- John Boy [Narrator]: Christmas is the season where we give tokens of love. In that house we received not tokens but love itself. I became the writer I promised my father I would be, and my destiny led me far from Walton's Mountain. My mother lives there still. Alone now, for we lost my father in 1969. My brothers and sisters, grown with children of their own, live not far away. We are still a close family and see each other when we can. And like Miss Mamie Baldwin's fourth cousins, we're apt to sample the recipe and then gather around the piano and hug each other while we sing the old songs. For no matter the time or distance, we are united in the memory of that Christmas Eve. More than 30 years and 3,000 miles away, I can still hear those sweet voices.
- John: [John-Boy had just received a bunch of tablets from his father] I wonder how word got all the way to the North Pole that you wanted to be a writer.
- John-Boy: [Near tears] Well I guess he must be a right smart man.
- John: I don't know a thing about the writing trade, son. But if you wanna take it up, you gotta give it your best.
- John-Boy: CALM DOWN NOW! JUST HOLD IT!
- Olivia: You watch your temper! You're the oldest, you make them mind!
- John-Boy: Well, I am tired of being the oldest! I feel like an old mother duck!
- Olivia: Can't do a thing about that now. You're stuck with it.
- John-Boy: [Quietly, to the kids] All right next--the next one of you that moves is gonna get a spanking!
- Charlie Sneed: Ike, you got any Christmas cheer in this place?
- Ike Godsey: I got a little of Miss Emily and Miss Mamie's recipe for snakebite.
- Charlie Sneed: [Pretends a snake bit him] Hot doggies! I believe he got me just now. Looky there.
- Mary Ellen: Mama, do you think I'm pretty?
- Olivia Walton: No. I think you're beautiful.
- Mary Ellen: [Kisses Olivia on the neck] Thank you, Mama.
- Olivia Walton: You're welcome, Mary Ellen.
- Olivia Walton: We do not accept charity in this house.
- John-Boy Walton: You took that turkey from Charlie Snead.
- Olivia Walton: That's enough out of you, John-Boy.
- City Lady: This year I said to the ladies in our society, "Why look to some foreign country for heathens when the Blue Ridge Mountains are filled with 'em?" So, we didn't send off our gifts to some unappreciative savages, but to you, whose need is just as great. Now that is why I am here.
- Claudie: Got another one?
- Mary Ellen: [Quoting a Bible verse] What has man profited if he gains the whole world and loses a soul.
- Claudie: Too hard to remember.
- Mary Ellen: Jesus wept.
- John-Boy: Santa Claus is gonna take one look at that bird poop and he's gonna head right back up the chimney.
- John-Boy: You know what's in that tablet, Mama? All my secret thoughts. What I feel and what I think about. What it's like late at night to hear a whipoorwill call and hear it's mate call back. The rumbling of the midnight train crossing the tressel at Rockfish, or just watching the water go by the creek and knowing some day it will reach the ocean, wondering if I'll ever seen an ocean and what a wonder that would be. You know, Mama, sometimes I hike on over to the highway and I sit and watch the buses go by and the people in them and I'm wondering what they're like and what they say to each other and where they're bound for. Things stay in my mind, I can't forget anything and it all get's bottled up in here and sometimes I feel like a crazy man. I can't rest or sleep or anything until I rush up here and write it down in that tablet. Sometimes I think I really am crazy.
- Elizabeth: Good night, John Boy.
- John-Boy: Good night, Elizabeth. Good night, Daddy.
- John: Good night, Son. Good night, Mary Ellen.
- Mary Ellen: Good night, Daddy. Good night, Mama.
- Olivia: Good night, Mary Ellen. Good night, Jim Bob.
- Jim Bob: Good night, Mama. Good night, Erin.
- Erin: Good night, Jim Bob. Good night, Ben.
- Ben: Good night, Erin. Good night, everybody.
- Radio Announcer: Lucky Lindy, a former aerial-mailman himself, has been in Europe surveying the possibility of air-mail service between the old and the new world. He suggests that air-mail service between Europe and America is practical, and predicts that in the distant future, freight and even passengers might cross the Atlantic by airplane.
