening his closet and seeing his little boxing trunks hanging there with that provocative nickname on 'em.
- Dorothy: Blanche, Everlast is a brand name, not a nickname.
Till Death Do We Volley [4.19]
- Trudy: Mrs. Petrillo, is that you?
- Sophia: No, it's Jane Fonda.
- Blanche: Oh, Dorothy, high school reunions can be so much fun. I will never forget mine! I was the most successful person there.
- Dorothy: Blanche, didn't you go to school with that brilliant doctor who won the Nobel Prize?
- Blanche: Oh, yes, but she let her looks go to hell.
- Dorothy: Oh, a girl never had a better friend than Trudy McMahon.
- Sophia: [laughs]
- Dorothy: What, Ma?
- Sophia: Oh, nothing, my underwear just hiked up on me. Right while you were lying.
- Dorothy: Why do you say I'm lying?
- Sophia: A girl never had a better friend than Trudy McMahon? Somebody here doesn't remember Prom Night 1946!
- Rose: Why, what happened?
- Sophia: I don't know, I'm that somebody.
- Dorothy: I am so excited! I can't believe I'm going to see Trudy again after all these years!
- Rose: Oh, I'm excited for you too, Dorothy. That's why I want everything perfect. I'm making Scandinavia's oldest and most traditional appetizer treat: cheese and crackers.
- Blanche: Cheese and crackers, Rose? Not eggs gefluffen? Ham and gunterhoggins? Pigs in a svengebluten?
- Rose: No, but you sure know how to make a girl's mouth water!
- Blanche: (begins to tell a story about "acceptance" to console Dorothy) I remember I was a blossomin' belle who had just won the Little Miss Magnolia pageant...
- Dorothy: Blanche, before you start, realize I am very vulnerable now, and in no mood to hear a story about you and some yahoo-cracker with four first names pawing at each other under a magnolia tree.
- Blanche: Well, pardon me, Dorothy, but we can't all come from places as socially acceptable as Brooklyn.
- Dorothy: I'm sorry, Blanche, I'm sorry, go on with the story. Just try to shy away from words like "tarnation" and "catfish."
- Blanche: Fine. Anyway, I was about eight years old when I first met Cathy Lee on the playground. We became fast friends. Just as thick as Louisiana blackstrap molasses on a stack of johnnycakes as high as an elephant's knee---
- Dorothy: On a riverboat floating down the Mississippi delta... FINISH THE DAMN STORY, BLANCHE!
- Blanche: Anyway, it was at a Southern seafood fry that I proudly dragged Cathy Lee over to meet my folks. Well, my mama took one look at Cathy Lee and forbade me ever to see her again!
- Rose: Why?
- Blanche: Because her mother was not in the Daughters of the Confederacy. Oh, how my heart went out to little Cathy Lee, standin' there while our servants snickered at her servants. But Mama insisted I break off the friendship, or I wouldn't get brand new ridin' boots for Christmas! So I did.
- Dorothy: Blanche, why is this a story about acceptance?
- Blanche: Oh - because years later, to get back at me, Cathy Lee slept with my daddy! That was something I had to accept. Mama accepted it too - along with a brand new Cadillac Eldorado for her birthday. You know, my family had a few dollars, and I loved them dearly, but when you get right down to it, basically they were trash.
- Sophia: [bursting into Dorothy's room] Picture it! Sicily, 1852!
- Dorothy: Ma, I am in no mood; and besides, you weren't alive in 1852.
- Sophia: What, we can't learn from history? It was mid-century, and a disillusioned Italy looked to the House of Savoy for leadership. Giuseppe Garibaldi, our courageous leader - and not a bad dresser - thought, "Let's regain some national pride and jump into this Crimean War thing." Of course, there was a big kickoff party at Giuseppe's beach house, and everyone came. Coincidentally, this was also the night his wife, Rosa, hit her sexual peak.
- Dorothy: Ma, I am in here because of GUILT! This isn't a story about guilt.
- Sophia: This is a story about being a bad hostess! While Rosa had Giuseppe in the bedroom with his saber around his ankles, two hundred hungry guests were strip-searching mice for a piece of cheese!
- Dorothy: Ma, so what's your point? That Rosa and I throw bad parties?
- Sophia: That's my minor point. My major point is, that like Rosa, you're screwing around in the bedroom while there are important things to do outside!
High Anxiety [4.20]
- Blanche: I don't want a TV crew comin' in here, messin' up my kitchen, settin' up all that video equipment!
- Rose: Well, how about shooting it in your bedroom, Blanche? The equipment's already set up there!
- Sophia: I got the director to change his mind.
- Blanche: [excitedly] Oh, then he's comin' back here to shoot the commercial?
- Sophia: No, he doesn't wanna get anywhere near Rose. He's gonna shoot it at his studio.
- Blanche: But if he shoots it at his studio, then I get screwed and have nothin' to show for it!
- Sophia: Welcome to show business.
- Dorothy: [making malted milkshakes for herself, Blanche and Rose] Didn't I tell you I used to work in a malt shop when I was in high school?
- Blanche: Soda jerk?
- Rose: No thanks, I'll have a malted.
- Dorothy: [rolls the dice, moves her game piece and picks a card from the center of the gameboard] How odd, I can either buy the library or the phonebooth in the center of town. I'll buy the library.
- Rose: If I were you, I'd buy the phonebooth.
- Dorothy: Why?
- Rose: People use the phonebooth.
- Dorothy: That's because you're hooked on these Rose. But honey, there's a place for people with this kind of problem.
- Sophia: Please, what is she gonna do in the NBA?
- Dorothy: [when Rose says she'd be too embarrassed at a rehabilitation center] Was Betty Ford embarrassed? Was Liza Minnelli embarrassed?
- Sophia: She should've been. Did you see Arthur 2? [makes a face]
- Sophia: Sorry Dorothy. There are two things a Sicilian won't do: Lie about pizza, and file a tax return.
- Blanche: Well, Rose, I might not have any idea what it's like to feel the kind of dependency you do, but, there was a time in my life when I tried quittin' somethin'.
- Dorothy: Blanche, you don't mean...
- Blanche: Sex, Dorothy. I tried quittin' sex.
- Dorothy: Obviously you fell off the wagon.
- Sophia: And onto a naval base!
- Blanche: [on why her attempt to give up sex failed] Barely a month had gone by before I started feeling those awful stirrings and urges. I was like a spring bloomin' peach bud just ripened to dewy fruition, waitin' to be plucked by the first handsome man to come my way!
- Dorothy: You were looking for some nookie.
- Blanche: Exactly.
- Blanche: Before my mama sent me off to beauty camp, I was a pencil-thin, flat-chested, four-eyed nerd!
- Sophia: I don't believe it. You, pencil-thin?
Little Sister [4.21]
- Rose: [about her sister Holly] We haven't gotten along since we were kids.
- Blanche: Why is she coming here then?
- Rose: Well, she's here on business. She's a world renown flautist.
- Dorothy: Oh, she plays the flute?
- Rose: No, Dorothy, she plays the flaut. It's a Scandinavian instrument that looks like a tuba except it's got hair on the bottom. Of course she plays the flute!
- Blanche: Why is there a big hairy beast in my house?
- Sophia: My guess is because he bought you dinner.
- Holly: She's feisty, zesty, and full of Old World charm, Sophia!
- Sophia: She's mopey, dopey, and full of crap, Rose's sister. Don't mess with me kid, I have the home court advantage.
Sophia's Choice [4.22]
- Rose: [Blanche has just come back from her appointment with the plastic surgeon who will perform her breast augmentation] Hi, Blanche. How was your appointment with Dr. Rosenzweig?
- Blanche: Well, I was so nervous that I just rushed right in there and pulled off my top, and said, "Well, what do you think?"
- Rose: What did he say?
- Blanche: Well, he said, "I think you're probably looking for Dr. Rosenzweig. But if you ever want a discount on life insurance, call me."
Foreign Exchange [4.24]
- Blanche: Dorothy, have you ever heard of something called "dirty dancing"?
- Dorothy: Well of course Blanche. They did it in that movie.
- Rose: What movie?
- Dorothy: Lawrence of Arabia, Rose.
- Sophia: [seeing Blanche hold Rose in a dirty dancing pose] What they do is their business, but if I ever see your hand on Rose's behind, it'll kill me!
Sick and Tired [5.01]
- Blanche: Listen, tell me I can't do better than this in my sleep. [Opens a book and begins to read] "He grabbed her. She could feel his fingers pressing into her moist flesh. Her heart was pounding, her loins on fire. As he spun her around, her dress ripping open..." Do you know how many times I have experienced that?
- Rose: [puzzled] Your loins have been on fire?
- Blanche: Yes! [Reading again] "...she melted into..."
- Rose: Where exactly are your loins?
- Blanche: Rose, it doesn't matter, just listen. "...she melted into his arms, faint now with the animal musk of him..."
- Rose: I didn't know people had loins! I've heard of loin of pork...
- Sophia: [indicating Blanche] In her case, the same thing.
- Blanche: [Comparing Dorothy's situation to the book she plans to write] Just like my heroine, sicker and sicker. Though, of course, my heroine doesn't look like you. This is a romantic novel, not science fiction! [She walks out of the kitchen laughing]
- Dorothy: Remind me, when I feel better, to kick the crap out of her.
- Doctor: [On Dorothy's illness] It could be functional.
- Sophia: Functional?
- Doctor: Mental.
- Sophia: Mental?!! Well, let me tell you something, Mr. 100% Tip-Top Mental. My daughter may be no spring chicken, and her jaw might crack when she chews! And she may have noticeable trouble digesting raw vegetables! But one thing she is not, is mental!
- Dorothy: Thanks, Ma.
- Sophia: Ribs, great... why don't you just kick the dentures out of my mouth?!
- Blanche: What a waste, Rose Nylund in New York!
- Rose: [to Dorothy] It's going to be a great trip, you wait and see. You're going to be cured, and I'm going to get to see the Big Potato!
- [Blanche gives Dorothy a "See?" look]
- Dorothy: I said she was comforting, I didn't say she was smart.
- Blanche: Oh, girls, I have Writer's Block! It is the worst feeling in the world!
- Sophia: Try ten days without a bowel movement sometime.
- Blanche: You just sit there, hour after hour after hour!
- Sophia: Tell me about it.
- Rose: You know, there are all sorts of things that people get that they can't diagnose, and then they disappear as mysteriously as they came. Gustav Lundqvist got sick from something mysterious, and he nearly died - well, he did die, in fact. Then at the cemetery, Beatrice Lundqvist, his wife, kept screaming, "He's alive! He's alive! I can hear it from the grave!" Well, everyone thought it was the hallucinations of a grieving widow, so they sedated her. But when she woke up from her sedation, she told them that he had said from the grave, "We never paid our '78 through '86 income taxes!" And his partner said, "Only Gustav would know that! He must be alive!" So, they all raced to the cemetery, and the entire town started digging like crazy, kneeling by the grave, using their hands even, dirt flying and Beatrice screaming. And when they opened that coffin, there he was... dead as a doornail.
- Blanche: What is the point of that ridiculous story, Rose?!
- Rose: The point is, Gustav didn't die from his mysterious disease at all! He lived and recovered. The trouble is, he recovered while he was buried, so by the time they got to him, he'd died of suffocation.
- Blanche: I just don't believe these stories you tell, Rose!
- Rose: Another tragic aspect was, the IRS was waiting at the cemetery to arrest Gustav's partner, Bergstrom. So, Bergstrom killed himself right then and there, by grabbing the gun from Sheriff Tocqvist and shooting himself. What they did then was, since the grave was still open, and everyone was right there, and Gustav and Bergstrom had been partners, so they put Bergstrom in with Gustav and had a double burial. Unfortunately, later they found out that Bergstrom wanted to be cremated.
- Blanche: Oh... shut up, Rose!!!
- Sophia: Your heart's in the right place, Rose, but I don't know where the hell your brain is!
- Rose: Blanche, you look terrible.
- Blanche: What day is this? I've been up for 72 hours. I've had a breakthrough. I've discovered a new form of writing. I will go down in history. First I wrote all day, then I tore it all up, and then that night it came to me and the words poured forth like liquid from a stream. It was almost a mystical experience. Somebody else was writing this.
- Rose: Who?
- Blanche: Every man. This is every man's work. It's all gold. Just open it anywhere, the magic will touch you. But I'm so tired, I must sleep, but I cannot sleep, I'm too tired to sleep. *dramatic pause* I may never sleep again. I may die from this...I just don't know what I'm going to do--[seeing a bag of egg yolks; after a minute she picks them up and studies them]--my God, I'm hallucinating! I see little balls of sunshine in a bag! Does this mean something?
- Rose: Those are egg yolks, Blanche.
- Blanche: [tosses bag aside] My brain's gone.
- Rose: Good luck Dorothy. I hope he finds something wrong with you. [Dorothy stares at her] Oh, I don't mean something wrong wrong. I just mean something wrong so that you know you're right when you know there's something wrong and you haven't been wrong all along.
- Blanche: My God, I can't even understand people when they speak anymore I'm so tired. What'd she just say, Dorothy? Was that a poem?
The Accurate Conception [5.02]
- Blanche: If you will excuse me, Becky and I are having breakfast on the lanai. We're still bonding.
- Sophia: Dorothy, how come we never bond?
- Dorothy: We're from before bonding and quality time. We're from when people stayed together because they had no choice.
- Blanche: What in hell are we doing here. I feel like I'm in the middle of some awful dream, yet I know it can't be a dream because there are no boy dancers.
- Rebecca: Mother!
- Blanche: I just cannot believe you are actually going to give money to someone like this "sperm pusher!" You are a Deveraux, a Deveraux has never had to pay for it, I certainly haven't.
- Dorothy: She's always depended on the kindess of strangers.
- Rebecca: I got up early and did some research. There's a sperm bank not far from here.
- Rose: How convenient.
- Sophia: No kidding do they have a drive up window?
- Rose: Just last week, I was reading that you can buy the sperm of Nobel Prize winners. Or was it Star Search winners?
