100 Best Northern Exposure Quotes

Grandma: All we are, basically, are monkeys with car keys.

One: When the men of the tribe brought you up here, you were three years old.
Ed: Was there a dog?
One: A dog? I don't know. There might have been a dog
Ed: I remember sitting in the sunshine and a dog sticking his nose in my face. I really liked that. That could have been here.
One: Each man told you a story of the tribe. A history. They didn't expect you to remember everything. They just wanted you to hear the words. And when they finished, they picked you up and handed you man to man so that you would know each one of them was your father. Do you remember?
[Ed thinks and sighs to signify he does not]
One: Those are your stories. And those men are your fathers.
Ed: Are we getting anywhere here?
One: Oh, yes.

Chris: Greetings, Cicely, on this most exceedingly beautiful spring morning. A morning swollen with new life, a morning on which, if I had the voice, I would let loose with song. It's hard to believe just a few short weeks ago we were eating our cornflakes in the wintry dark. Now, well it's still kind of dim our there, but I can see the golden glow of Apollo's chariot waiting in the wings, about to make its entrance. Winter's on the lam, no doubt.

Chris: Today, a belated apology to the much maligned Chicken Little. It turns out you were right - the sky is falling. The National Space Administration informs us that Uncle Sam's Com-Sat 4 satellite is in a rapidly decaying orbit. That's their way of saying a ton of angry space trash is heading back home at fifteen thousand miles an hour. What does that make me think of? Makes me think of a triceratops, innocently munching a palm frond when out of the sky, whammo, a meteor sucker punches old mother Earth. Next thing you know, that triceratops, along with a hundred and seventy-five million years of dinosaur evolution, is nothing but history. To that unsung triceratops and all its kin, here's a song for you...

Bernard: Excuse me.
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Yeah.
Bernard: Where am I?
Dr. Joel Fleischman: You know, I've been asking myself that same question since I got here. I finally figured out we are somewhere between the end of the line and the middle of nowhere.
Bernard: Oh. Where is that on the map?

[Shelly and her ex are slow dancing - he has a cheeseburger in one hand]
Maurice: Holling? Who's the kid? Why is he smearing ketchup all over Shelly's ass?

Chris: I was so fixated on that flying cow that when Ed told me Monty Python already painted that picture, I thought I was through. I had to let go of that cow so I could see all the other possibilities. Anyway, I want to thank Maurice for helping me to let go of that cow. Thank you, Maurice, for playing Apollo to my Dionysus in art's Cartesian dialectic. And thanks to you, Ed, 'cause the truth shall set us free. And, Maggie, thank you for sharing in the destruction of your house so that today we can have something to fling.

Adam: I'm a man, Fleischman. We are born with an image of woman imprinted on our psyches. We spend our whole lives searching for the embodiment of that female archetype. And there she sits! In the flesh! You tell me what man could resist the fantasy of having her as his wife?

Ed: [to Joel] Indians don't knock. It's rude.

Chris: Whenever there's a new moon looming on the horizon, I'll inevitably get a call from someone saying, 'Hey Chris, how bout that sucker.' And, I'll usually say something cordial like, 'Oh yeah, it's a marvelous night for a moon dance,' or 'I wonder what old Sun Young Moon is up to tonight.' But, knowing how we've been tossing and turning these past few nights for fear of where our dreams may be taking us, I'm not about to pretend that that man, in that moon, has our best interests at heart. No way, he's too much of a kidder. So until the big fellow packs his bag and hits the road put away those sharp utensils and stay close to your love ones, if you're lucky enough to have any. I'll see you in the morning, folks, or the moonlight, whichever one comes first.

Dr. Joel Fleischman: The only consequence of all this will be, that whenever I open a nice Bordeaux, there will be the distant, distasteful memory of a nutcase who tried to kill me because I allowed her to kiss me on the cheek under false pretenses. I can live with it.

Maggie: So what do I do? Only go out with guys that I'd like to see dead?

Ed: Moose burger or caribou dog?

