- Paul Jellinek: People like you must create. That's what you were brought into this world to do, Bernadette. If you don't, you become a menace to society.
- Bee Branch: Whatever you do don't ever tell Mom you're bored. She'll be like, "Well, guess what? It only gets more boring and the sooner you learn it's on you to make your own life interesting the better off you'll be. "
- Bernadette: I just need you to know how hard it is for me sometimes.
- Bee Branch: What's hard?
- Bernadette: The banality of life. But I retail the right to be incredibly moved by those little things no one notices. For better and worse.
- Bernadette: I guess I just wanted to leave LA in a snit, and when I determined that everyone felt sufficiently sorry for me unfurl my cape and swoop in to launch my second act and show those bastards who the true bitch goddess of architecture really is.
- Bernadette: It's just, the way I work is I have to inhabit a space before I can even begin designing it. Before I can discover what it needs to be. Just thinking about it has got my heart racing...
- Ellen Idelson: Uh-oh...
- Bernadette: Oh, no, it's not the bad kind of heart racing, as in 'I'm gonna die!', it's the good kind of heart racing, as in 'Hello, can I help you with something? 'Cause if not, step aside, because I'm going to kick the shit it of life!'
- Becky: [approaching in another kayak] Hello. Hey, who are you?
- Bernadette: Ah. Funny. I was just wondering that myself. When you're in a boat in Antarctica, and there's no night, who are you? I'm thinking I'm a ghost on a ghost ship in a ghost land.
- [first lines]
- Bee Branch: [narrating] Have you ever heard that the brain is like a discounting mechanism? Say someone gives you a present and it's a diamond necklace and you open it and you love it. You're all happy at first, and then the next day it still makes you happy, but a little less so. A year later, you see the necklace and you think, "Oh, that old thing."
- Bee Branch: And do you know why your brain discounts things? It's for survival. You need to be prepared for new experiences, because they could signal danger. Wouldn't it be great if we could reset that, since there aren't a lot of saber-tooth tigers jumping out at us? Seems like a design flaw that our brain's default settings signal danger and survival, instead of something like joy, or appreciation.
- Bee Branch: I think that's what happened to my mom. She got so focused on picking up danger signals that her discounting mechanism forgot to see all the good stuff in her life. And maybe Dad had quit seeing the diamond necklace side of Mom.
- Bernadette: Fuck you for bringing Bee into this!
- Audrey: No. Don't you do this. We love Bee. Bee is a terrific girl. She's a wonderful student. In fact, it just goes to show how resilient children are because she turned out so well.