- Blind Man: What do you want?
- Charles: [laughing crazily] What do I want? I wanna marry Laura. I thought everybody knew that. I'd even settle for living with her. What do I want? Let's talk about what I have. You know what I have? I have, I have... an unemployed jacket salesman living in my spare room, I have a mother that won't get out of the bathtub, I have a sister that always wants me to be happy, I have a stepfather that wants me to take disco lessons and I have a secretary that wants me to throw parties so that she can make dips. And I have this boss that wants *me* to give his son advice on his sexual problems!
- Blind Man: You've been up all night. That only makes things look worse.
- Charles: Yeah? I really thought I was having a nervous breakdown for a second there.
- Blind Man: [sympathetically] Oh, sure!
- Charles: [examining a movie poster for a skin flick] You're prettier than she is.
- Laura: Now I'm prettier than a porno star. Would you stop it?
- Charles: Stop what?
- Laura: We go to movies and you say I look better than the movie stars. We go to the best restaurant in town and you say I'm a better cook than the chef. You have this exalted view of me and I hate it. If you think I'm that great, there must be something wrong with you.
- Charles: The day my grandfather killed himself, he went hunting and shot two grouse. After the funeral, my grandmother cleaned and cooked the grouse.
- Clara: [at Thanksgiving dinner] How are your parents, Sam? Where are they living?
- Sam: Well, my father's living in an apartment on Lee Road and my mother's still in the house.
- Clara: Did you hear that, Charles? Sam's parents aren't living together!
- Charles: You knew that, Mom! Sam's parents haven't lived together since Sam and I were in the eighth grade.
- Clara: I certainly did not know that! That must make you very sad, Sam.
- Sam: I'm accustomed to it.
- Clara: Brave boy!
- Charles: Do you want me to get the food, Mother?
- Clara: What food?
- Charles: The turkey!
- Clara: There isn't any turkey.
- Charles: Well, whatever it is that you prepared, would you like me to go into the kitchen and get it?
- Clara: I didn't prepare anything. There isn't any dinner. Ha ha. There isn't any dinner!
- Sam: I guess the joke's on us.
- Clara: [laughing hysterically] That's right. The joke's on you!
- Charles: What's your name?
- Laura: Laura Connolly.
- Charles: What a...
- Laura: [finishing his sentence] "What a beautiful name."
- Charles: No, no. I wasn't gonna say that. I wasn't gonna say, "What a beautiful name." I was gonna say, "What a coincidence."
- Laura: What?
- Charles: That your name is Laura. My name is Charles.
- Laura: I don't get it. What's the coincidence?
- Charles: There isn't any. Just wanted to tell you my name.
- Charles: [listening to Janis Joplin's 'Get It While You Can'] Janis, how can I get it if she won't come out of her A-frame?
- Charles: [walking into Laura's unfurnished apartment] I thought maybe this might be your minimalist period.
- Charles: I thought you said you were on the trampoline team in high school.
- Laura: I was on the trampoline team in high school.
- Charles: That must have been before it became a competitive sport.
- Laura: I never said I was any good, you know. See, I had these terrible bow-legs. Somebody told me if you jump on the trampoline a lot, it'll straighten out your bow-legs.
- Charles: How can jumping on a trampoline straighten out bow-legs?
- Laura: I was misinformed!
- Charles: [about the yellow ribbon in her hair] That's a nice ribbon in your hair.
- Clara: Well, I told the nurse that it was like the song. "Tie a yellow ribbon 'round the old oak tree."
- [Clara starts to sing the song]
- Mrs. DeLillo: [wearing a green ribbon] And I say tie a green ribbon 'round the old oak tree.
- Clara: Mine's a real song!
- Pete: Mommy sure does know her music, doesn't she?
- Mrs. DeLillo: [angrily] Huh!
- Pete: Mrs. DeLillo knows her music, too.
- Mrs. DeLillo: Thank you so much.