- Augie Steenbeck: I still don't understand the play.
- Schubert Green: Doesn't matter. Just keep telling the story.
- Montana: I figure this here alien come from a tribe we don't know nothing 'bout, do we? Anything we say'd just be pure speculation. But I tell you what I reckon. I reckon that alien don't mean no harm at all. I reckon he just took hisself down here to have a look-see at the land and the peoples on it. In the spirit of exploration. See, I don't look on a feller alien all suspicious-like. No, he ain't American. No, he ain't a creature of God's green Earth, but he's a creature of somewheres, and so are we. Now, let's show the old feller some hospitality, and if he turns out to be a dirty dog, which I reckon he ain't, well, that'll be a job for the United States armed forces, and they ain't never lost a war yet. Thanky-do.
- Augie Steenbeck: Why does Augie burn his hand on the Quickie Griddle?
- Conrad Earp: Well, I don't even know myself, to tell you the truth. I hadn't planned it that way. He just sort of did it while I was typing. Is it too extraordinary for you?
- Augie Steenbeck: I guess the way I read it, he was looking for an excuse why his heart was beating so fast.
- Conrad Earp: Oh. Oh, what an interesting sentiment. I love that idea. Maybe he should say it. It's a very good line. No, I suppose not. Not necessary.
- Midge Campbell: I mean, I think I know now what I realize we are. Two catastrophically wounded people who don't express the depths of their pain because we don't want to. That's our connection.
- Augie Steenbeck: Uh-huh.
- Midge Campbell: I do a nude scene. You want to see it?
- Augie Steenbeck: Huh? Did I say yes?
- Midge Campbell: You didn't say anything.
- Augie Steenbeck: Uh, I mean yes. My mouth... My mouth didn't speak.
- Augie Steenbeck: I don't like the way that guy looked at us.
- Midge Campbell: What guy?
- Augie Steenbeck: The alien.
- Midge Campbell: Oh. How did he...? How did he looked at us.
- Augie Steenbeck: Like we're doomed.
- Midge Campbell: Maybe we are.
- Augie Steenbeck: Ah!
- Midge Campbell: What d'you just do?
- Augie Steenbeck: I burned my hand on a Quickie Griddle.
- Midge Campbell: Why?
- Augie Steenbeck: It's not clear.
- Stanley Zak: In my loneliness, and perhaps because of it, I've learned not to judge people, to take people as I find them, not as others find them. And most of all, to give complete and unquestioning faith to the people I love.
- Actress: I'm not coming back, Augie. Then you take a picture and start crying, and I say..."I hope it comes out".
- Jones Hall: And I say: "All my pictures come out".
- Sandy Borden: You were very good in the one about the tramp in the brothel...
- Midge Campbell: Thank you.
- Sandy Borden: ...who gets amnesia...
- Midge Campbell: Thank you.
- Sandy Borden: ...and becomes a pediatrician. You were very authentic.
- Midge Campbell: That's actually maybe my favorite character I've ever played.
- Sandy Borden: I don't know why nobody else liked it.
- Midge Campbell: Oh. Yes. Me, neither. Thank you. Some people liked it.
- Sandy Borden: Oh, I'm sure. I did. Who hit you?
- J. J. Kellogg: What's the cause? What's the meaning? Why do you always have to dare something?
- Clifford: I don't know. Maybe it's because I'm afraid, otherwise, nobody'll notice my existence in the universe.
- J. J. Kellogg: Dare you what?
- Motel Manager: Yes, dare you what?
- Clifford: To climb that cactus out there.
- J. J. Kellogg: Lord, no. No.
- Motel Manager: Please don't.
- Midge Campbell: We're just two catastrophically wounded people who don't express the depths of our pain because... we don't want to.
- Jones Hall: Ah, it's you, the Wife who played my Actress.
- Shelly: [looking at Rorschach inkblots] That's an alien eating an apple. That's an alien doing jumping jacks. That's an alien in a top hat. That's an alien climbing a ladder. That's an alien on a racehorse. That's an alien...
- Midge Campbell: I prefer to play abused, tragic alcoholics, and one day I'll probably be discovered lifeless in an overflowing bathtub with an empty bottle of sleeping pills spilled all over the floor, but... the sad thing is I'm actually a very gifted comedienne.
- Tupperware: Ashes. 1 of 3.
- Clifford: You dare me?
- J. J. Kellogg: Dare you what?
- Clifford: To press that button.
- J. J. Kellogg: I will break your neck.
- Dinah: [reading his pendant] Brainiac, huh?
- Woodrow: Yeah, brainiac.
- Dinah: It sort of goes without saying, doesn't it? Everybody already knows we're abnormally intelligent.
- Woodrow: That's true. My mother made it for me. It's supposed to be funny, according to her sense of humor. But it's not as hilarious as it was originally.
- Dinah: Oh, really. How come?
- Woodrow: Because she was alive then. Now she's dead.
- Stanley Zak: I didn't love you.
- Augie Steenbeck: You didn't think I was worthy.
- Stanley Zak: We're saying the same thing.
- [after man has its first encounter with an alien lifeform]
- Augie Steenbeck: The, uh, alien stole the asteroid.
- Billboard: Death of a Narcissist.
- Host: [narrating] Schubert Green, born Shylock Grzworvszowski. Director, immigrant. Known for his limitless energy, his voracious enthusiasms. A well-known actress described him sexually as an animal, specifically a rabbit.
- Midge Campbell: I wish I felt guilty at least, but I don't experience that emotion, if I understand it correctly. I've played it, of course.
- Augie Steenbeck: So you're saying you never feel guilty in real life?
- Midge Campbell: Not to my knowledge.
- [first lines]
- Host: Tonight's program takes us backstage to witness firsthand the creation, start to finish, of a new play mounted on the American stage. Asteroid City does not exist. It is an imaginary drama created expressly for this broadcast. The characters are fictional, the text hypothetical, the events an apocryphal fabrication. But together they present an authentic account of the inner workings of a modern theatrical production.
- Augie Steenbeck: Mind if I crack open a window?
- Conrad Earp: Uh, not at all. It's sweltering, isn't it? Even the daisies and buttercups are drooping...
- [Augie tries to open the window]
- Conrad Earp: That window sticks a bit. That window sticks a bit! You broke my window.