- Justine: After living in the dark for so long, a glimpse of the light can make you giddy. Strange thoughts come into your head and you better think'em. Has a special fate been calling you and you not listening? Is there a secret message right in front of you and you're not reading it? Is this your last, best chance? Are you gonna take it? Or are you going to the grave with unlived lives in your veins?
- [first lines]
- Justine: As a girl you see the world as a giant candy store filled with sweet candy and such. But one day you look around and you see a prison and you're on death row. You wanna run or scream or cry but something's locking you up. Are the other folks cows chewing cud until the hour comes when their heads roll? Or are they just keeping quiet like you, planning their escape.
- Holden: You know, sometimes I think to myself: At least it can't get any worse. But it can! It can get worse! As long as you can say you hit rock bottom, you haven't.
- Cheryl: Attention, shoppers. There's a Retail Rodeo special on aisle 3. Liquid Drain Cleaner, 2 12-ounce cans for $5.00. Liquid Drain Cleaner has churning power and it will churn right through your pipes. Ladies, you need female plumbing. Shove something clean and new up your filthy pipes. That's Liquid Drain Cleaner on aisle 3. Have a good day and thank you for shopping at Retail Rodeo.
- Cheryl: Sit right down here, ma'am. We're going to make you pretty. Now how do you like your hair?
- Big Haired Woman: What? Are you going to do my hair?
- Cheryl: No, I just need to know if that's your usual way of wearing it, all big and high. If it is, I'll just put more makeup on your chin to offset it. You're going to want to take a whole bottle of this home with you. It's got quite a lot of ingredients in it, so you're getting a good deal. It's got ginkgo extract in it. Do you know what that is?
- Big Haired Woman: No.
- Cheryl: It's extract of the ginkgo, and it makes your skin real slick so that any liquid will roll right off you, be it water, or lemon juice, or urine. I'll put it in a bag for you.
- Old Woman: I look too white, don't you think?
- Cheryl: Not at all. I'm just trying to match your face with your hair. I was thinking you're not white enough.
- Old Woman: I think I look kind of weird.
- Cheryl: The first rule of fashion is you have to look weird. What I'm doing has come straight here from France.
- Old Woman: Oh?
- Cheryl: It's called Cirque du Face, meaning "Circus of the Face", and it's all the rage with the Frenchies, ma'am.
- Old Woman: Well, you're the professional.
- Justine: How it all came down to this, only the Devil knows. Retail Rodeo is at the corner on my left. The motel is down the road to my right. I close my eyes and try to peer into the future. On my left, I saw days upon days of lipstick and ticking clocks, dirty looks and quiet whisperings. And burning secrets that just won't ever die away. And on my right, what could I picture? The blue sky, the desert earth, stretching out into the eerie infinity. A beautiful never-ending nothing.
- Justine: That day I read the story Holden had wrote for me. It was kinda different from the other ones but kinda the same. It was about a girl who was put upon, whose job is like a prison, and whose life has lost all meaning. Other people don't get her, especially her husband. One day she meets a boy who is also put upon and they fall in love. After spending their whole lives never getting got, with one look they get each other completely. In the end the girl and the boy run away together into the wilderness, never to be heard from again.
- Justine: Holden gave me two of his stories to read. It was more like the story of what a story would be. It was about a boy who was put upon; whose mother is cold and selfish and whose father wanted him to play football. Other people didn't get him. Especiall girls. Soon enough the boy comes to believe that no one can ever really know him. He starts acting out, drinking and taking all kinds of drugs. At the end the boy kills himself by jumping over a bridge. The second story was pretty much the same as the first expect at the end the boy kills himself by drinking a bottle of bug poison.
- Cheryl: [after Jack, the store manager plays a song in memory of Holden] I thought we're gonna get a day to grieve and go to the movies.
- Cheryl: Happy Halloween, Retail Rodeo shoppers. There's a Retail Rodeo special on all bulk candy on aisle 4. Ghouls and goblins, witches and warlocks, wandering these aisles day after day, I put a Halloween curse on your hellish heads.
- Cheryl: You didn't bring this into the store with you?
- Heavy Set Woman: No.
- Cheryl: Then I'll go ahead and charge you for it. This is a hand lotion, so don't put it on any other part of your body, even if that part needs lubrication. We try to keep frivolous lawsuits to a minimum, unless, of course, the customer is at fault.
- Jack Field, Your Store Manager: Holden was a thief and a disturbed young man and what happened was a sad thing. Perhaps we can learn a lesson from this tragedy like don't steal and don't be disturbed.
- Holden: [in a letter to Justine] Dear Justine, because of you I will be quitting the Retail Rodeo. The last two days have been the most God awful of my life. I've not been able to get rid of you in my head. I've never wanted anything so bad and I have wanted many things. I'd given up long ago on being gotten by someone else, and then you came along. The idea that I could be gotten because of circumstantial never get got is the worst feeling I've ever felt and I have felt many bad feelings. I'm sorry I can never see you again, Justine. Forgive me for being so weak, but that is who I am. Goodbye. Holden Worther. If, for some reason, you could change your mind and wanna be with me body and soul, meet me after work. I will be waiting for you at 5pm outside Chunky Cheese. If you are not there at five you will never see me again in your lifetime.
- Justine: I thought if I died today what would happen to me? A hateful girl... A selfish girl... An adulteress... A liar.
- Justine: Is this your last best chance? Or are you going to your grave with unlived lives in your veins?
- [to Justine]
- Bubba: Look, you got your choice to make, destroy your marriage and break your husband's heart, or have sex with me right now.
- Holden: If I could only get my hands on some money. If someone could just tell me the answer. I gotta do! But I don't ever do anything 'cos I end up thinking about it instead. I gotta do! But do what?
- Corny: You got any interest in reading the Bible?
- Justine: I have my own, you know, beliefs.
- Corny: Well, we don't preach fire and brimstone. 10 Commandments, gotta live by those. Other than the usual ways, we're not interested in scaring people. We're about loving Jesus.
- Justine: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I kind of like my nights to myself.
- Corny: Well, maybe you'll have night after night of eternal hellfire all to yourself. Just kidding you. Drive safe. Bye-bye.