Shelly: [to Holling] Whether you shoot Jessie or he mauls you, I want to be there by your side.

Adam: [Adam is trying to teach some cooking to Joel and he holds the wooden spoon like a violin bow] Look. Hold this correctly, OK?
[Adam takes Joel's hand and forces him to hold the spoon with all the fingers]
Adam: It's a spoon, all right? It's not a darning needle. I'm serious!

[last lines]
Chris: It's time for us to say "Au revoir" to Pierre. Where'd he come from? Where is he going? I guess we could all ask the same questions of ourselves. I'm gonna let a fellow Frenchman here have the last words. "When from a long distant past nothing persists... after the people are dead, after things are broken and scattered, still alone... more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long, long time like souls, ready to remind us, waiting... hoping for their moment amid the ruins of all the rest... and bear unfaltering in the tiny and... almost impalpable drop of their essence... the vast structure of recollection."

Chris: This is Chris In The Morning with a special K-Bear, Arrowhead County welcome to Mr. Okie Masuto and Mr. Vincent Chiba. Ohaiyo gozaimasu
[Good morning]
Chris: . O-genki desu ka
[How are you]
Chris: ? Howdy, boys!

Chris: Be open to your dreams, people. Embrace that distant shore. Because our mortal journey is over all too soon.

Chris: Ferlin Husky's "Why Do I Put Up With You?" Man, you just gotta love country music. I mean, it's just so raw with honesty and passion.

Shelly: This shower's just got to be the most totally, perfect, bitchin' thing. I mean, a babe, you know, she spends her whole life just waiting for this. The big M. Holy matrimony. When you're a little kid, you watch everybody's older sister get hitched and you think, GOD when is it going to be my turn? When am I going to get to walk down that aisle? Be queen for a day. Everybody saying how hot you look and your mom crying. And your squeeze standing there in a powder blue tux looking all cute and scared. And then those words. "I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride."

Chris: It's not the thing you fling, it's the fling itself.

Dr. Joel Fleischman: I don't don't like it - I hate it! And I demand to leave!... Well that is because you are not the one who is supposed to spend the next 4 years of his life in this Godforsaken hole in the wall, pigsty with a bunch of dirty, psychotic rednecks!

Maurice: Tell him that Dr. Fleischman is the kind of enterprising, young professional who's chosen to stake his claim right here on the banks of the Alaskan Riviera.
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Tell him I'm being held against my will.

Shelly: [after Maggie has finished reading a sonnet written by Shakespeare] Boy, she sure can write.

Maggie: Calling you a moron is an insult to morons. Broccoli has more brain power than you. Brussels sprouts! Cauliflower!

Maurice J. Minnifield: Church dismissed!

Chris: Well, Joel, let's distinguish paradox from contradiction. Can something be more than one thing at the same time? Father, Son and Holy Ghost? We digress. I offer the poet's vision of the ancient urn: Truth is beauty, beauty truth.
Dr. Joel Fleischman: We can serve and volley semantics all night, Chris. The point is, if...
Maurice J. Minnifield: Gentlemen. Gentlemen, that's quite enough. Let's, uh, get on with the business at hand, shall we?

Dr. Joel Fleischman: Yeah I'm upset. Ya wanna know why, Ed? I'll tell you. As a physician, I realize that sexual release is not crucial to survival, say like water or oxygen. But when a healthy 28-year-old male is deprived of that release, he has an awful hard time enjoying his survival.

[Joel on chess]
Dr. Joel Fleischman: This is considered a spectator sport? I've had more fun watching slush melt.

