- Vernell Bird: Bubba, how come you didn't come home when Daddy died?
- Norwood Pratt: Well, I tried to get a leave but it was just too far away to get back in time.
- Bill Bird: Listen, it was a damned good, all round funeral. Your poor sister fainted twice.
- Vernell Bird: Oh, everybody said Daddy looked so nice there at the end. You know, the funeral home, they scrubbed him all down with Boraxso and everything and all that grease from the filling station was just gone! I never seen him look so clean.
- Bill Bird: It is a known fact that your most virile male is bald. You take your American eagle - he's bald.
- [first lines]
- Norwood Pratt: I wonder what they think of us, Joe?
- [looking at a hippie couple across the intersection]
- Joe William Reese: Well, maybe they got something. But, I ain't so sure I'd want it.
- Norwood Pratt: Me neither. Clean that girl up a little bit though, you got a pretty good lookin' old hide there.
- Norwood Pratt: Do you know me?
- Grady Fring: I feel I do. I see your name right there over your pocket. Of course, you could have someone else's shirt on.
- Vernell Bird: Bubba, why don't you go and call one of your old girls or somethin'?
- Norwood Pratt: All the goodins have either left town or married.
- Vernell Bird: Bubba, he's a disabled veteran. Of course, there's not too much wrong with him any more - outside a little irregularity.
- Norwood Pratt: She's a good skater, all right.
- Grady Fring: She is. What does her Daddy do?
- Norwood Pratt: Her Daddy's died. Her Mama works down at the washateria.
- Grady Fring: How old is she?
- Norwood Pratt: About 56.
- Grady Fring: I mean, the girl.
- Norwood Pratt: Oh, around 17, I guess.
- Grady Fring: Oh, I'd rather not tamper with 'em till they're 19 or 20. You will understand, Norwood, I'm not necessarily looking for skating skills.
- Norwood Pratt: I think I'll go over to the roller rink to see if I can't pick up a little heifer lookin' for a ride home.
- Grady Fring: Hey, how do you get that high a polish on your boots?
- Norwood Pratt: With a little lighter fluid and a nylon stocking.
- Yvonne Phillips: You are the peckerwood of all *peckerwoods*.
- Norwood Pratt: I'm gettin' pretty fed up with that peckerwood business, Laverne.
- Yvonne Phillips: Stop calling me Laverne!
- Norwood Pratt: [singing] They'll be smoke on the water, On the land and the sea, When our army and navy, Overtakes the enemy, A-ha!
- Yvonne Phillips: I hope you don't think that I'm gonna go to New York with this country son of a bitch.
- Grady Fring: She's got her own expense money, boy; so, so don't let her pull anything. Of course, you're free to work out any personal understanding.
- Norwood Pratt: Maybe. If she wants to. I don't think she wants to.
- Marie: [after Norwood read the contents of the canned meat he is eating] I wish you hadn't read that.
- Norwood Pratt: Why?
- Marie: Well, sometimes its better not to know things.
- Norwood Pratt: It's all meat. Meat's meat. Did you ever eat any gopher brains?
- Marie: I hope not.
- Norwood Pratt: They're about like calf brains. Not really half bad if you don't think about it. The only bad part is crackin' them little skulls open.
- Yvonne Phillips: You are the biggest peckerwood *bastard* in the whole world!
- Norwood Pratt: Now, I don't like that kind of talk out of a girl, Laverne. You keep it up and you gonna get slapped right in the teeth. Now, what would your mama say?
- Yvonne Phillips: You leave my mama outta this!
- Yvonne Phillips: Why don't you let me have one of these cars?
- Norwood Pratt: You mean let you steal it?
- Yvonne Phillips: Well how do you think Grady Fring got ahold of it? Or, do you ever really think, Mr. Dumb Ox?
- Norwood Pratt: These cars are hot?
- Yvonne Phillips: They are about to burst into flames.
- Norwood Pratt: I'm Norwood Pratt - from Ralph, Texas. And down there, people ask people to come in.
- Marie: Well, I've heard of Ralph. But, I've never heard of Texas.
- Grady Fring: Drive with care. Don't get picked up by the cops. The laws are for our own protection. A car is just like a gun. In the wrong hands it is a instrument of death.
- Norwood Pratt: You never did tell me your name.
- Marie: Marie.
- Norwood Pratt: Marie what?
- Marie: I don't believe in last names.
- Norwood Pratt: What do you not believe in most?
- Marie: Well, if you really want to know: sex.
- Norwood Pratt: Sex? What do you got against that?