- Blanche: Buy? Well sperm used to be free, it was all over the place!
- Rebecca: Well, Mama, I'm going to do this whether you like it or not.
- Blanche: Oh? Oh, I see, missy. So this is the thanks I get for all those cold nights when you were a baby crying, and I had to get up out of bed and grope around in the dark for my slippers and robe, make my way all the way downstairs and, scream for the governess?!! [storms off]
- Dorothy: [enters kitchen and sees various plates of food laid out in front of Blanche on the table] Hungry or suicidal?
- Blanche: My little girl is going to have a baby by artificial insemination.
- [Rose, Sophia and Dorothy all pause and stare at Blanche with shocked expressions on their faces.]
- Blanche: I just can't bear to think about it.
- [More silence and shocked expressions.]
- Blanche: I'm just being silly, aren't I?
- [Yet more silence and shocked expressions.]
- Blanche: For God's sake, someone say something!
- Rose: [shivering, making a disgusted face] Oooooooh!
- Dorothy: [to Rose] Big help.
- Blanche: Dorothy, what about you? You're always the sensible one around here, the free, modern thinker who keeps up with the times. Now what do you think?
- Dorothy: [shivering, making a disgusted face] Oooooooh!
Rose Fights Back [5.03]
- Rose: [to Enrique, the consumers reporter, on why she should get the production assistant job.] I am the battered consumer. I drive a Gremlin, for god's sake!
- [the girls are testing different hair-removal products]
- Rose: Dorothy, would you like to try this thing?
- Dorothy: What is it?
- Rose: Well, that wire vibrates and it's supposed to whisk hair away below the skinline.
- Dorothy: I don't know whether I want to use this, it says it's gonna hurt.
- Rose: Well, you can try it on your right leg and then use the hot wax on your left one.
- Dorothy: Why don't we just set each other on fire?
- Rose: Dorothy...
- Dorothy: All right, all right. Let's see if they sent a bullet to bite on.
- Dorothy: I remember when I started shaving. I was thirteen, and I wanted to shave because I was going to a movie with Alan Steckler, you remember him, Ma?
- Sophia: Small head, enormous lips.
- Dorothy: Anyway, Ma told me that once I started shaving, I'd never be able to stop. I mean she said I'd regret it for the rest of my life because my legs would have bristles.
- Sophia: I was right. By the time you were sixteen, I could grate cheese on your knees!
- Blanche: You know, a lot of those European girls don't shave under their arms.
- Rose: Is that true?
- Blanche: They just let it all hang out.
- Rose: Really?
- Blanche: Bushy as can be.
- Rose: Well, what do they look like in a strapless dress?
- Dorothy: Like Milton Berle, Rose.
Love Under the Big Top [5.04]
- Rose: Blanche, you saw that dolphin, all tangled up in that tuna boat's net. Thousands of them die that way each year. We have to do something.
- Blanche: You're absolutely right. From this moment on, no more tuna fish.
- Rose: Blanche, you hate tuna fish.
- Blanche: Alright, then no more tuna fisher... men.
Dancing in the Dark [5.05]
- Blanche: Rose, Miles called again. He wants you to meet him outside the concert hall.
- Rose: I asked you to tell him I'm not going.
- Blanche: I'm not gonna do your dirty work for you, Rose.
- Rose: Well, I don't wanna talk to him. He makes me feel foolish. I don't even feel comfortable telling him St. Olaf stories.
- Dorothy: I want to know exactly what he said to make you feel that way.
- Rose: Look, I'm not going out with him. You go, Blanche.
- Dorothy: What?!
- Rose: Well, you like him, I know you do. So you go.
- Blanche: Well, I couldn't!
- Dorothy: Of course she couldn't!
- Blanche: You stay out of this, Dorothy.
- Rose: Well, why not? It's all over between us. He'll know that tonight.
- Blanche: It's impossible. I'd feel like a... like a...
- Dorothy: A backstabbing slut?
- Blanche: ...No...
- Rose: Please go. For me. I'll feel better knowing this thing is finally over with.
- Blanche: Well, since you put it that way. But only as a personal favor to you, honey. I guess I'd better go get dressed. [Blanche exits]
- Rose: [to Dorothy] Can you believe that backstabbing slut?
Not Another Monday [5.06]
- Dorothy: Hi, Ma. Hello, Martha. Where were you?
- Sophia: I'll give you a hint. The guest of honor had lipstick on her teeth and didn't give a damn.
- Blanche: Who died?
- Martha: My best friend, Lydia.
- Dorothy: I'm so sorry.
- Martha: She suffered so. It was a blessing in disguise.
- Sophia: I always wondered why blessings wore disguises. If I were a blessing, I'd run around naked.
- Rose: Sophia, I can't believe you're doing this! This reminds me of the story of Gunilla Olfstatter, St. Olaf's very own Angel of Death.
- Dorothy: Tell it, Rose, tell it.
- Rose: Really? All the way through?
- Dorothy: All the way through, but please try to make the end come as close to the beginning as possible!
- Rose: Well, Gunilla Olfstatter was a nurse at Cedars of St. Olaf Hospital. One night she was taking care of Sven Bjornsen, and he asked her if she would get him some more mouth moisteners and then kill him. Gunilla brought the mouth moisteners right away, but the killing thing, it seemed to go against everything she'd been taught!
- Dorothy: You're doing beautifully, Rose.
- Rose: He begged and he begged and by her coffee break she couldn't stand it anymore, so she pulled the plug and he died. Well, she was wracked with guilt that night. Not only had she parked her car in a doctor's spot, but she was never sure whether Sven's pleading was the pain talking or the medication talking or the guy in the next bed talking. You see, the guy in the next bed was Ingmar Von Bergman, St. Olaf's meanest ventriloquist.
- Dorothy: Rose, we are going somewhere with this, aren't we? I mean, if not, I'm gonna cut out your tongue.
- Rose: Yes! Sven came back to haunt Gunilla. Since then, every Tuesday night at ten - nine Central -
- [Dorothy slams her fork down in frustration]
- Rose: ...she hears noises. Some say it's the wind, but some say it's Sven's voice whispering back from the other side, saying: "Turn around, quick! His lips are moving!"
- Dorothy: [to Sophia] You see that, Ma? You kill someone, you end up being a Rose story.
- [the doorbell rings]
- Rose: Oh, that must be the baby.
- Sophia: There's a baby coming?
- Rose: A couple from my church are going camping over the weekend and we get to take care of the baby.
- Sophia: Good. Maybe now you'll get some food I can chew!
- Sophia: How about a cup of tea, Martha?
- Martha: A little. I made a pig of myself at the funeral.
- Sophia: It was nice. Everybody had a good time.
- Martha: I'm going to miss her so much.
- Sophia: I know. But you said yourself, the last few weeks were so hard on her. At least now she's resting peacefully.
- Martha: I feel so bad.
- Sophia: Hey, I'm the one who should feel bad. Lydia and I were wearing the same dress.
- Bartender: Hi. Can I get you ladies drinks?
- Sophia: I'll have a Manhattan and I'm watching, so don't slip me any of the cheap stuff.
- Martha: I'll have another Harvey Wallbanger.
- Sophia: Seeing quite a bit of Mr. Wallbanger tonight!
- Martha: I'm celebrating, because I've just had an idea that will change my life. Order anything you like. I'm going to have the shrimp cocktail, the cream of mushroom soup, asparagus with hollandaise sauce, and the filet mignon.
- Sophia: I like cholesterol as much as the next guy, but you're never gonna get blood to your feet again.
- Martha: I'd like to drink a toast. To Sophia, whom I hope I can count on.
- Sophia: For what? Get your lips off Harvey and tell me what you want!
- Martha: Since you mentioned it, I want you to do something for me. I want you to come over to my place tomorrow night.
- Sophia: Oh, what is it, your birthday?
- Martha: Sophia, there aren't going to be anymore birthdays.
- Sophia: What are you telling me?
- Martha: I have so many things wrong with me - arthritis, high blood pressure, angina, just to mention a few.
- Sophia: Who doesn't? You can't get into a canasta game unless you have at least two debilitating diseases.
- Martha: You don't understand. I'm afraid of the pain, of the hurting. I'm afraid of being alone, of dying alone. I could take the pills myself, but I want you to be there with me and hold my hand.
- Sophia: You're right; I don't understand. I'd do anything to stay alive. If my heart stopped beating, I'd want every doctor in town jumping up and down on my chest.
- Rose: It was just a dream, Sophia.
- Sophia: It's not just a dream for me. Martha wants to commit suicide...and she wants me to be there with her.
- Blanche: And what did you say?
- Sophia: I said I'd think about it. You can't say no to someone who pops for a $75 dinner; tell them, Blanche.
- Sophia: Remember better. Remember life!
- Martha: I don't have much of one. I'm not like you. You live with friends and family, holidays and warmth. I...hear the silence.
- Sophia: We'll talk. We'll talk all the time. You can come over Thanksgiving, Christmas, every Friday night. I may not be there, but you could always talk to Rose.
- Martha: No, I want to go. Lydia looked so peaceful. [takes hold of the pills]
- Sophia: [immediately grabs the pills] We're not in this life for peace!
- Martha: You're crying.
- Sophia: No, I'm not, I don't cry.
- Martha: I can see your tears!
- Sophia: And I can see yours, you know what that tells me?
- Martha: What?
- Sophia: You're not as ready to die as you think you are. You still wanna live, kid!
- Martha: Some kid! I don't know what to do.
- Sophia: That's the point. If you're not sure, then you can't change your mind tomorrow. You wanted me to be there for your death. How about letting me be here for your life?
- Martha: Like a friend?
- Sophia: Like a best friend.
That Old Feeling [5.07]
- Blanche: All we did all night was talk about George. How much George loved me, how George couldn't take his eyes off me, how George would have to save his money to buy presents good enough for me. It felt so good talking about George.
Comedy of Errors [5.08]
- Blanche: Dorothy's going through her high school yearbook to see who alls dead.
- Sophia: That's my pussycat, fun, fun, fun!
- Dorothy: I'll never be rich before I'm 21, I'll never be homecoming queen.
- Sophia: You can still be homecoming queen, it'll just be a different kind of home.
- Rose: Dorothy, you're the smart one, and Blanche, you're the sexy one and Sophia, you're the old one. I'm the nice one. Everybody always likes me.
- Sophia: The old one isn't so crazy about you.
- Dorothy: Ma, these are your twilight years.
- Sophia: Are you kidding? I'm supposed to be dead! These are your twilight years.
- Rose: You all wanna see my vanskapkaka?
- Sophia: As long as I don't have to show you mine.
- Dorothy: [about performing at the comedy club] I couldn't, I'd be up there sweating bullets.
- Sophia: And dodging some.
All That Jazz [5.09]
- Sophia: Dorothy, where I come from you learn never to turn your back on family! NEVER! When your crazy cousin Nunzio started living with his pet goat, did the family turn their back on him? No. And after a couple of nights neither did the goat.
- Rose: [Talking about raising children] The hardest part for me was explaining to my Kirstin the difference between boys and girls. I knew the time had come but I kept putting it off. Finally I decided it was time to take the bull by the horns.
- Blanche: So you told her?
- Rose: No - I took the bull by the horns, turned him around and showed her what makes a bull a bull.
- Blanche: You are kidding, Rose?
- Rose: No! That's how my mother taught me.
- Blanche: Honey, didn't that give you a false impression about...what a man would look like?
- Rose: It sure did! Can you imagine my surprise on my wedding night with Charlie? Boy, that bull would have been jealous.
- Dorothy: [Rose is upset about work and Dorothy is upset after falling out with her son Michael] Now look - Rose, stop whining! You know that your going to have to speak to your boss about your workload - wallowing in self pity is not going to help!
- Blanche: [walking in] How are you feeling, Dorothy?
- Dorothy: My life is falling apart and now Rose is bothering me!
- Blanche: [about Michael] You just did what you had to!
- Dorothy: Blanche, knowing that does not help! I am going crazy - wondering where he is - I mean he could be sleeping under a pier for all I know - or in some flophouse or out on the street!
- Sophia: [walking in] Michael called - he's staying with Stan.
- Dorothy: OH GOD, IT'S EVEN WORSE THAN I THOUGHT!
Have Yourself a Very Little Christmas [5.11]
- Dorothy: Oh, boy, it is hell out there. It must be 103 and the mall was impossible.
- Sophia: Did you get something for the grandchildren?
- Dorothy: Oh, please. You know Robbie wants a Batman hat. I went to six different stores, they were all sold out. I finally went to one store where they had one hat left, and another woman saw it. Ugh! I cannot believe a person would push a perfect stranger out of the way, step on her hand, and give her an elbow to the forehead, just for a Batman hat...but I did it anyway!
- Rose: You know, I've been thinking.
- Blanche: Oh, that would explain the beads of sweat.
- Rose: I sure miss a traditional St. Olaf Christmas.
- Dorothy: Excuse me, Rose, do we have time to run out and get hit by a bus?
- Rose: First there'd be the Christmas pageant with the shepherds and the angels, and the Two Wise Men.
- Blanche: There were three wise men, Rose.
- Rose: Not in St. Olaf. Then we'd all go down to the town square and try to form a circle, and then we'd all go home and smoke kippers.
- Blanche: Why, Rose?
- Rose: Because it's the best way to get your house to smell like kippers. And then, in keeping with the spirit of Christmas, it was traditional to let all the animals sleep inside that night. And then the next morning the rumors would start... and they'd continue until New Year's, and we'd all make resolutions that it would never happen again. But then the next year, all it took was a little eggnog and one wise guy saying, "What the hell, it's Christmas!"
- Sophia: Your brother Phil, God rest his brain, gives the worst presents in the world! What kind of a gift is dental floss?
- Rose: Well, it's waxed and mint-flavored.
- Sophia: [tosses package to Rose] Here, go floss yourself. This stinks! After the swell gift I sent him!
- Blanche: What was it?
- Sophia: A catalog item.
- Blanche: L.L. Bean?
- Sophia: Victoria's Secret.