Chris: Maurice, I applaud the amount of imagination you've put into this thing-- Build a Hyatt, they will come--I think we all agree on that, right? But, Maurice, tonight I'm troubled.
Maurice J. Minnifield: Chris, we're not gonna do anything to destroy the beauty of Cicely. That's why we're putting all the parking underground.
Chris: I understand that, Maurice. It's not the leveling of a sleepy, little town into a commercial eyesore that bothers me.
Maurice J. Minnifield: Then what is it?
Chris: The metaphysical implications. Unleashing Pierre changes history, and that's heavy-duty trampling on the karma of the collective unconscious. Are we ready to accept responsibility for that?
Maurice J. Minnifield: You wanna find your coordinates, son? You're losing me here.
Chris: Maurice, thousands of the old French Guard died at Waterloo. Thousands of British and Prussians died stopping them. You take Napoleon out of that loop, and what's left? Haven't we stripped the meaning of those deaths? Made a mockery of the bloodshed? Our lives are fragile things, built on creaky foundations. You chip away at the edifice of history, and... well, you weaken one of the few spiritual timbers we have left. Did George Washington really chop down that cherry tree? Did Davy Crockett kill a bear when he was only three? It's pretty unlikely. It makes our lives a little easier, though, doesn't it? I mean, it's nice to think that. I'm just saying that... revealing Pierre's secret might trigger a maelstrom of self-doubt, releasing untold psychic devastation. A metaphysical tsunami, if you will.

Maurice J. Minnifield: So, your people have always been good with money, Joel. What do you think I ought to do with my assets?
Dr. Joel Fleischman: If *my people* were good with money I would be on Park Avenue shooting estrogen into rich widows, not here.

Dr. Joel Fleischman: Life here is so elemental. So real. Without the interference of civilization you can really experience things like... silence. Silence and darkness in its purity. Right now, right outside my window all I can see is a black void. Endless darkness. It's totally exhilarating, and I feel very lucky to be here. Very, very lucky.

Shelly: Look at it this way. We'll always have Saskatchewan.

Dr. Joel Fleischman: Someone named Soapy has two doctorates?

Chris: Happiness doesn't come from having things, happiness comes from being a part of things.

Dr. Joel Fleischman: She gave me a goat? A nice bottle of wine I'd understand. A box of chocolates, a Rolex. What do I want with a goat? Milk.

Marilyn: The richest man is the guy who has nothing.

Maurice J. Minnifield: It doesn't matter what I believe. It matters what the public believes.
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Meaning what?
Maurice J. Minnifield: Meaning you give them what they want. That's the role of journalism.
Dr. Joel Fleischman: No, Maurice. That's the role of professional wrestling.

Chris: I'm the teflon kid. Dozens of chicks, nothing sticks.

Maurice J. Minnifield: You know what the motto of the state of Alaska is, Joel?
Dr. Joel Fleischman: If it ain't broken don't fix it?
Maurice J. Minnifield: "North to the Future". That's my motto too.

Maggie: Let me tell you something, buster, you might not be dying, but you're gone.

Maurice: I know black people. I've been around black people, and I know how they talk. The say "thang" instead of "thing." They say "ax," "I ax you this, brother, I ax you that." Now, you don't say "ax." Neither does Colin Powell and that, that Denzel fellow.

Dr. Joel Fleischman: I'm not a vanishing breed.
Ed: Well, you're Jewish. That's pretty rare.

Maggie: The odds are a thousand to one - why would you be the one in a thousand? This is ridiculous - you're not that special.

Adam: They have listening devices now that can pick up a caterpillar sneezing two miles away; they know what you had for breakfast two days ago; they know what car you're gonna be buying three years from now! Every square inch of your existence is being recorded, analyzed, monitored and stored in a facility underground, right outside of Omaha!

Dr. Joel Fleischman: I have an assistant here who thinks it's unnecessary to take names. She'd rather run my office like a delicatessen.

Ed: Sometimes, Chris, you've just got to know when to cut your losses. Take Joel Silver. He would have been much better off if he had just pulled the plug on Hudson Hawk.

[describing her mom]
Maggie: First she ruins my life. And then she ruins my LIFE!

Anita: Reminds me of Abe Kellogg. When he got caught in the machinery in the cannery.
Holling: They had to recall a hundred cases of salmon.
Anita: I'll neer forget that funeral, watching them lower all those itty bitty cans into the ground.