- Marie: Sex - its like a common cold. If I see one more nude love scene in a film with all that rooting and grunting around, I'm going to throw up.
- Norwood Pratt: Huh, maybe you better not go to any more of them movin' picture shows, huh.
- Marie: Sex - its like housework. It never stays done.
- Marie: My daddy sends me a check every month. I'm a philosophy major at NYU. I don't go to classes much; because, I don't believe in philosophy.
- Norwood Pratt: Sounds like you knew old Joe William pretty well.
- Marie: Not as well as he wanted me to.
- Marie: Hey, this bathtub's too small for both of us!
- Norwood Pratt: Your daddy knew what he was talkin' about. A comb would do that mop of your's some good. That's a pair of dirty little feet there too. And my daddy always said there's nothin' like a nice long bath to make woman real giddy.
- Marie: Men! They're all alike. Born with ideas and they'll die with it.
- Norwood Pratt: Women are different, huh?
- Marie: Well, this one is.
- Norwood Pratt: The only thing different about you is - you won't let on your the same. You're scared.
- Marie: My father, he said a lot. He said, "Comb your hair, Marie." "Fix yourself up a little, Marie." For what?
- Norwood Pratt: To hook yourself somebody.
- Marie: So, who needs somebody?
- Norwood Pratt: I'd say you do.
- Rita Lee Chipman: What attracts you to me?
- Norwood Pratt: Well, you're about the right size. Your hair. This hair color's not all dyed up. Pretty brown eyes. Little nose.
- [kiss]
- Norwood Pratt: And you sure do taste good.
- [long kiss]
- Rita Lee Chipman: I was afraid of this. I was afraid as soon as I sat down here, you'd think I was lookin' for love on a bus.
- [Norwood starts kissing Rita's neck]
- Rita Lee Chipman: I mean, how could I be? I already found it. Now, you're bound to get a bad opinion of me.
- Norwood Pratt: Why?
- Rita Lee Chipman: Well, lettin' you do that. There was this witch I saw in a movie once. She stole this child from a baby buggy in front of a 10 cent store. She was doin' just what you're doin'. Like she was, you know, testin' it to see if it was plump or not. I don't remember what she had in mind. I've been grabbed and wrestled around a lot of ways before, but, this is a new one on me.
- Norwood Pratt: This ain't a regular chicken. Her name is Joann. I mean, I wouldn't be just runnin' around with a plain old hen.
- Change Woman: Come on in, boys. You can't do better for two bits. If you don't like girly movies, there's a little old bear you can shoot with electric rifles.
- Rita Lee Chipman: Norwood, I want you know one thing. I like you. And if I was around and you were sick, I'd look after you and bathe you.
- Rita Lee Chipman: What's your all-time favorite Tammy Wynette record?
- Norwood Pratt: [kissing Rita's neck] I'll have to think about it.
- Rita Lee Chipman: Mine's "Stand By Your Man."
- Norwood Pratt: Mine too.
- Rita Lee Chipman: I'd like to hear you sing some time. What's your singin' style like?
- Norwood Pratt: Well, did you ever hear Lefty Frizzell sing, "I Love You A Thousand Ways"
- Rita Lee Chipman: I - I've never even heard of Lefty Frizzell.
- Norwood Pratt: I tell you, it's fixin' to rain like it never rained before.
- [kiss]
- Rita Lee Chipman: You know what I like.
- [turns on the light]
- Rita Lee Chipman: But, I got no business likin' it.
- Kay: I don't think they should let a chicken travel on a bus. It's unsanitary.
- Rita Lee Chipman: Well, Joann was real good. She only forgot herself once.
- Joe William Reese: Don't mind Kay, folks. She tries. But, she thinks she was born here in Arkansas by some terrible mistake.
- Kay: It's funny the people people pick out, isn't it?
- Norwood Pratt: Joe William's a pretty good old boy when you get right down to it. You gonna marry him or what?
- Kay: Well, I've tried the "or what."
- Rita Lee Chipman: You're always talkin' about rain when it isn't rainin'. What if it was? Would you keep it off me?
- Norwood Pratt: [singing] The dogwood trees and the Southern breeze, Set my mind a-spinnin', This is the only life I've ever known, Surrounded by the evening and the kind of folks I love, Oh, it's good, Lord, it's good to be down home, Down hoooooooooooooOOOOoooom...
- Rita Lee Chipman: I couldn't go back to Swansboro. My father would beat the livin' daylights outta me.
- Norwood Pratt: Well, what'd you think I'd do?
- Rita Lee Chipman: Well, you were so good to that chicken.