- Rose: Like we say in St. Olaf, Christmas without fruitcake is like Saint Sigmund's Day without the Headless Boy!
Mary Has a Little Lamb [5.12]
- Rose: [to a pregnant Mary] Now you come into the kitchen with me, honey, I'll get you some pickles and ice cream.
- Mary: Oh, no thanks, I don't have any strange cravings yet.
- Rose: Strange?
- Sophia: [to Mary] So when's the baby due?
- Dorothy: Ma! You're talking to a sixteen-year-old girl!
- Sophia: A knocked-up sixteen-year-old girl.
- [Everyone looks at Mary, who nods slightly.]
- Dorothy: Ma, how did you know that?
- Sophia: She had the same look of panic on her face that you had when you were pregnant. Sort of like a deer caught in the headlights. I only thought pregnant sixteen-year-old girls had that look until I saw Dan Quayle on TV.
[Merrill's being released from prison to see Blanche after she's written him letters]
[Sophia's running around with a small box putting things into it]
- Dorothy: Ma, what are doing?
- Sophia: Merril called, he's coming over, so I am hiding our valuables.
- Dorothy: Oh, Ma, I don't think he's dangerous. You've read those letters to Blanche. They're almost lyrical.
[Door rings. It's Merrill]
- Merrill: I want Blanche.
- Sophia: Break out the finger sandwiches Mr. Astaire looks hungry.
- Merrill: [To Dorothy] Are you Blanche?
- Dorothy: No!
- Merrill: [To Sophia] How about you cutie?
- Sophia: Boy this guys done hard time.
[Blanche shocked to see Merrill who was released from prison]
- Blanche: Dorothy, you didn't tell me you were having company.
- Dorothy: This is Merrill.
- Blanche: Well how do you do Merrill? [realizing who he is immediately jumps from the couch] MERRILL!
- Dorothy: He is here to see Blanche, and we told him we don't know when Blanche will be back.
- Blanche: Oh no, you wouldn't want to wait around for her, she's cold...rigid, hardly likes men at all.
- Rose: And she's ugly, isn't she.
- Blanche: Ugly is kind of a strong word Rose.
- Rose: And wrinkled.
- Blanche: She is not wrinkled.
- Rose: And fat.
- Blanche: Stop that! You stop that right now, she is none of those things, she is gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous!
- Merrill: Alright, works for me, tell Blanche I'll be back.
- Blanche: [after Merrill leaves] And stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid!
- Sophia: [about Mary's dog Samson] Did I ever tell you what that dog did to my friend Ida Silverman?
- Dorothy: No, what?
- Sophia: He ate her! Gobbled her up without a trace, support hose and all!
- Dorothy: Ma, Ida's daughter told me she moved to Fort Lauderdale.
- Sophia: The woman's in denial! I saw that dog with Ida's blue scarf in his mouth and no one has seen her since!
- Sophia: You think that since Mary went out and got herself pregnant she's a slut. Well let me tell ya what a slut is. A slut is a girl who gets knocked up in the back of a Studebaker. It was a Studebaker, right Dorothy?
- Dorothy: It was a Nash, Ma.
- Sophoa: Now that's a slut.
- Dorothy: [helping untie Sophia] Who did this to you?
- Sophia: [sarcastically] The Sandinistas!
Great Expectations [5.13]
- Blanche: [comes into the kitchen dressed in cowgirl costume] Oh, Dorothy, by any chance did you borrow my pearl-handle six-shooter?
- Dorothy: Blanche, you look ridiculous!
- Blanche: Oh, I do not! I'm a cowgirl! Yippie-i-o-K-Y!
- Dorothy: Ki-yay.
- Blanche: Whatever.
- Sophia: All right, all right, I can pick up a cue. Picture it: Sicily, 1912. A beautiful young peasant girl with clear olive skin, meets an exciting but penniless Spanish artist. There's an instant attraction. They laugh, they sing, they slam down a few boilermakers. Shortly afterwards he's arrested for showing her how he can hold his pallet without using his hands...But I digress. He paints her portrait and they make passionate love. She spends much of the next day in the shower with a loofa sponge scrubbing his fingerprints off her body. She sees the portrait and is insulted. It looks nothing like her, and she storms out of his life forever. That peasant girl was me. And that painter...was Pablo Picasso.
- Dorothy: Ma, I have a feeling you're lying.
- Rose: Be positive, Dorothy.
- Dorothy: OK, I'm POSITIVE you're lying!
- Thinking Group: [in unison] You're special.
- Sophia: You're nuts.
- Blanche: What's the point of wearing this if I've got nothing to put in it?
- Sophia: I say that every morning when I'm putting on my bra.
- Rose: Dorothy, in times like these, you have to hold on to your faith. Just like Hans Glookenflonkin: St. Olaf's greatest explorer.
- Dorothy: Rose, please, let me have a little recovery time before you start a St. Olaf story--
- Rose: You see, Hans Glookenflonkin, set out for Florida, to find the Fountain of Intelligence. Unfortunately, when he got to Duluth he took a left, instead of a right and wound up back in St. Olaf. That's how he got his nickname, Wrong Way Glookenflonkin.
- Dorothy: Rose, how is this a story about faith?
- Rose: Well, when he got back it was the dead of winter. Tired and hungry, but still clinging to his belief that he would find the Fountain of Intelligence. He saw the miracle water, trickling out of the ground, and he fell to his knees and tasted it. Unfortunately, it was a broken sewer main. Two days later, he died of cholera.
- Dorothy: What is the point, Rose?
- Rose: He was positive he had found the Fountain of Intelligence. In fact, his dying words were, "I think I've learned something from this."
Triple Play [5.14]
- Blanche: [to Miles' daughter] Oh, Caroline, one year after your mother's demise is more than respectable. Why, I've had people call me when their wife was in intensive care!
- Sophia: Dorothy, do we know anybody named Cecelia?
- Dorothy: Your cousin, Ma. She only has weeks to live.
- Sophia: Oh. Next time I'll accept the charges.
- Rose: [returning from a date with Miles to see The Glass Menagerie] Frankly, I was a little disappointed.
- Miles: Really?
- Rose: Yeah. When you told me you were taking me to a revival of Tennessee Williams, I was expecting something more along the lines of a seance.
- Miles: [laughing] Rose, I have never met anyone like you!
- Sophia: Check the cornfield on Hee Haw.
- Blanche: [on her scheme to put a fake ad in the paper for a Mercedes for sale, in order to meet men] I'm renting [a Mercedes] and pretending it's for sale. All day tomorrow, men are going to be showing up here for a test drive! You can tell a lot about a man by the way he drives.
- Dorothy: You know, that's true. Sometimes Stan couldn't even get the key in the ignition.
Clinton Avenue Memoirs [5.15]
- Dorothy: [looking at old family photos] Ah look, the Jersey shore, Summer 1939.
- Sophia: Pop sure loved playing with you kids... why do I look so upset?
- Dorothy: Oh Ma, don't you remember? Pop was a big fan of Jean Harlow's back then, you hated him when he made sand breasts in front of the children.
- Dorothy: [about Sophia] Oh dammit, I hate watching what this is doing to her.
- Blanche: I hate watching what it's doing to you.
- Rose: I hate watching those FBI warnings at the beginning of video rentals.
[Sophia and Dorothy return from a visit to the doctor]
- Rose: Sophia, Dorothy, how'd it go at the doctor's?
- Dorothy: It was great. He says that Ma's memory problem could be related to a nutritional imbalance, so he put her on a special diet and if she follows it, she'll be fine from here on out.
- Sophia: Oh, lucky me, I can remember from now on, my whole past is gone! I could have slept with JFK and don't even know it!
- Dorothy: Ma, I don't think so, you're not mentioned in any of the books.
- Blanche: Well, that doesn't necessarily mean anything...
- Sophia: You know, I hate getting old, you alway seem to be losing something, first it's your eyesight. Then people are telling you to turn down the TV set when you can barely hear it, and you could live with that. But this, they're trying to take something from me that I just won't give. I can't let this happen Dorothy. I can't lose my Sal, not again.
- Sophia: Isn't it good to be back in the old neighborhood, Dorothy? Watching the kids play stickball on the corner?
- Dorothy: Ma, they were beating a man! That was sort of why I called the police.
Like the Beep Beep Beep of the Tom-Tom [5.16]
- Rose: I remember an old lullaby my mother used to sing to me, so whenever I'm scared or alone, I sing it.
- Blanche: I don't need a song.
- Rose: [singing] Over there, over there, send the word, send the word over there, that the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming!
- Dorothy: THAT was the lullaby your mother sang to you?
- Rose: It was the only song she knew.
- Rose: [about singing "Over There" to stop being afraid] It works! My mother said that no one can be afraid when they hear that song...except maybe the Kaiser.
- Blanche: I've been to enough funerals to see how they make up dead people. They look like clowns. You expect to see ten of them come out of one coffin.
- Blanche: Oh, I cannot have any scars. You see, all my clothes are off the shoulder...eventually.
- Dorothy, Sophia and Rose: [singing to Blanche as she is wheeled off to surgery] Over there, over there, send the word, send the word, over there, that the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming, the drums rum-pumming everywhere. Send the word, send the word, to beware...[An old World War I doughboy comes by and salutes]
An Illegitimate Concern [5.17]
- Blanche: Rose, no encyclopedia saleman lugs around twenty-six volumes door to door.
- Rose: Are you kidding? In St. Olaf they carry fifty-two.
- Blanche: Why?
- Rose: Balance!
- Dorothy: Rose, why don't they just carry thirteen in each hand?
- Rose: [thinks] Excuse me, I have to make a phone call. [leaves]
- Sophia: [dressed as Sonny Bono] Well, Rose, do I look like the mayor of Palm Springs?
- Rose: Doug Henning is the mayor of Palm Springs?
- Sophia: ...Just play the music, Rose.
- Blanche: [sees Dorothy and Sophia in their Sonny and Cher outfits] Oh, for goodness sakes, why you two could be celebrity lookalikes!
- Dorothy: Oh, Blanche, honey, you really think so?
- Blanche: Well, absolutely! So, which one's Cheech and which one's Chong?
- Sophia: I'm Sonny Bono, you idiot!
72 Hours [5.18]
- Rose: I stopped in a truck stop in Georgia-and did you know they have an egg dish named after you, Blanche?
- Blanche: Oh really? How are they prepared?
- Sophia: Over easy.
- (Rose sits in the kitchen with Blanche)
- Rose: God, why me? Why does this have to be happening to me?
- (She gets up to go to the living room)
- Rose: I mean...you must have slept with hundreds of men!
- Blanche: Hey, wait a minute! Are you saying that it should be me going through this and not you?
- Rose: Of course not, Blanche. All I'm saying is that I'm a good person. Hell, I'm a goody-two-shoes! This kind of thing shouldn't happen to a good person!
- Blanche: AIDS is not a bad person's disease, Rose. It is not God punishing people for their sins.
Twice in a Lifetime [5.19]
- Rose: Is it possible to love two men at the same time?
- Blanche: Set the scene, have we been drinking?
- Dorothy: Ma, we need to talk. I waited up for you until two in the morning, and you still weren't home.
- Sophia: Oh, yea, Gertie and I and some of the girls went to Wolfie's to pick up guys.
- Dorothy: I called Wolfie's at 11, you weren't there.
- Sophia: Guess who got lucky?
- Dorothy: Oh God!
- Dorothy: [after Miles acts macho and tells Buzz to back off] Oh, Miles. I find this side of you very exciting!
- Miles: Well, it's the jungle cat in me. I try to keep it very carefully hidden, of course.
- Rose: [smiling seductively] M-R-R-R-OWL!
- Sophia: Oh, my God. Now she's with the other boyfriend. It's like living with Cher. [goes into the kitchen]
- Dorothy: Ma.
- Blanche: Sophia, you're here. And you have your suitcase. Does that mean you're moving back?
- Sophia: I don't get it. I'm gone a few days and the dumb one's in there acting like a slut, while the slut's in here being stupid.
- Sophia: Ciao, Auf Wiedersehen, arrivederci and sayonara.
- Rose: Gee, she could have at least said goodbye.
- Blanche: [on Rose's feelings for Buzz] First love can be very powerful. I felt the same way about Heywood Boyle, the star pitcher on our high school baseball team. Oh, an amazing athlete. That man had exceptional control... [gets a far-away, aroused look on her face] ...he was always up for extra innings... and his delivery, oh!...
- Dorothy: ALL RIGHT, BLANCHE, ENOUGH!
- Rose: Yeah, we get it. ... So what was he like in bed?
Sisters and Other Strangers [5.20]
- Dorothy: I would kill Gloria if she ever wrote about my sexual escapades.
- Sophia: You'd kill your sister over a pamphlet?
- Sophia: [in the bookstore] If you need me, I'll be in the "Bitter Children of Celebrities" section.
- Dorothy: Rose, you're bringing down the curve for the whole country!
- Magda: [marveling at Blanche's house] Such a beautiful home! Who sleeps with government official?
- Dorothy: That would be my friend Blanche.
- Magda: [on Communism] The way things were, we knew what to do, the choices were easy. When there is one road, no one gets lost.
- Rose: Not necessarily. Back in St. Olaf---
- Dorothy: Rose, is this a story about someone getting lost?
- Rose: Uh-huh.
- Dorothy: Well, don't tell us, show us.
- Blanche: [confronting Charmaine at her book-signing] Well, I should've known I couldn't trust you, that all that "Let's be sisters" stuff was just a bunch of bull! You had no right to use my life for your book, to twist facts so that beautiful, sacred love became so much tawdry trash! I earned that "A" in History! For the first time in my life, I am ashamed to be a Hollingsworth. Vixen: Story of a Woman is nothing but a vulgar collection of perverse sexual acts that are sheer and utter FILTH!
- [Blanche slams her copy of the book down on Charmaine's table and storms away. Immediately, upon hearing Blanche's description of the book, a large group of people - including Magda and Sophia - runs toward the table, snatches up copies of the book, and begins eagerly reading.]