Dr. Joel Fleischman: This guy couldn't tell the difference between a migraine and a subdural hematoma!
[Joel reads about a classmate in posh circumstances]

[Ed and Joel are looking for Maggie in the wilderness]
Ed: There, her jacket.
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Well, now what?
Ed: [pointing] Well, I think she went this way.
Dr. Joel Fleischman: You do?
Ed: Yep, see there where that twig snapped? And there's a footprint.
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Huh. You can track? Alright! You learn that or were you born that way?
Ed: Beats me.

Chris: I can see how that can be a problem. You know, it's like Jung says, "The unconscious is revealed through the imagery of our dreams, which express our innermost fears and our desires."
Bernard: Jung said that?
Chris: Yeah, I think it was Jung. Or maybe Vincent Price.

Officer: He's nothing. A diversion - a rebound.
Maurice: Then what? What do I have to do, Barbara? Tell me what I have to do.
Officer: You don't get it, Maurice. I'm not a cop because I want to be - I'm a cop because I have to be. I was called to the law. I'm its servant. I eat, breathe, sleep the law - it courses through my body like blood.
[beat]
Officer: When you stepped on the law, Maurice, you stepped on me. And that's what hurts.

Dr. Joel Fleischman: Yeah, I hate to say this, but I think Maurice may be right. Now, Pierre has yielded a new truth to the world, and however ludicrous and personally unsettling and regardless of its impact, I think we have an obligation to tell that truth.
Maggie: Why?
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Because the truth belongs to everyone. What would've happened if Newton had decided to keep the law of gravity to himself? The truth initiates events whose impact we can't foresee. It's our responsibility to just tell it and get out of the way.
Maurice J. Minnifield: There you go, ladies and gentlemen. That's the opinion of a New York doctor. A *Jewish* New York doctor.

[to Chris, during a game of croquet]
Maurice J. Minnifield: Step up to the ball, whack it, and see if it doesn't make your blood feel a little bluer.

Chris: Rain usually makes me feel mellow: curl up in a corner time, slow down, smell the furniture. Today... it just makes me feel wet. What is it about owning things? Why do we feel the need to own what we love, and why do we become such jerks when we do? We've all been there, you know: we want something; we own it; and by owning it we change it. When you finally win that girl of your dreams, the first thing you do is try to change her. That little thing she does with her hair, the way she wears her clothes, the way she chews her gum. Until eventually, what you like, what you don't like and what you change all merges into one. Like a watercolor in the rain.

Chris: Months later, as I sat in a juvenile detention home rereading those poems that had opened up the artist in me, I was blindsided by the raging fist of my incarcerator, who informed me that Walt Whitman's homoerotic unnatural pornographic sentiments were unacceptable and would not be allowed in an institution dedicated to reforming the ill formed.

Ed: Dr. Fleischman?
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Ed?
Shelly: [interrupting] Two moose burgers medium well...
Ed: Now I've lost my train of thought.
Dr. Joel Fleischman: You said, "Dr. Fleischman."
Ed: Oh, right.

[Chris muses and reads from "The Tempest", Act IV]
Chris: In dreams begin responsibilities, so wrote the poet. So it is perhaps. Could it be we take our dreams too lightly, those images from places unknown? Could they in fact be angels in flight, our souls aloft? You know, recent experiences have made yours truly take another pass through the metaphysical thickets. As unlikely as it may sound in this rational age, I emerged on the side of those that cannot help but put their faith in that which cannot be easily explained. Be open to your dreams people. Embrace that distant shore. Cause our mortal journey is over all too soon. "Those cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples. The great globe itself. Yea all which you inherit shall dissolve and like this insubstantial pageant faded. Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little life is rounded with asleep."