- Grandma: Cross the ocean? Why, I wouldn't fly from here to Rockfish in one of the things.
- John-Boy: Is Daddy home yet?
- Olivia: Not yet. Who was that that let you off down by the gate?
- John-Boy: That was Miss Mamie and Miss Emily Baldwin. They gave me a ride home in their pappy's sleigh.
- Olivia: What am I gonna do with you, boy? I send you looking for your daddy and you end up joyriding with two old lady BOOTLEGGERS!
- John-Boy: I wasn't joyriding, Mama. They took me to look for Daddy. We got right far but there a tree down in the road stopped us dead.
- Little Girl: Thy two breasts are like two young rows that are twins which feed among the lilies. Solomon Song Chapter 4:5.
- Missionary: Er... Thank you.
- John-Boy: Grandpa, do we got something to show we own Walton's Mountain?
- Grandpa: You can't own a mountain any more than you can own an ocean or a piece of the sky. You hold it in trust. You live on it, you take life from it, and once you're dead, you rest in it.
- John-Boy: I'd just as soon not think about that part.
- Grandpa: You're not ready for it yet.
- John-Boy: Are you?
- Grandpa: Never!
- Olivia Walton: Is it somethin' you're ashamed of?
- John-Boy Walton: Oh no, Mama.
- Olivia Walton: Then why are you hidin' it?
- Emily Baldwin: Oh, well, just because you're gone, there's no reason not to carry on a conversation, is there?
- Olivia Walton: Papa, it's awful slippery outside. Nobody's gonna expect you to ring the church bells tonight.
- Ebenezer Walton: Well, the Methodists will be ringin' in Christmas, and so will the Episcopals. Well, the Baptist bell is gonna be ringin' right along with 'em.
- Mary Ellen: I'm so hungry I could eat a horse.
- Grandma: If this Depression gets any worse, you may have to.
- Olivia: What's that you got in your hand?
- John-Boy: It's a present, Mama, from Miss Mamie and Miss Emily.
- Olivia: Bootleg whiskey. Don't those crazy old women know I don't allow whiskey in this house? I've got young children in this house! What sort of example do they think we set here? You take it out yonder and pour it on the ground!
- John-Boy: It's not whiskey, Mama, it's eggnog.
- Olivia: [after pause] I ought to be ashamed of myself.
- Jim-Bob Walton: What's the matter with Mary Ellen?
- John-Boy: Well, she's just crazy, everybody goes crazy when you're 13.
- Mary Ellen: The world is a big round ball! 8,000 miles smack through the middle! Walton's Mountain is just a tiny speck on it!
- Ike Godsey: I can let you have a little credit.
- Olivia Walton: Don't put temptation in my way, Ike. You know John and I never bought anything on credit in our lives.
- Ike Godsey: Just thought I would make the offer.
- Olivia Walton: And I appreciate it.
- Olivia: If John doesn't get home soon with money, all we'll have for Christmas dinner is my applesauce cake. We won't even have that if I don't get a move on.
- Mary Ellen: Let Erin help you, she's such a prissy-butt.
- Erin: I am not a prissy-butt!
- Olivia: Would you girls stop arguing and get busy? GO!
- Ike Godsey: Sheriff, why don't you wait until after Christmas to lock Charlie up? He's a man of his word, he won't run out on you.
- Sheriff Bridges: You double dog right he won't. He's going to jail.
- Charlie Sneed: Christmas ain't no time to be locking a man up in that old, drafty jail of yours. I could die of pneumonia before morning. You want that on your conscience that I died of pneumonia on Christmas?
- Sheriff Bridges: You should've given that some thought while you was stealing them turkeys and hams.
- Charlie Sneed: Ike, the keys to my car are in my pocket right over here. Now, you take them and drive that boy all over town.
- Ike Godsey: Oh, Charlie you know I can't do that until the law finishes his pool game.