Cheaters [5.21]
- Rose: I had the strangest dream last night. I was at a baseball game. Charlie Brown was pitching, Schroeder was behind the plate, Lucy and Snoopy were in center field, and they wouldn't let me play. When I woke up, I was crying. What do you think it is?
- Dorothy: Peanuts envy?
- Dorothy: He was trapped in a bad marriage.
- Sophia: There is no such thing as trapped in a marriage. Here you can get divorced, in Sicily there was no divorce, you had to resort to Lupara.
- Rose: Is that some kind of legal loophole?
- Sophia: It's some kind of sawed off shotgun.
- Dorothy: I was in a room with you once before when your wife called, and you told her you were alone...then you were cheating on her.
- Glen: Yeah, with you.
- Dorothy: But I've also been Bernice, and I've had my husband call me, and he was always alone too.
- Glen: Our entire block was Irish, the kids on the next block were all Italian. We all took turns beating each other up on the way home from school.
- Rose: I think it's nice when children take turns.
- Rose: It's the oldest confidence game in the world, the pigeon drop.
- Sophia: It wasn't his idea, the nun suggested it.
- Rose: She was in on it too, that's why it's called a confidence game. They have to win your confidence so you'll hand over your money and get stuck with worthless paper.
- Sophia: I don't know what the church is coming to.
The Mangiacavallo Curse Makes a Lousy Wedding Present [5.22]
- Blanche: [trapped in a bathroom stall] Dorothy, let me out of here right now!
- Dorothy: There's only one way out Blanche and I don't think you can hold your breath long enough.
- Blanche: You're just making a mountain out of a molehill.
- Dorothy: Five years of molehills. They add up.
- Dorothy: Sounds to me like you two just had a little misunderstanding. [banging on the stall door to emphasize each word] Not five years of deliberate betrayal of trust!
- Blanche: Dorothy, you do that one more time, I'm gonna write on this wall 'For a good time call Dorothy Zbornak'.
- Dorothy: Blanche, this is the ladies room.
- Blanche: [evilly] Right.
All Bets Are Off [5.23]
- Rose: [referring to her painting] I can't do autumn in St. Olaf because of the falling leaf tragedy.
- Dorothy: Rose, if this is about some guy named Leif, I don't want to hear it.
- Rose: It's not very long.
- Dorothy: No.
- Rose: It has a surprise ending.
- Dorothy: All right Rose, cut to the ending as quickly as possible!
- Rose: ...Splat!
- Rose: I've done spring in St. Olaf, summer in St. Olaf, and winter in St. Olaf.
- Donald: Why haven't you done the fall of St. Olaf?
- Rose: Because it hasn't happened yet.
- Blanche: I think he's referring to autumn.
[Blanche, coming from a date, bursts through the front door looking very upset]
- Dorothy: Blanche, what's wrong, you're shaking?
- Blanche: I have been humiliated and degraded.
- Sophia: Many times, what's so different now?
- Blanche: Sophia, I've decided to wear this little watch on a chain nestled cunningly in my cleavage. Do I need anything else?
- Sophia: Implants.
The President's Coming! The President's Coming! [5.24]
- Blanche: If you need to know any more about me...I have pictures.
- Secret Service Agent: So do we.
Blanche Delivers [6.01]
- Dorothy: Oh, it doesn’t matter what your parents want, Rose, you’re never going to make them happy. They’re just gonna nag you and nag you until you want to grab their throats and choke 'em, but you don’t because you’re in a hospital with resuscitating equipment!!!
- Sophia: [looking unamused, though knowing that she was targeted] In other words Rose, hang up the skates.
- Rose: Oh Sophia, Big-Foot… thank you! I mean you’re terrific! You made me realize you don’t have to please your parents. I don’t know how I can thank you. No more ice-skating! And I’m not gonna go over Niagara Falls in a barrel!
- Dorothy: No Rose that you should do.
Once, in St. Olaf [6.02]
- Rose: I've found my father! My natural father!
- Blanche: He's alive?
- Dorothy: He's in Miami?
- Sophia: He's an earthling?
- Blanche: Dorothy, wait up you just walk so fast.
- Dorothy: I'm in a hurry!
- Blanche: It's not sexy. [Dorothy looks at her] It's not. A woman should take tiny delicate steps as if to say "Yes, I may be slower than you, but maybe I'm worth waiting for.
- Dorothy: Blanche, my mother is missing, it's the middle of the night, you have to excuse me if I don't have the roaming gait of a nymphomaniac.
- Blanche: [about Sophia] Have you found her?
- Dorothy: Yes Blanche, about a half hour ago, but now I've hidden her again so you can find her.
- Rose: [checking in Sophia] Name?
- Sophia: Zulu, Queen of the Dwarf People! [Rose writes this down on her clipboard]
- Dorothy: Rose, I don't think you are up to this.
- Rose: Now, where were we?
- Dorothy: Name.
- Rose: Rose Nylund.
- Sophia: [to hospital worker, thinking she's in heaven] Who are you? Are you an angel?
- Worker: I'm the guy that shaves everybody.
- Sophia: Wow, that's not even mentioned in the Bible!
- Dorothy: Rose, maybe you could help. We're searching the whole hospital. We can't find my mother.
- Rose: Maybe she's lost!
- Dorothy: Oh, I can't believe, you know, the last words I said to her were "Shut up, Zulu"!
- Blanche: What are you doing on this elevator?
- Sophia: I'm into easy listening, how the hell should I know?
If At Last You Do Succeed... [6.03]
- Blanche: You have a museum [in St. Olaf] where children go to learn about cheese?
- Rose: Hey, it's better than them learning about it in the streets!
- Rose: The plan was, we'd drop these highly trained attack cows behind enemy lines. Problem is, it wasn't until they were airborne that we realized, cows can't pull a ripcord!
- Rose: [about Stan's latest invention] What's a "Zborny"?
- Dorothy: I put up with it for thirty-eight years, Rose. Trust me, you don't want to know.
[The girls and Stan are watching a commercial for his patented potato opener on TV]
- Stan: [on TV] Now, you can finally open your baked potato without burning your hands!
- Rose: [watching wide-eyed] No, it can't be done!
- Stan: [on TV] Yes, it can be done!
- Dorothy: Now, look, we can't go on living like this with Blanche and Rose not speaking to each other. So, whatever the results of the secret ballot, we go with it. No more arguments. Agreed?
- Blanche: All right, yes, yes.
- Dorothy: Okay, here we go. [reads votes] "Split the money." "Let Blanche keep it." "Give it to the old lady."
- Sophia: Yes!
- Dorothy: "Split the money." Well, Blanche, looks like the splits have it.
- Blanche: Big Daddy was right. Women should not be allowed to vote.
- Sophia: If it's any consolation, Blanche, when I wrote "Give it to the old lady," I did mean you.
- Dorothy: [about how Stan's changed] This is not the same man who screamed "Paint my toenails, we've invaded Korea!"
Snap Out of It [6.04]
- Dorothy: Tell me something Rose, is "Kill the Bitch" a traditional St. Olaf party game?
- Sophia: [before going in to a Meals-on-Wheels customer] This is Mrs. Taylor. You'll get along with her just fine. Two things. One, compliment her cat, and two, Jews control the planet.
- Dorothy: Got it.
- Sophia:[steps in] Oh hi, Fluffy, looking good!
[Dorothy delivers a meal on wheels to a hippie shut-in]
- Jimmy: Well, I'm hungry. And I'm on the list. And who do you think you are?
- Dorothy: Sergeant Zbornak, food police. Now look, I don't want any trouble, now just hand over that turkey loaf.
- Jimmy: No, you can't, I need this food, except for the carrot raisin salad. I never understood carrot raisin salad.
- Dorothy: [to Jimmy] Wait a minute. You're not old. You're not ill. You're no slave to fashion.
- Dorothy: ...and I think I'm really making progress with Jimmy, although I think I could make more if Ma would stop yelling 'boo'.
- Blanche: You know, Sophia, this birthday thing kinda has me depressed as well. You think you could help me, too?
- Sophia: Sure. No matter how bad things get, remember these sage words: You're old, you sag, get over it.
- Blanche: Sophia!
- Sophia: So what if you knew Jesus personally? Wake up and smell the coffee, you fossil.
- Blanche: My mistake. I thought since you looked like Yoda you were also wise.
Wham, Bam, Thank You, Mammy [6.05]
- Sophia: Oh, Pussycat, just the person I'm looking for. I have a question for you, strictly hypothetical. Let's say a man wants to take you on a date.
- Dorothy: Why is that hypothetical?
- Sophia: Check your calendar, Pussycat.
- Mrs. Continni: Oh, wait a minute, you forgot to answer the questions on the back and I still need a picture.
- Sophia: Can you settle for a thousand words?
- Mrs. Continni: No.
- Blanche: [after telling the story of how her nanny left her] We Southerners don't forget things like that.
- Dorothy: It's true. Possum is brain food.
- Jack: Will I see you again?
- Dorothy: Probably not. I will be at the Florida State Women's Prison.
- Jack: The one in Jacksonville? They used to come to our dances. Why are you going there?
- Dorothy: Murder!
- Jack: Ooh...you're gonna meet some great gals.
- Blanche: [hearing Dorothy's comment to Sophia] Oh, Dorothy, dear sweet delusional Dorothy.
- Dorothy: Blanche, if you don't mind, I'm having a heart to heart with my mother. [turns to Sophia] Now, listen up, you withered old Sicilian monkey!
Feelings [6.06]
- Rose: [telling a story about St. Olaf's moodiest plastic surgeon] Dr. Olfnooner did some work on my mom, and do you who she came out looking like? Raymond Massey!'
- Rose: I wish men would have breasts, just for one day. Then they'd know what it's like to be judged by some physical trait. I mean, just because I'm built like this, you wouldn't believe how many people think I'm dumb!
- Sophia: Rose, you're too hard on yourself. I know people who think you're dumb over the phone.
- Father O'Meara: [meeting Blanche] Blanche Devereaux! I've heard quite a bit about you!
- Blanche: All good, I hope.
- Father O'Meara: I'm sorry, I can't reveal things learned in Confession. But it's nice to finally be able to put a name with a face.
- Dorothy: Oh, Blanche, you did a pretty good job focusing this for Rose, and for me. I have to admit, you would have made a very good psychologist.
- Sophia: Great idea, pussycat. Give Blanche an office with a couch and a license to charge by the hour.
- Dorothy: Oh, a student pays attention, works hard, gets good grades. Does that make him a geek?
- Kevin: Uh, no, that makes him a dork. Geek is more like, y'know, somebody with no friends, stays home every Saturday night, nose always buried in a book.
- Dorothy: [to Sophia, who is opening her mouth to speak] One word out of you and I cut off your supply of Metamucil.
Zborn Again [6.07]
- Sophia: [about Stan] It means that ever since he made a fortune on that baked potato opener, he's been coming onto you like Gang Busters and I don't like it. Not that I've ever actually seen Gang Busters. But I did see Ghostbusters , I didn't like that either. I mean, they couldn't give the black guy one funny line? And how about that sequel!
- Blanche: I'm sorry, but I refuse to believe you have ever read a scientific journal.
- Rose: [getting up to leave the kitchen] Believe what you want. See if I care. [muttering while going and opening the door] Hypersexual bitch. [Dorothy looks taken by surprise and Blanche awkwardly swallows her drink. Both look in the door's direction.]
- Dorothy: Blanche, I need to talk to you privately.
- Blanche: Okay.
- Dorothy: There's this person, someone I've known for quite a while, and lately there seems to be this attraction developing. An attraction I've been trying to deny-- Blanche, what are you doing?
- [Blanche immediately gets up out her chair and backs away in horror]
- Blanche: It's a curse. My beauty's always been a curse. I'm sorry, Dorothy, but like the fatal blossom of the graceful gymson weed, I entice with my fragrance but can provide no succor.
- Dorothy: I'm talking about Stanley, you idiot!
- Blanche: Get outta here! Stan has the hots for me?
- Dorothy: For me, not you, fatal blossom, for me.
- Blanche: A woman has the option to say no, honey, you weren't given that option. You were given nitrus oxide.
- Sophia: Blanche, when have you ever said "no?"
- Blanche: Did I say there was gonna be a question and answer period after I spoke?
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sophia? [6.08]
- Dorothy: Ma, you actually went to a convent? Why didn't I know that?
- Sophia: Because you're divorced. Technically, in the eyes of the Church, you don't even exist! I spit on you! Unless Sister would like to spit on you first.
- Dorothy: I'm her daughter Dorothy. You'll have to excuse my mother. She suffered a slight stroke a few years ago which rendered her totally annoying.
- Dorothy: Can you believe what we just heard.
- Blanche: I can't believe anybody wants to become a nun, I mean--NUN--, the word says it.
- Mother Superior: Well Dorothy I bet you love your mother very much.
- Dorothy: Well that all depends, what has she done?
- Mother Supeior: I think life here is too structured for her.
- Dorothy: I don't follow.
- Mother Superior: You're mother is an old stubborn pack mule of a woman who won't follow the rules
- Dorothy: Now I'm with you.
Mrs. George Devereaux [6.09]
- Sonny Bono: [after hearing Blanche's problem] Excuse me, I had some experience with marital discord myself.
- Blanche: Sonny Bono, get off my lanai!
- Sonny Bono: How many gold records do you have?
- Lyle Waggoner: None. I was never married.
- Rose: [about Blanche's chance to see her living husband] Tell him you love him. Tell you hate him, I don't care! Just talk to him before he leaves... Do it for yourself. Do it for all of us who wish we had the chance...
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun...Before They Die [6.10]
- Sophia: I...I love you. [waits for response; Tony doesn't respond] I said...I love you.
- Tony: Thank you.
- Sophia: And you?
- Tony: I care for you.
- Sophia: You care for me?
- Tony: Yes, very much. I probably should've said that sooner. Oh well, let's get some sleep. [turns off light, Sophia hits him until he turns it back on]
- Tony: What?