Dr. Joel Fleischman: Okay, picture this: It's April, Sunday afternoon. Sky's blue, dogwoods in bloom. Light breeze blowing right to left.
Larry: Left to right.
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Okay, good. Quass just holed out. Crowd's cheering. Still your game though, Larry. Still your game. Pin is on the far portion of the green, downhill lie. I read it straight.
[pulls out a golf ball]
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Titleist 2.
[He sets the ball on the green]
Dr. Joel Fleischman: About right here, Larry? Three feet from the cup?
[He holds a putter out to Larry]
Dr. Joel Fleischman: It's your shot, Larry.
Larry: What is this supposed to be, some sort of psycho-drama?
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Exactly.
Larry: You think if I sink the putt, it's all gonna just disappear?
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Who knows? I think you lost your confidence. What could it hurt? Come on, Larry. What do ya got to lose?

Dr. Joel Fleischman: I have ZERO desire to go native.

Maurice J. Minnifield: We Minnefields are not quitters.
Chris: Well guess what, the Stevenses are, right. We quit everything, in case you haven't heard: School, work, you name it. The oly thing we don't quit is drinking.
Maurice J. Minnifield: Consider yourself grounded, young man.
Chris: Stick it between your legs, Dad.
[walks away]

Chris: Jung says that dreams are the woofer and tweeter of the total sound system.

Maurice: Barbara! Loopholes are an American tradition.
Officer: Not in my book.
Maurice: Besides, it's not the law, it's the tax code. I bet Donald Trump doesn't pay a dime.

Adam: I'm sure everyone here is fascinated to hear more pop psychiatry from number fifty-four in his class at Columbia Med.

Maurice: Do you know what the motto of the state of Alaska is, Joel?
Dr. Joel Fleischman: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"?

Maurice: I understand the suicide rate goes up dramatically around Christmastime.
Chris: Yeah, well, you know, it's a stressful time of the year for most people, Maurice.
Maurice: Yeah. The thing is, you go through the rest of the year fine. You've got your friends, you've got your business, you're part of the community. And then, 'round the middle of December, if you're alone, you start to feel like an outsider.

Adam: All I'm saying is, Leon's Roadhouse in Sweetwater charges $3.50 for a bowl of chili half this size, and theirs comes out of a can. Nobody's gonna squawk if we bump the price to a buck seventy-five.

Maurice J. Minnifield: Who's the kid? Why's he smearing ketchup all over Shelly's ass?

Shelly: This is beyond totally amazing.

Marilyn: It's the same with white people. They cleared the forest, they dug up the land, and they gave us the flu. But they also brought power tools and penicillin and Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

Holling: Soapy used to say that Alaska wasn't a state, but a state of mind.

Dr. Joel Fleischman: [in Ed's daydream]
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Here, let me take you to Donald Trump. He's a friend of mine.
Chris: You know Donald Trump?
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Oh yeah. I started him out in business actually.

Chris: Goethe's final words: "More light." Ever since we crawled out of that primordial slime, that's been our unifying cry: "More light." Sunlight. Torchlight. Candlight. Neon. Incandescent. Lights that banish the darkness from our caves, to illuminate our roads, the insides of our refrigerators. Big floods for the night games at Soldier's field. Little tiny flashlight for those books we read under the covers when we're supposed to be asleep. Light is more than watts and footcandles. Light is metaphor. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom Lead Thou me on! The night is dark, and I am far from home- Lead Thou me on! Arise, shine, for thy light has come. Light is knowledge. Light is life. Light is light.

Maurice: Barbara, I owe you an apology. I've been trying to turn you into something you're not. You're no gentle lady. You're a warrior. That's what attracted me. That's what attracts me now.

Chris: People notice things about their significant other they don't like all the time - the way they chew their food or clip their toenails - it's a necessary part of a real relationship. Personally, I'm not into that, but lot's of folks seem to get over the hump and keep fueling the domestic fires. On the other hand, for me, when I begin to see flaws, chinks in the romantic armor, it's a foreshadowing - a sure sign, you know, that love's about to skip out the back door. Adios. Finito, benito.

Ed: Are you lost?
Bernard: No! I just don't know where I am.

Ed: He is a doctor.
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Oh really? Which kind?
Ed: Witch.
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Which which?
Ed: Which what?
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Which doctor?
Ed: Right.