- Sophia: You care for me? You care for a cat or a dog, or a goat. But I tell you I love you and you tell me you care for me? [gets out of bed]
- Tony: Now, Sophia, I--I care for you very much.
- Sophia: I'm going home, don't bother trying to drive me.
- Tony: Now Sophia, wait a minute.
- Sophia: Don't even say my name. If you didn't love me, how the hell could you make love to me?! I never want to see or hear from you again! [storms out of Tony's apartment]
- [Rose is excitedly telling the girls about an episode of "The New Lassie"]
- Dorothy: Rose, did I mention I cry every Thursday? [looks at watch] At 8:05. [voice breaking] Excuse me! [she leaves the kitchen]
- Rose: I just got a special delivery letter from St. Olaf! Uh-oh, it's from the Department of Water and Coffee.
- Dorothy: Coffee?
- Rose: No thanks, it makes me jumpy.
- Dorothy: Rose, what does the letter say?
- Rose: You read it, Dorothy. I need both hands to cover my ears in case it's bad news.
- Dorothy: [reading] "Dear St. Olafian, I am afraid there's bad news."
- Rose: [fingers in her ears] What?
- Dorothy: [reading] "There's a drought in St. Olaf which threatens the crops."
- Rose: Oh, no! I'd better send water.
- Dorothy: [reading] "Please do not send water. We have found that envelopes leak. Until the rains come, we ask that all citizens be celibate, except for Ulf the Umbrella King; he has suffered enough."
- Sophia: [on Tony] Last night I dreamed I was Joan of Arc and he was coming at me with a hose!
- Dorothy: Ma, maybe it was just a religious experience dream.
- Blanche: Did he put out the fire?
- Sophia: Three times.
- Blanche: Wow, the seldom-achieved Joan of Arc Fantasy Triple! Sophia, I hate you.
- Blanche: All right girls, I want to present Blanche Devereaux's latest creation... I took an 84-year-old woman and made her look like a 65 year old drag queen! Then I said to myself, "Blanche, too much rouge."
- Sophia: What if I got gorgeous for nothing? What if Tony doesn't even notice me?
- Blanche: Well, that's his hard luck. There are other fish in the sea.
- Sophia: Yeah, and all the ones my age are floating on the top!
- Dorothy: Now Ma, remember, don't do anything I wouldn't do.
- Sophia: I think I crossed that line when I had a date.
Stand By Your Man [6.11]
- Blanche: All right, WHO or WHAT ate the heel off of one of my new red pumps?!
- Rose: [attempting to take the blame for Bingo] I did.
- Sophia: [posing as Blanche's grandmother] Well, mercy me! Looks like my little magnolia just turned into a big ho.
- Blanche: Now, let me get this right - dinner at your place tonight. What kind of girl do you think I am, and how could you tell so fast?
- Sophia: [on Rose and Bingo] Oh, great. We've gotta live with a sad-eyed, hyperactive nuisance with the intelligence of a squeaky toy. And now she's got a dog!
- Blanche: [to Dorothy] I need a chaperone. Now do I have to call in all the favors you owe me?
- Dorothy: What favors?
- Blanche: [to Sophia] I need a chaperone. Now do I have to call in all the favors you owe me?
- Sophia: I don't owe you any favors!
- Blanche: Oh, really? "But officer, the little old lady was with me; she couldn't possibly have put that banana in your tailpipe!"
- Sophia: It'd be an honor to serve.
- Dorothy: Rose, we have to talk. Now look, the food dish is overturned, there is a hole in the newspaper, the potted palm out in the hallway has been dug up. I cannot live like this!
- Sophia: Dorothy, please, please don't send me away, I'll try harder!
- Dorothy: I'm talking about the dog.
- Sophia: Oh. In that case, I also saw him slip two twenties out of your purse.
- Rose: Maybe you don't know the fun you can have with a pet. Have you ever actually had one?
- Dorothy: Well, of course I had a pet. Remember, Ma, I was six years old and I wanted a pony?
- Sophia: Not the pony thing again!
- Dorothy: She promised me a pony. She swore I'd get a pony. She brings me a little paper bird on a stick from the circus, you know, the kind that you have to twirl around your head to get them to tweet.
- Rose: And that was your pet???
- Sophia: They're very clean!
- Dorothy: Then she tells me if I'm a good girl, a really good girl, God will turn that paper bird into a real one. Which I believe, because, why would a mother lie? So every day I'm being very good and praying and looking for any sign of life, and becoming very attached to that ridiculous paper bird. So you can imagine my heartbreak when one morning I find it dead.
- Rose: How does a paper bird die?
- Dorothy: Good question! Someone used it to restart the pilot light.
Ebbtide's Revenge [6.12]
- Guest Star: Brenda Vaccaro as Angela Petrillo (Phil's widow)
- [The girls are seeing Phil at his wake; Phil is wearing a teddy]
- Rose: It's a very masculine teddy. I think all men should be buried in teddies.
- Dorothy: [seeing her brother at his wake] We just have to remember, it's not the clothes that make the man; it's the man who makes the clothes...oh God, it looks like he died in a Benny Hill sketch!
- Rose: You know what I think?
- Blanche: That reindeer really know how to fly?
- Sophia: [seeing Blanche in her red funeral dress] What's with Satan's Secretary?
- Blanche: Sophia, I believe Phil would have liked this dress.
- Sophia: Liked it? He would've looked great in it. Dorothy, I never understood why your brother liked to wear women's clothes, unless he was queer.
- Blanche: Sophia, people don't say "Queer" anymore, they say "Gay."
- Sophia: They say "Gay" if a guy can sing the entire score of Gigi. But a six-foot-three, 200-pound married man with kids who likes to dress up like Dorothy Lamour, I think you have to go with "Queer."
- Dorothy: [delivering her eulogy for Phil] Seems like I'm always mad at my brother Phil. I was mad the day my parents brought him back from the hospital. I thought he'd take their love away from me, and instead their love expanded and we felt more like a family. I was mad at him when I was 10 and he was 4, and we moved to a new neighborhood. I was made because he always made new friends more easily than I did. And I'm mad today, because [voice breaks slightly] I never wanted to give the eulogy at my kid brother's funeral. I'm mad because he died, he didn't have the wisdom to know that family members shouldn't allow themselves to grow apart, because when this day comes, they can no longer tell each other how much they care. If he'd had that wisdom, he could've shared it with me and I would've known the hundreds of memories I have of just the two of us, eating ice cream on the stoop of our building, or going through the drawers at Grandma's house, or dressing up like the Bronte sisters. How those memories fill me with joy! Why didn't you have that wisdom, Phil? [voice breaking] Why didn't you give us a chance to tell you how much we loved you? [walks somberly back to her seat, where she is comforted by Rose]
- Angela: Fine! You think your family was wronged? Let me make it right. [hands Sophia check] Here! Here's a check, we're even! Now are you happy?
- Sophia: Can I see your driver's license and a major credit card, please?
- [Angela snatches the check out of Sophia's hand and storms out of the room. Dorothy slams the photo album she and Angela had been looking at down on the coffee table and glares at Sophia.]
- Sophia: It was an out-of-state check!
- Rose: Now I know no one wants to hear one of my stories right now...
- Dorothy: That's usually a pretty safe bet, Rose.
- Rose: ...but you need to know about my cousin Ingmar. Ingmar was different. He used to do bird imitations.
- Blanche: Well, what's wrong with that?
- Rose: Well, let's just say you didn't want to park your car under their oak tree.
- Sophia: [breaking down in tears] I did love him. He was my son, my little boy. And every time I saw him, I always wondered what I did, what I said, when was the day that I did whatever I did to make him the way he was!
- Angela: What he was, Sophia, was a good man.
- Sophia: [sobbing] My baby is gone!
- Angela: Oh, Sophia... [she and Sophia embrace as the episode ends]
The Bloom is Off the Rose [6.13]
- Sophia: [about Rex] Boy, he makes Wallace Beery look like Adolphe Menjou.
- Dorothy: Has been a long time since I've taken you to the movies, hasn't it?
- Dr. Kelly: [from the radio] I'm Dr. Kelly, and today we're going to be talking about "Mothers and Daughters: The Dark Side," and we're ready for our first call.
- Sophia: [dials the radio station] Hello.
- Dr. Kelly: Hi, you're on the air with Dr. Kelly. I need your first name only.
- Sophia: My name is...Cher.
- Dr. Kelly: And your problem, Cher?
- Sophia: I have a 55-year-old daughter named Dorothy, Dorothy Zbornak. She's got problems.
- Dr. Kelly: First names only, please.
- Sophia: I told you, it's Cher!
- Dr. Kelly: Zbornak, you said Dorothy Zbornak.
- Sophia: Oh, sorry.
- Dr. Kelly: So what's wrong with this Dorothy Zbornak?
- [Blanche comes in, humming a happy tune and carrying a load of clean laundry]
- Dorothy: Blanche, honey, are you okay?
- Blanche: Never better, why?
- Dorothy: I've just never seen you do anything domestic.
- Blanche: Dorothy, I've done the laundry thousands of times! Oh, by the way, we're out of...[tries to read the bleach bottle]...blee-ock.
Sisters of the Bride [6.14]
- Dorothy: You'll have to excuse my mother. She survived a slight stroke which left her, if I can be frank, a complete burden.
- Dorothy: I'll say this for Clayton, he has great taste. Doug is absolutely charming.
- Sophia: And funny. It's not every cop who could do a good Bette Davis impression.
- Blanche: I don't really mind Clayton being homosexual, I just don't like him dating men.
- Dorothy: You really haven't grasped the concept of this gay thing yet, have you?
- Blanche: There must be homosexuals who date women.
- Sophia: Yeah, they're called lesbians.
- Rose: [from outside the kitchen] Hot damn! [comes into the kitchen] It's happened! It's finally happened! Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes!
- Dorothy: I take it we now get The Disney Channel?
- Clayton: I wanted you to meet Doug for a very important reason.
- Blanche: Well, why?
- Clayton: Blanche, we're getting married.
- Rose: Well that's impossible Clayton. Brothers can't marry sisters. [thinks for a moment] Oh, that's right, you're from the South.
- Sophia: [to Clayton and Doug] So, Butch, Sundance? Who's gonna throw the bouquet?
- Rose: [outraged about Agnes Bradshaw posthumously winning the Volunteer of the Year award] It's a fix! She's dead! She doesn't need that on her mantle! She's on her mantle! [Blanche and Dorothy pull Rose to sit back down at her table]
- Rose: It isn't about fancy banquets, it isn't about getting your name in the paper, it isn't about winning the award next year.
- Blanche: There now, that's the spirit. [walks out of the room]
- Rose: [getting out the award] It's about getting that dead woman's name off of this one. [she tightly clutches and hugs the award with a devious look on her face]
- Clayton: It just doesn't matter, because we're there for each other. I'd do anything for Doug. And, he'd bend over backwards for me!
- Dorothy: [grabbing Sophia, covering her mouth,pulling her body toward her, then smiling as she looks up at Blanche, Clayton and Doug] Sometimes I just love to hug my mommy!
Miles to Go [6.15]
- Rose: [reading the book of poetry Miles has left as a parting gift] And when to the heart of man, was it ever less than a treason, to bow and accept the end of a love, or of a season. [the girls console Rose]
- Sophia: [on deception] You know, I once prepared a six-course meal with what I thought was chicken. But it turned out to be a---
- Dorothy: MA!!! [to Rose] Rose, in my heart I cannot believe that Miles is a rat, he just fell in with the wrong people, that's all. Now look, I know you have a date with him tomorrow night. Keep it. I'm sure you'll find he's the same caring, sensitive person you've known all along... MY GOD, IT WASN'T MY CONFIRMATION DINNER, WAS IT?!!!!
- Sophia: Your Pop sure made everyone laugh when he made the little feet dance!
- Dorothy: Ugh...
There Goes the Bride [6.16]
- Blanche: Maybe you could win your mother over in a more traditional way.
- Dorothy: Like what?
- Blanche: Uh...set up a meeting, have Stanley ask for your hand.
- Dorothy: What do you want me to do, Blanche, bow my head, kiss her ring? Hey, you know something that just might work, she thinks of herself as the Godfather, I'll just make her an offer she can't remember.
- Stan: Eat your potato.
- Dorothy: I know it's a very important vegetable to you Stanley, but I'm just not hungry.
- Stan: Then stick your finger in it.
- Dorothy: Stanley, you pig!
- Stan: Do it, Dorothy!
- Dorothy: OK, Stanley, if it will make you happy. [Sticks her finger in the potato] There's something in here...something hard...it's...it's...it's a scalding hot ring!
- Sophia: And when there is no trust, there is no family. You marry this man, and we're no longer family. You do this, you are out of my life forever.
- Dorothy: The stripper used to be a cop and the cop always wanted to be a dancer. Now they're wearing each other's hats and it's getting really weird.
- Sophia: You give that ring back and that's my final word! [Sophia comes back] No. You'll pawn the ring. That's my final word!
- Dorothy: [to Blanche] Everybody who's come has been too young, too pretty, too thin, it's like you want to be surrounded by women who have absolutely no sex appeal.
- [Rose and Dorothy connect the dots]
- Rose: You think we're dogs, don't you?
[barking doorbell sounds]
- Blanche: Now that is just too eerie.
- Dorothy: I was just wondering the other day 'why doesn't our doorbell bark?'
- Rose: Probably because we didn't have a bark bell.
- Dorothy: You really expect this to scare Myra away?
- Rose: Oh sure, look at the box, see the burglar running from the house?
- Dorothy: And he's saying "YIKES!"
[bell rings again, the dogs bark, Sophia runs out of the kitchen]
- Sophia: The dogs are on my trail again, through the river, run through the river.
- Dorothy: Ma, that's an alarm Rose put up to scare people away.
- Sophia: It'll never work.
- Dorothy: You'll need two new roommates, Ma will be moving in with us.
- Sophia: No, I won't.
- Dorothy: You can't afford to stay here alone.
- Sophia: Blanche is letting me keep my room and I have an interview at McDonald's today, if I can see over the counter, I'm their new fry girl.
- Sophia: [to Stanley] If you hurt her again I'll make you miserable for the rest of my life, and if I lay off meat and dairy that could be as much as five years!
- Rose: I had an outdoor wedding. February 12th, I'll never forget...I had the most beautiful white flannel wedding dress, it even had feet sewn in.
Older and Wiser [6.17]
- Rose: So life threw the dumb country girl a crumb for once. I mean, you're sexy and beautiful all the time. Let's face it, you have Bette Davis eyes and Freddy Krueger hands.
- Blanche: I have had it with you! I'm going into my room and may never come out. [Blanche storms off to her room]
- Rose: Is it the weekend already?
Melodrama [6.18]
- Blanche: I know but now there's more at stake, everything's changed. It's all new and exciting. In many ways I feel just the way I felt when I was a virgin.
- Sophia: You mean the feeling isn't gonna last long?
- Blanche: Are you implying I lost my virginity at an early age?
- Sophia: I'm just saying you're lucky Jack and Jill Magazine didn't have a gossip column.
- Dorothy: Ma!
- Sophia: Please, pussycat, I'm on a roll.
- Blanche: I'm sorry, Sophia. But I'm not gonna let your skepticism ruin my entire evening. Mel and I were meant to be together.
- Sophia: I wish I could say the same for your thighs. God, I'm hot tonight.
- Blanche: I'm not gonna stand for this.
- Sophia: Take it, Dorothy!
- Dorothy: But I'll bet you'll lay down for it.
- Sophia: Well that was just plain rude!
- Blanche: Some people just don't know when to quit.
- Dorothy: [to Rose, who is sticking her head in the refrigerator, trying to see whether the glasses that she is testing fog up] Rose, leave the glasses in the refrigerator, close the door and keep your head out here with us.
- Rose: Well, how will I know if they fog up?
- Dorothy: The little man who lives in there who turns the light on and off, he'll tell you.
- Rose: I'm not in the mood for jokes, especially about the little man. You know he scares me.
[Rose does a mock interview on Dorothy for a reporting position she applied for]
- Rose: Isn't it true that you have a drawer full of home retirement brochures, just waiting for the first sign of dribble on your mother's chin, to lock her away forever?
[Sophia looks shocked as Dorothy freezes up]
- Dorothy: [laughs nervously] She's kidding.
- Rose: You know, Dorothy, your sock drawer. The one you know who can't reach.
- Sophia: I knew you were keeping pictures but I had no idea, you disgust me!
- Dorothy: Look, I don't have to stand for this!
- Sophia: Nail her, Rose! Nail her! Remember, a good reporter gets the story no matter what!
- Dorothy: That sock drawer is MY business! Look, those times when Ma drives me crazy, I go in my room and have some pretend time, okay?!!
- Rose: This is Rose Nylund signing off in a sad, sad situation. ... Thanks, Dorothy, that was fun!
Even Grandmas Get the Blues [6.19]
- Blanche: [referring to Sophia] If anyone blows the whistle on me the old lady is out on the street.
- Jason: Isn't she the most beautiful mother you have ever seen.
- Sophia: Grand, just grand.
Witness [6.20]
- Blanche: I just don't know what I'm gonna do -- [walks into living room and sees Miles dressed in Amish attire] -- boy, you find out you're a Jew with a dilemma and these rabbis come out of the woodwork.
- Dorothy: Rose...who is this?
- Rose: Oh, this? This...this is...this is a friend...his name is Samuel Plankmaker. [to Miles] Samuel, these are my roommates. [to the others] Girls, you remember Miles -- Samuel ! [grimaces] Shoot!
- Miles: I'm so sorry ladies, it's -- it's me! I was trying to play a trick on ya.
- Sophia: Silly rabbi, tricks are for kids.
- Dorothy: [indicating Sophia, who is wearing a pair of dark glasses with prescription lenses because she lost her regular glasses] Ladies and gentlemen, Roy Orbison!
What a Difference a Date Makes [6.21]
- Rose: Dorothy, I thought you were going to make him suffer.
- Dorothy: Oh and I will, tomorrow morning I'll tell him he's the worst lover I've ever had.
- Blanche: [violently shaking Rose back and forth] You ate my sensible meal! You ate my sensible meal!
- Dorothy: Blanche! You're out of control!
- Blanche: [coming to her senses] Oh my word, Dorothy. What was I doing?
- Rose: [grabs Blanche's shoulders and shakes her] This!
[Blanche learns that Rose ate her tuna quiche and diet shake]
- Blanche: Oh shut up! Shut up you bobble-headed, bleached blonde...
- Sophia: Baboon!
- Blanche: Baboon! [storms out of kitchen and Rose looks at Sophia]
- Sophia: She needed a B.
Never Yell Fire in a Crowded Retirement Home [6.23]
- Dorothy: Morning ma, did you sleep well?
- Sophia: No, I have this recurring nightmare. You know, the one where I am in bed with Warren Beatty and he says, sorry, but this is too sick even for me
Henny Penny - Straight, No Chaser [6.24]
- Frank: Where are we gonna find an adult with a child-like naïveté to play Henny Penny?
- [Rose enters through the front door]
- Rose: You're not gonna believe it! I just saw a cloud that looked exactly like a cotton ball!
- Frank: My God, she is Henny Penny!
- Delivery Man: Flowers for Blanche Deverucks.
- Dorothy: [taking the flowers] That's Devereaux. It's only pronounced "Deverucks" in limericks.
- Blanche: [on being reported dead] What are people gonna think?
- Sophia: They'll think it's time to elect a new town slut.
- Sophia: [narrating the play, with Rose acting out Henny Penny's actions] Once upon a time, on a beautiful spring day, Henny Penny was waking up from a nap under an oak tree, when an acorn fell from the tree and hit her on the head. [fake paper acorn hits Rose on the head] Funny, when I was a little girl in Sicily and they told this story, it was a safe that fell on her head.
- Sophia: [narrating the play] On the way, Henny Penny came upon Goosey Lucy. [Blanche comes onstage holding a mirror and rustling her feather costume] One of the most popular birds in the barnyard,—
- Blanche: The most popular!
- Sophia: And the eighth-graders are seeing a play today about how to be that popular, safely.
- Blanche: I like a fairy tale with a nice prince in it, a handsome prince with a big ol' codpiece and deep, dark eyes... powerful thighs and muscles ripplin' beneath his tunic...
- Dorothy: Blanche, you could get aroused by Humpty Dumpty!
- Blanche: Are you kiddin'? All the king's horses and all the king's men! Handsome men with deep dark eyes and powerful thighs and muscles and big ol' codpieces...
- Dorothy: Blanche, how do you make it through an omelette?!
- Sophia: [looking at obituaries in newspaper] Whoa!
- Blanche: What is it?
- Sophia: You!
- Blanche: What about me?
- Sophia: You're dead!
- Blanche: What?
- Sophia: I told you, you're dead! You must be! It says so in the paper!
- [Blanche takes the paper from Sophia]
- Blanche: [reading] "Blanche Deveraux, age 68..." [shocked] 68?!
- Dorothy: Blanche, that's terrible! They're almost as far off on your age as you are.
- Sophia: [narrating] On the way, Henny Penny and Goosey Lucy came upon Turkey Lurkey.
- [Dorothy whirls around to face the audience in her costume, reading a book with a dour expression on her face.]
- Sophia: Yes, poor, lonely Turkey Lurkey. Poor dateless, hopeless, self-effacing---
- Dorothy: MA!!!
- Sophia: [narrating] And from that day to this, Henny Penny, Goosey Lucy and Turkey Lurkey were never seen a---
- Rose: STOP! [to the audience] Children, kids, it's up to you! I mean, if you want to save us and not have us eaten by Foxy Loxy, applaud! [No response.] I mean it! I mean, clap now if you want to see the goose, the chicken and the turkey live! [No response. Sophia gestures to Rose to shut up, but Rose ignores her.] Come on, put your little hands together! [No response.] Save us and you won't have bad dreams! [No response.] CLAP, you miserable little---
- Dorothy: [She and Blanche, still in costume, walk out on the stage, grab Rose by the arm and drag her off] Come on, Henny, let's get it over with.
- Rose: But what about their bad dreams?!
- Blanche: Let's go, come on.
- Rose: [to the audience] Fine, but I just want you to know, there are monsters living under all your beds!!!
Hey, Look Me Over [7.01]
- Blanche: Hi, how did the hearing test go?
- Sophia: [to Dorothy] TELL HER WHAT THE DOCTOR SAID. TELL HER WHAT THE DOCTOR --
- Dorothy: Ma's fine, okay?!
- Sophia: AND?
- Dorothy: I need a hearing aid, okay?!
- Dorothy: Wait a minute, Rose. Have you seen the rest of these pictures?
- Rose: I'd rather not.
- Dorothy: Honey, I think there's some mistake. Look, here's Blanche in bed with Charlie, but this one's Blanche in bed with a pontoon boat! Here's Blanche in bed with the big orange from the Sunkist building, and here's Blanche in bed with the Country Bear Jamboree! Honey do you know what this means?
- Rose: I sure do. [to Blanche] My God, you're an animal!
- Blanche: Rose, can't you put yourself in my position?
- Rose: Apparently I'm not limber enough. [looks to Dorothy for approval]
- Dorothy: That was good.
- Rose: Come on Blanche, you landed on your back more than..than... [turns to Dorothy for help]
- Dorothy: The American Gladiators.
The Case of the Libertine Belle [7.02]
- Dorothy: Oh, morning Ma. How'd you sleep?
- Sophia: Pretty good. I dreamed I was making love to Jay Leno.
- Dorothy: That's a strange dream for you to have.
- Sophia: Not really. It was Monday night and he was filling in for Carson.
- Blanche: Is there any chance I can persuade you girls to join me for a murder mystery weekend?
- Dorothy: Blanche, are you kidding? I have read every word Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler ever wrote. Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe have become a part of me! "She had more curves than the Monaco Grand Prix and was twice as dangerous. Her jewelry was mute testimony that Charlie Chaplin wasn't the only tramp who hit it big in this town."
- Sophia: You do this on first dates, don't you, Dorothy?
- Rose: [after Dorothy tells her to figure who at the mystery weekend are guests and who are actors] Okay Dorothy. [suspiciously] If that's your real name.
- Rose: [Blanche is disgusted that Posey is flirting with Kendall] You flirted with him.
- Blanche: I'm from the South! Flirting is part of my heritage.
- Rose: What do you mean?
- Dorothy: Her mother was a slut too.
- Maitre'd: My God! They've been murdered! [goes back to original position nonchalantly]
- Sophia: [coming from the bathroom] Does this mean we don't get any birthday cake?
- Rose: [pointing at the maitre'd] The butler did it!
- Maitre'd: I'm a maitre'd.
- Rose: Thank you. [points again] The maitre'd did it!
- Man: Philip did it!
- Woman: Gloria did it!
- Sophia: It was Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick. [sees that everyone is staring at her] Oh, she says the butler did it and I'm the idiot?
- Gloria: [when Dorothy presents a bit of her theory] This woman's pathetic!
- Sophia: [sarcastically] Oh, big news. Tear out the front page!
- Rose: [after Dorothy solves the mock crime] Dorothy, that was a real Tour de France!
- Dorothy: Last evening, at dinner, when Ms. McGlynn saw Blanche give Kendall Nesbit her key, she was furious. She dropped a steak knife into her purse,—
- Sophia: Big deal. I took a whole place setting—
- Dorothy: [shouting angrily] NOT NOW, MA!
- Dorothy: [upon seeing the corpse on the bed in Blanche's room] All right, Ma, give me your mirror.
- Rose: What for?
- Dorothy: Every morning I hold it under Ma's nose. If it fogs up, I start the coffee.
- Rose: Maybe that bloody dagger will lead us to the murder weapon!
- Detective: St. Olaf?
- Rose: [Amazed] Boy, he is good!
- Dorothy: [angrily] You're not helping, Rose! It's almost as though you believe Blanche is guilty!
- Rose: Well, she lied about my earrings, and then she took them. I mean, deceit, then theft--isn't murder the next logical step?
- Dorothy: St. Olaf, right?
- Blanche: There's just one hitch. I need three more people to get the group rate at the hotel.
- Sophia: I thought hotels always gave you the group rate.
- Rose: Yes, sweetheart, but this is for the whole night!
- Blanche: How could I be accused of murder?! I am a Devereaux! Things like this usually happen to people named... Petrillo!
- Sophia: I take offense at that! No one in my family ever--EVER--left a body to be found!
- Dorothy: [explaining Kendall's murder] When Posey saw Blanche give Kendall an extra key to her room, she was furious. She slipped out of the dining room and went upstairs when she felt she wouldn't be missed. Later, there was a knock on Blanche's door. Kendall answered. Posey was there. She accused of two-timing, he denied it. Posey takes out a knife and stabs Kendall. Then she left before anyone knew she was there. Jealousy was the motive, alright. But it was not Blanche who comitted the crime. [points to Posey] There's your murderer. Posey McGlinn.
- Detective: Well Ms. McGlinn, do you have anything to say?
- Posey: Dorothy Zbornak, you've stuck your nose in for the last time! [attempts to shoot Dorothy; detective pulls gun away]
- Dorothy: Statistics say that patricide is overhwhelmingly a male crime. [looks at Sophia] Although daughters frequently murder their mothers!
- Kendall: Blanche!
- Blanche: Kendall!
- Kendall: Blanche, I must commend you again. I have a feeling we're in for a weekend that none of us is ever going to forget.
- Blanche: Oh, I do declare! Your sweet words could charm the morning dew right off the honeysuckle!
- Dorothy: That was good, Blanche. Now do Br'er Rabbit.
- Lt. Alvarez: [after explaining Kendall's murder] Given these facts, unless somebody has something else...we've got enough to make an arrest.
- Blanche: [scared] My, my, Mr. Officer...I do declare, your sweet words could charm the morning dew right off the honeysuckle!
- Dorothy: Blanche, not now!
- Blanche: [more scared] If not now, when?!
Beauty and the Beast [7.03]
- Blanche: [complaining about Nurse DeFarge] Dorothy, at 2am in the morning, I was entertaining a gentleman caller, when she walked in at the most inopportune time. I could have lost my balance and chipped a tooth!
- Rose: You think that's bad? She came into my room when I was reenacting the plank-walking scene from Peter Pan.
- Dorothy: What the hell goes on in this house at night?!!
That's For Me to Know [7.04]
[the girls vote on who should move out of the house]- Blanche: Alright, here we go, good luck ladies. [reads a ballot] Dorothy. [reads another vote] Dorothy. [reads the third vote] Dorothy. [reads the final vote, more quickly] ...Dorothy.
- Sophia: Well, that's that, lets eat, I'm starved.
- Dorothy: Now wait a minute! How did this happen!?
- Sophia: We all voted for you.
- Blanche: Well, Dorothy it's your own damn fault. Why did you vote for yourself?
- Dorothy: Well, I just assumed that everyone would vote for Rose, and I didn't want a sweep to hurt her feelings.
- Blanche: I guess that would hurt.
- Dorothy: It DOES!
- Sophia: Gimme that![snatches box from Dorothy]
- Dorothy: What's in the box, Ma?
- Sophia: Mexican jumping beans.
- Dorothy: Ma!
- Sophia: All right, Hispanic jumping beans.
- 'Blanche: [shouting to the person behind the front door] Uh...you can't come in here! We all have -- quick, Rose, give me a deadly disease!
- Rose: I'm sorry Blanche, I don't have a deadly disease.
- Blanche: Well, get one.
Where's Charlie? [7.05]
- Dorothy: [to Sophia, after Rose explains to Dorothy that the reason she gave the ring back to Miles was because Charlie "spoke" to her in Sophia's body] You're a horrible little person.
- Sophia: Come on. Like you never pretended to be possessed by someone's dead husband for a couple of laughs.
- Dorothy: You know, you have really ruined Rose's relationship with Miles.
- Sophia: If you could have seen her face when I talked like Charlie-- I almost wet myself!
- Rose: [showing off the ring] Hi everyone. If I seem a little giddy, it's because... look what Miles gave me!
- Sophia: [examining Rose's hand] Liver spots?
- Rose: What's going on?
- Dorothy: Oh, Stevie's leaving Blanche for Tokyo, Rose.
- Rose: Well, I can understand that; she is a big radio personality.
Mother Load [7.06]
- Dorothy: You know, I never had a sponge cake that was quite so......moist.
- Jerry: Extremely moist.
- Rose: The moistest.
- Sophia: I found the tea rather moist as well. [Dorothy gives her a look]
- Sophia: I can't be uncomfortable too?
Dateline: Miami [7.07]
- Sophia: [on Dorothy's good mood] If I know my Dorothy, there's only one thing that makes her this happy.
- Rose: You're going back to Shady Pines?
- Sophia: No, you moron, she has a date!
- Rose: [in a flashback scene] This is a nice place. Do you come here a lot?
- John: Oh, no, not really. I don't have much of a social life.
- Woman: [approaching table] So, this is where you bring your cheap fake-blonde floozies! John, you disgust me, and as far as I'm concerned, we're through. [storms off]
- Rose: Who was that?
- John: My sister. I recommend the Poulet Veronique.
- Rose: John, I have a rule; if I can't pronounce it, I don't put it in my mouth. Say, do they have gugenfruichter?
- Pregnant Woman: [to John] Alan! Alan, please, talk to me! You haven't answered my calls, you don't answer my letters, Alan, please, what can I say? What can I do to get you back?
- Rose: "Alan"?
- John: Nickname. [to pregnant woman] Susan, Susan, please, this is not the time or the place!
- Susan: It's me, isn't it! I've driven you away. What if I dyed my hair? [looks at Rose] I'd even dye it that color! If they still make that color.
- John: Susan, it's over and you have to accept that; and a word of warning: I haven't graded your final exam yet. [Susan leaves; to Rose:] So, shall we order separate entrees and share?
- Rose: Hold it! Who was that?
- John: Okay, okay, so I've had a couple of bad relationships with women, that's not so unusual. Now, where is our waiter? ... Oh, waiter!
- Male Waiter: [to John] Well, well, Peter! We just swing the way the wind blows, don't we? [looking at Rose] And who's this, Glinda the Good Witch of the North? You disgust me! After the way you've treated me I should scratch your eyes out! [voice breaks] Call me!
- John: Poker buddy.
- Rose: You know, I don't think this dinner was such a good idea.
- John: Now Rose, please don't leap to conclusions.
- Rose: I'm sorry, John, but I think I'll just catch a cab---
- John: Rose, you're hurting my feelings. Believe me, this is not what it seems! John Patrick Anderson is a regular guy!
- Police Officer: [to John] Shlomo Ziegler?
- John: Yes?
- Police Officer: [handcuffing John] You're under arrest! Your days as the Freeway Flasher are over!
- John: I know what you're thinking, Rose, but you're wrong, and if I can make bail I'd love to see you tomorrow night.
- Rose: I don't think so.
- John: May I call you? I get one phone call... [the police haul him away]
- Rose: Man!
- Male Waiter: [to Rose] I think we both need a hug!
The Monkey Show [7.08]
- [about Gloria]
- Dorothy: She's out of M-O-N-E-Y.
- [Stan holding his monkey made from a traffic cone]
- Stan: Well, she's not getting mine!
- Dorothy: She's not out of monkey, Stan; she's out of money!
- Dorothy: Well, this is it! My last session with Stan and the psychiatrist. How do I look?
- Blanche: Oh, fine, why?
- Dorothy: It's so hard to dress for a psychiatrist. You wear black, they think you're depressed. You wear red, they think you're angry.
- Blanche: You wear a negligee, they think you want to sleep with them.
- Dorothy: Why aren't you arrested more?
Ro$e Love$ Mile$ [7.09]
- Sophia: [backing against the front door after Dorothy leaves, and grinning wickedly at Blanche] Fasten your seat belt, slut-puppy! This ain't gonna be no cakewalk!
- Blanche: Oh, I just wish Sophia were my mother... then I could put her in Shady Pines.
- Blanche: [on her idea to have Rose "cheat on" Miles] I have been giving it some serious thought, and I finally have come up with the perfect solution for your very sensitive problem with Miles.
- Rose: What?
- Blanche: Cheat on him.
- Rose: I can't cheat on Miles!
- Blanche: Well, maybe "cheat" isn't quite the right word. Just think of it as one night out with my rich friends from Texas.
- Rose: Well, why isn't that cheating?
- Blanche: 'Cause you're not gonna get caught. Come on, Rose, just think about it: a delicious dinner at an elegant restaurant, at night...
- Rose: [pausing] You mean no coupons, Blanche?
- Blanche: No coupons, Rose.
- Rose: Chefs who don't wear pirate hats?
- Blanche: I don't think so.
- Rose: And he'll pay for everything, I don't have to leave the tip?!
- Blanche: That's right!
- Rose: [singing happily] I'm gonna cheat on Mi-iles, I'm gonna cheat on Mi-iles!
- Rose: [on her problems with Miles] Lately he's gotten, I don't know, really tight, and I hate it!
- Blanche: Oh? Well, I'm just the opposite. I love a tight man. A tight man with cast-iron pecs... thighs that could choke a bear... and a butt you could eat breakfast off of... then the two of us would... [pauses briefly, snaps back to reality] Rose, when did you get in?
- Rose: Blanche, I've been here the whole time! I was telling you about Miles being tight!
- Blanche: Oh, I love a tight man! A tight man with cast-iron pecs... thighs that could---
- Rose: No, tight with money! He's cheap!
- Blanche: Oh - tight with money? Dump him.
- Rose: I feel so terrible about last night. I might have thrown away the perfect relationship, and for what?
- Blanche: Well, it's your own fault for cheating on Miles!
- Rose: Blanche, it was your idea!
- Blanche: It's the execution, Rose. I said don't get caught.
- Rose: I don't know what I'm going to do. What if he doesn't come back? What if I've lost him? What if I turn into a lonely old spinster and never find love again?
- Blanche: [laughs, engrossed in the funny pages] Oh, look! Garfield caught a fish!
Room 7 [7.10]
- Dorothy: [imitating Blanche's grammy] Blanche, this is your grammy! You get yourself out of here you dumb peckerwood!
- Blanche: It was hard enough lettin' go when Grammy died. The family had to sell Grandview and it got turned into an ol' bed and breakfast, but at least I could visit.
- Sophia: And have breakfast.
- Blanche: Thank you, Sophia.
- Sophia: Pancakes by the looks of it.
- Blanche: Thank you, Sophia!
- [Shot of interstate highway at night]
- Rose: [voiceover, singing The Name Game] Let's try it now with Dorothy. Dorothy Dorothy bo-borothy, bonana-fana-fo-forothy, fee-fi-mo-morothy...
- [Sound of car screeching to a halt]
- Dorothy: [voiceover] Get out, Rose.
From Here to the Pharmacy [7.11]
- Sophia: [dictating her will to Rose] I, Sophia Petrillo, being of sound mind and body, do hereby leave my daughter, Dorothy Zbornak... [grins] NOTHING!
- Rose: Sophia!
- Sophia: It's a joke, I'm kidding. Like when I said, "Sound mind and body."
- Rose: Sophia, wills are no joking matter! Charlie tried to be funny with his and left everything to Henrietta, our prize cow. Well, some lawyer got a hold of the will and represented Henrietta on contingency! There I was, presenting my side to a jury of her peers! It took over six months to get the farm back!
- Sophia: What a terrible story.
- [Rose nods]
- Sophia: [annoyed] I mean it - it's a terrible story! [calmer] But you must have been relieved when you won.
- Rose: Oh yeah, we celebrated. With a big, thick steak.
- Dorothy: Ma, what are you doing up?
- Sophia: Disappointed, huh? If I'm up that means I'm alive, and if I'm alive it means you can't get your hands on my money.
- Dorothy: What are you talking about?
- Sophia: You know about the will. You know if I die you'll be on easy street. What did you do, Dorothy, slip cyanide into my mouthwash? Ha ha, the joke's on you, I don't use it.
- Dorothy: Oh Ma, come on, you're just being silly. [pours a cup of tea] Here, have some tea. [gets a mysterious, sinister expression on her face] It'll relax you.
- Sophia: Nice try, Dorothy. Rose, you taste it.
- Dorothy: Rose, DON'T!!! ... [calmer] That tea was for my mommy.
- Sophia: You try to do right by your kids, and you end up as the lead story on Hard Copy!
- Sophia: As you know, my child, I'm getting on in years and I've decided it's time for me to settle my estate.
- Dorothy: What estate, your loofah sponge and bus pass?
- Sophia: Don't forget the four gold teeth from when your father worked at the funeral parlor. "Perks" he called them. That's the kind of stock you come from, Dorothy.
- Dorothy: I come from graverobbers?
- Sophia: Dorothy, Rose is helping me make out an ironclad will.
- Dorothy: Wait, you're using Rose as a lawyer?!
- Rose: I know what I'm doing! Every Thursday I watch La Law.
- Dorothy: That's "L.A. Law!"
- Rose: I wondered why Susan Dey didn't have a French accent!
The Pope's Ring [7.12]
- Sophia: [Waving the Pope's ring over a glass of water on the living room table] WINE!
- [Dorothy looks at Sophia strangely.]
- Sophia: Worth a shot.
- [Sophia comes through the door just as Miles walks out]
- Sophia: Miles, I'm glad you're here, I need to talk to you --
- Miles: Later.
- [Rose walks through the house and out the door]
- Sophia: Rose, this is really important --
- Rose: Maybe later, Sophia.
- [Dorothy comes out of the kitchen and starts into the hall]
- Sophia: Dorothy, I can't breathe!
- Dorothy: Not now, Ma! [pauses] Alright, but this better be important.
- Sophia: It depends. How important is...[shows Dorothy the ring] ...the Pope's ring?
- Dorothy: [looking at the ring] Alright, Ma, squirt me in the face and get it over with.
- Rose: [on meeting the Pope ] He had the most beautiful blue eyes!
- Sophia: Yeah, all the cute guys are either married or Popes.
Old Boyfriends [7.13]
- Blanche: [on learning that Rose had 56 boyfriends during her senior year of high school] If that were true, Rose, then that would mean you were... a slut.
- Dorothy: Oh, come on, Blanche, how can you say that? So the woman had fifty-six boyfriends in one year. She's not a slut.
- Rose: Thank you, Dorothy.
- Dorothy: She is The Slut! She is the Grand Poobah of Slutdom! She is the easiest woman in this room!
- Blanche: Dorothy Zbornak, you take that back!
- Dorothy: [indicating Blanche and then Rose] The Slut is dead, long live The Slut!
- Sophia: You know how hard it is to make out with a guy when his sister's sitting next to you?
- Blanche and Rose: Boy, do I ever.
- Blanche: [to Rose] Now, you stop that, you just stop that!
- Sophia: I'm looking through the personals to find myself a man. Remember what that is, Dorothy? It's an animal, kind of like a woman, except that it's got a...
- Dorothy: MA! I know what a man is! But I tell you, I would never look for one through the personals. And you know why? Because I have standards, I have intelligence, I have class. And you know what else I have?
- Sophia: It's not self-awareness, that's for damn sure. Hey, listen to this: "Older gentleman seeks lady of refinement. I like moonlit nights, romantic Italian dinners, and waking up in the morning. If you're old enough to remember when Sinatra was skinny, please send letter and photo." This is the one, he's perfect! I've found myself a man!
- Blanche: [to herself enviously] ...I'm the biggest slut...
- Sophia: [immediately after Marvin confesses that he and Sarah are husband and wife, not brother and sister] Dorothy, you can come in now.
- Dorothy: I thought the two of you would like some nice cold lemonade.
- Sophia: Marvin is married to Sarah.
- Dorothy: [pauses, to Marvin] You don't get any lemonade.
- Sophia: Isn't it obvious? They put in ad in the paper to lure an unsuspecting cutie like me into their web of sex games! They want me to be their love slave!
- Rose: [upset because she can't remember Thor] Boy, it's finally beginning to happen. I'm getting old and forgetting things, forgetting people who at one time were important to me.
- Sophia: Don't be ridiculous, you're as mentally fit as you ever were. We all are.
- Rose: Oh, thank you... [stares at Sophia for a few seconds with a blank look on her face]
- Sophia: Sophia!
- Rose: Sophia.
- Sophia: You're welcome...
- Rose: Rose.
- Sophia: Rose.
- Dorothy: Any wonder we get nursing home brochures by the truckload?
- Sarah: I'm just here to pick up Marvin.
- Sophia: Well, if it isn't Mrs. Caligula! Come on in and pull up a whip!
- Dorothy: You two have a lot of explaining to do.
- Marvin: I'm sorry, Sarah. I told them we're married.
- Sarah: Oh dear.
- Dorothy: Why did you lie to my mother?
- Sarah: We didn't mean to lie, we just wanted to make sure that Sophia was the right one.
- Dorothy: Then it is true! You wanted my mother for sex games! Oh my god, this is unbelievable!
- Sophia: It's not that unbelievable.
Goodbye, Mr. Gordon [7.14]
- [Rose mistakenly booked Dorothy and Blanche as guests on a talk show about lesbian couples.]
- Blanche: Rose, could I see you for a moment?
- Rose: [walks over] You're mad, aren't you?
- Blanche: Rose Nylund, every man I know is watching this show, this live show, this live show about lesbian lovers of Miami.
- Rose: Every man you know is watching? Hey, we could beat The Price is Right!
- Dorothy: Rose, we can't kill you here because there are cameras. Now how did this happen?
- Rose: Oh, I don't know. They just said they wanted two women who loved each other and slept together.
- Dorothy: We DO NOT sleep together!
- Rose: Yes, you did! Last month, whe-, when Blanche was having her room repainted because the plaster behind her headboard all fell out!
- Rose: Blanche, if you leave, they'll fire me!
- Dorothy: Good. My mother is here. My teacher is here. Good!
- Rose: If I lose my job, I won't be able to do anything but... sit home and tell St. Olaf stories!
- Blanche: Blackmail! Oh, ho, ho, ho, very smart!
- Rose: Hey, they don't call me "Harold Goldstein" for nothing!
- Sophia: [in the audience of "Wake Up Miami," pointing at Blanche] This is directed to Dorothy's lover. Do people treat you differently because you're a lesbian?
- Blanche: [laughing nervously] Most people don't know.
- Sophia: Really? I would've guessed right off. Next question to Dorothy. What kind of pain and embarrassment has this lifestyle caused your mother?
- Dorothy: [menacingly] I really don't know but, I'll ask her tomorrow when I visit her at... THE HOME.
- Sophia: No more questions.
- Dorothy: Well I guess at 17, 23 sounds kind of dangerous and forbidden.
- Rose: When your 17 a cow seems dangerous and forbidden.
- Sophia: [enters the kitchen] Dorothy, I just got off the phone with my girlfriend Gladys. She thinks you can do better than Blanche.
- Dorothy: I agree, but Ma, if it's all right with you, I have a lot of work to do here.
- Rose: I can't believe you're still working on that article! I thought you were just going to help organize it.
- Sophia: I can't believe you're doing this again. You're letting him take advantage of you like he did in high school.
- Dorothy: He is under a lot of pressure and I don't want him to kiss his deadline! [weird looks from everyone] Miss. Miss his deadline.
- Sophia: Ooooh, Mr. Gordon! [makes kissing sounds]
- Sophia: I don't like you being taken advantage of by some guy out of town. At least when Blanche does it it's good for tourism.
The Commitments [7.15]
- [Blanche enters kitchen]
- Blanche: I'm nothing but a cheap, tawdry, slut.
- [Rose with her back to the kitchen door]
- Rose: Let me guess....is it Blanche!
- Blanche: Oh my god, I can't believe I'm saying this. Blanche Deveraux has lost her sex appeal. [leaves kitchen]
- Sophia: They're always the last to know.
- Jerry: This is all very confusing. Now, I'm supposed to meet a Dorothy Zbornak at this address at 7:30 for a dinner date. So which one of you is really Dorothy Zbornak?
- Blanche: [grinning from ear to ear] I am Dorothy's...best friend, Blanche. I'm filling in for her because she's dead. [takes his hand and leaves]
Questions and Answers [7.16]
- Dorothy: [in her dream, upon seeing and hearing that Rose is the returning champion] This woman is an idiot!
- Announcer Johnny Gilbert: Oh, really? She didn't get knocked up in high school!
- Dorothy: [receiving call from Jeopardy that she has made it to the trial run] Hello, yes this is she. I did, well thank you! [person on the other end asks if Blanche is there] Yes, yes, she's my roommate. She did! No, no I'll be happy to tell her. Blanche, you flunked.
- [taking Jeopardy test]
- Blanche: Dorothy, where are the Ural Mountains?
- Dorothy: Well, well, well, Blanche, a pound of make-up and a tube of lip gloss can't help you now, can they?
- Blanche: I don't need you anyway. [touches guy next to her] Hey, show me yours and I'll show you mine.
Ebbtide VI: The Wrath of Stan [7.17]
- Rose: Dorothy, isn't this something? You've become what we call in the news business a hot story.
- Dorothy: And you've become what we call in the revenge business "next."
[the girls and Stan enter the barely furnished apartment]
- Rose: This isn't so bad. Look there's a chair. Look Dorothy a chair. This isn't going to be bad at all. [to Blanche, quietly] Can we go home, now? It's getting dark out.
- Dorothy: Someday, I'm going to get out of this hell hole and come looking for you.
- Rose: Don't spend all of your time in here hating me Dorothy. Learn a trade.
- Rose: [thinking of ideas for her job] "Miami's sordid sex scene. Who's behind it?"
- Dorothy: [points to Blanche] That's her, she's the one!
- Blanche: [after an unpleasant experience at the shoe store with Sophia] Sophia, there's something I don't understand. Now, you're always a bit ornery, unpleasant, impolite, even downright mean. That's part of your charm.
- Sophia: Thank you, you bedhopping relic.
- Blanche: [pops Sophia's balloon from the shoe store]
Journey to the Center of Attention [7.18]
- Blanche: I have a little exercise I do whenever my self-esteem is kind of low. I say my name and then I list three positive things about myself. I'm Blanche Devereaux. I'm beautiful, men find me desirable, and people want to be my friend. Go on, now you try.
- Dorothy: Oh, Blanche.
- Blanche: Oh, please. Please.
- Dorothy: [Sighing]Oh. I'm Dorothy Zbornak, I'm beautiful, men find me desirable and people want to be my friend.
- Blanche: Sorry, I confused you honey. You're supposed to say three positive things that apply to you. You know, like you could say, I'm Dorothy Zbornak...I'm a good speller, and um....I'm very prompt, and um..... well actually there's..., there's no law that says there has to be three.
- Dorothy: Actually, I just thought of a third one. I can snap a friend's neck like a twig.
- Rose: [on preparations for Sophia's "wake"] I even know a way we can save some money. I'll make the hors d'oeuvres.
- Sophia: Some wake. Scandinavian crap on a cracker. ... I mean, thank you.
- [Sophia's friend Myrtle has just arrived at the "wake" - however, Rose forgot to mention in her invitations to the wake that Sophia is alive, and Myrtle is very upset because she thinks Sophia is dead.]
- Blanche: Oh Myrtle, thank goodness you got here! You're just the person we need to liven up this party. Do some of those impressions you're so good at.
- Myrtle: [sobbing] Oh God, oh God, oh God!
- Blanche: [laughing] Jimmy Swaggart, right? That's wonderful, do another one.
- Myrtle: The last time I saw her she was fine. I didn't even know she was sick. What happened?
- Blanche: Wait, don't tell me... Klaus von Bulow?
A Midwinter Night's Dream [7.19]
- Blanche: All your dreams can come true if you believe. All you have to do is believe!
- Dorothy: [clapping hands excitedly] Oh, I do believe! I do believe in sluts!
- Dorothy: Oh, come on, Ma. That's superstitious nonsense. You know, step on a crack, break your mother's back. It doesn't work. I know. [ominous pause] I tried.
- Blanche: This necklace is a priceless heirloom. It belonged to my grammy. I've only worn it three times in my whole life, and each occasion marked the beginning of a passionate romance. And tonight I've decided to wear it with clothes.
- Carol: Hi, Blanche. I was sitting home feeling sorry for myself so I thought I'd do some risk taking and invite myself over. Here I am, totally vulnerable. Taking a chance. I am so proud of me.
- [Blanche slams the door in her face. Carol rings the doorbell and Blanche opens the door.]
- Carol: You know, that would have devastated the old me, but the new me? Just an emotional owie and do you know why? Because I like myself!
- [Blanche again slams the door in her face. Carol rings the doorbell and again Blanche opens the door.]
- Carol: The new me is starting to get honked off. Look, I'm lonely and scared and you're having a party. Can I come in or not?
- Blanche: Look, Carol, I am going to be honest here. I took great pains with this guest list and frankly there is room here for only one young, attractive female.
- Carol: [dashing inside] Ooh, then I just got in under the wire!
- Carol: [talking to a man at the party] Last night, I dreamed I ate a giant marshmallow, and when I woke up, my boyfriend was gone.
- Man: I don't get it.
- Carol: It's not a joke.
- Carol: Excuse me, Blanche. I think I'm gonna leave. I'm not having such a good time.
- Blanche: Oh, what a relief to know it isn't just me.
- Carol: It's like every man here just wants to sleep with me. Even the Rabbi with the limp!
- Dorothy: [trying to explain to Rose, in a roundabout way, how she kissed Miles] Let's say you make Miles a batch of your delicious, creamy cupcakes, and he loves them so much that he wants you to make them all the time.
- Rose: Miles does have a sweet tooth.
- Dorothy: But let's say that, even though he loves your cupcakes more than life itself, one day he decides to try somebody else's cupcakes. For lack of a better example let's say my cupcakes. And I, in a mad passionate moment, forget myself and... let him try my cupcakes. How would that make you feel?
- Rose: I'd like to think I'd understand.
- Dorothy: Oh, good, good. I was hoping that's what you would say.
- [Rose giggles]
- Dorothy: What?
- Rose: I'm sorry. It's just the idea of Miles wanting to try your cupcakes.
- Dorothy: Why is that funny?
- Rose: No offense, Dorothy, but your cupcakes are dry and tasteless. Nobody ever likes your cupcakes.
- Dorothy: My cupcakes are moist and delicious. Men love my cupcakes.
- Rose: Get a clue, Dorothy. Men would rather pay for cupcakes.
Rose: Portrait of a Woman [7.21]
- Rose: Dorothy, how would you feel about a birthday present of a picture of me in sexy lingerie?
- Dorothy: I'd rather have the cash.
- Rose: Actually it's not for you, it's for Miles.
- Dorothy: He'd rather have the cash.
Home Again, Rose [7.22]
- Blanche: Nurse, now we realize that the hospital has rules and you have to try to uphold those rules. But, you have to realize that this is a very special case. So, I'm gonna quote from the Bible just to show you how determined we really are. Now, the good book says, um, oh, "Neither rain, nor sleet, nor....nor dark of night shall keepeth uth...from our appointed rounds." Amen. [The nurse gives Blanche a look.] I can see you are a non-believer.
- Janet: Oh, you know how I feel about organized religion, it makes me crazy. And I do not want Sarah's head filled with stories about a God who may or may not exist.
- Blanche: Well, honey, of course He exists! Just look at the beautiful sky, the majestic trees. God created man and gave him a heart and a mind and thighs that could crack walnuts.
- Janet: [putting an arm around Sarah] Mother!
- Blanche: Oh, I'm sorry... I came to religion late.
- Janet: I'd say.
- Blanche: But it's never too late! And it is my fervent hope that the three of us, you and I and dear little Sarah, may walk the path of righteousness together. And now if you'll excuse me, I have Gideon Bibles for everyone. [leaves room]
- Sarah: I miss "sexy" Grandma.
- Janet: I'm sure a lot of people do, darlin', I'm sure a lot of people do.
- [At the reunion, Rose goes over to the other girls holding several pieces of paper.]
- Blanche: Where've you been?
- Rose: When no one was looking, I went by the No-Show table and I got four name tags for us! Blanche, you'll be Susan Armstrong... [gives Blanche a name tag] ...and Dorothy, you'll be Cindy Lou Peeples... [gives Dorothy a name tag] ...and Sophia, you're Myron Zucker. [gives an irked Sophia a name tag]
- Sophia: Rose, you idiot, there's no way I'm ever gonna pass for a man! Dorothy, trade with me?
- Dorothy: Go to hell, Myron.
- Larry Tucker: [to Sophia] Excuse me...aren't you Mrs. Gonzalez, Spanish 101?
- Sophia: Sí!
- Larry: Hi, Larry Tucker! [shakes Sophia's hand] You know, I-I was always afraid to tell you this when I was in your class, but... [shyly] I had a huge crush on you back then!
- Sophia: Why didn't you ever do anything about it?
- Larry: Mrs. Gonzalez -- you were my teacher!
- Sophia: And you were my favorite student. But I'm not your teacher anymore. And Mr. Gonzalez is dead. [pause] Let's mambo! [grabs Larry and starts dancing with him]
One Flew Out of the Cuckoo's Nest [7.23]
- Lucas: Dorothy, will you marry me for real?
- Dorothy: For real? Oh, Lucas. Yes. Yes!
- Sophia: I think I'm gonna cry. I think- [sneezes] Oh. Nevermind.
- Sophia: Oh, I feel another sneeze coming on. [tears fall from her eyes] Well I'll be damned.
- Dorothy: [to Sophia] You're a furry little gnome and we feed you too much!
- Dorothy: You will always be my sisters.
- Sophia: [thinking Rose and Blanche embracing are Dorothy and Lucas] I just love watching you two kiss. It- [notices it is Rose and Blanche] Whoa. Oops.