Maurice J. Minnifield: When I heard we had a crack at a Jew doctor from New York City... well, I don't have to tell you I jumped. You boys do outstanding work.

Dr. Joel Fleischman: Do you believe this; have you ever seen a man with this kind of incredible irresistible magnetism for the opposite sex
Ed: James Bond
Dr. Joel Fleischman: That, that's the movies Ed; try reality
Ed: No, thanks.

Holling: What a time we had; splashed through bogs, ate like hogs, slept like logs.

Ruth: If you are looking for the Whitman, it's on back order for the next three months.
Dr. Joel Fleischman: You're kidding.
Ruth: Nothing like an interesting sex life to get people reading again.

[on a gift from his son]
Maurice: That's Kim Chee. That's Korean cabbage. Smells like an old pair of gym shoes.

Adam: It's not a pretty picture. Never mind the ethical implications. Acorns removed from their parents? Pleasure-pain experiments performed on rhododendrons?

Dr. Joel Fleischman: I'll make you a deal. I'll give you a complete physical, head to toe, then you leave and never darken my doorstep again.
Eve: Blood gasses?
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Blood gasses.
Eve: Cholesterol infraction?
Dr. Joel Fleischman: I'll even throw in an EEG.
Eve: Deal.

Chris: Season's Greetings, everybody, from KBHR, the heart and soul of Cicely, Alaska. This is Chris In The Morning. From where I'm sitting, I've got a great view of all the yuletide decorations going up all over town. That's right, everywhere I turn my head I see ebony birds roosting for the holidays. You know, twinkling colored lights are nice, and so are plastic Santas and reindeers and manger scenes, but I'll tell you something, friends... nothing like the sight of beautiful black-as-pitch raven to get you in the Christmas spirit.

Dr. Joel Fleischman: Yesterday he was a beauty. Today he's a dead animal in the back of a truck.

[to Joel]
Maggie: How could you not sleep with me!

Dr. Joel Fleischman: [to Maggie after a few beers] You're kinda pretty in a like, clean sort of way.

Dr. Joel Fleischman: [watching a family at the Seder during Passover] Wait, wait! Don't drink that. That's for Elijah. Where's your cup?
Elijah: This is my cup.
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Oh, wait a minute...
Elijah: They can't see me, Joel. Only you.
Dr. Joel Fleischman: You are Elijah? If you're Elijah, where's the whole robes and the long beard?
Elijah: You don't like my suit?
Dr. Joel Fleischman: No, I-I-The suit's fine. I just-I didn't expect...
Elijah: Come on, Joel. You didn't expect anything. You fill this cup every year. You open the door. But you certainly don't expect Elijah to come waltzing in. It flies in the face of reason.
Dr. Joel Fleischman: What are you doing here?
Elijah: I came to see you.
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Me? Why?
Elijah: Why not you? The question is, what are you going to do about it? You want to help prepare the way for the Messiah? Maybe you'd rather turn me into an amusement park, Joel. Sell autographed cups. "Elijah's back. Fleischman's got him." It's your call, Yo'el. Make your decision. The clock is ticking.

Dr. Joel Fleischman: What kind of a person would abandon a baby like this?
Ed: Oh, my parents.
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Oh yeah. Right. Sorry.

Dr. Joel Fleischman: Chris is ordained?
Maggie: He answered a classified on the back of Rolling Stone.

Ed: She can't see you.
One: White people can be blind.
Ed: Why?
One: Because I - I'm dead to them.

Ruth: Here's your lingerie magazine. I was just leafing through it.
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Thanks.
Ruth: Oh, wait a minute. Uh, you're using that for onanistic purposes, huh?
Dr. Joel Fleischman: What? What kind of purposes?
Ruth: Auto-erotic.
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Me? No Not at all. Absolutely not! I was just going to order my mom a robe.
[flustered]
Ruth: I think you need something a little more exciting.
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Exciting?
Ruth: Here's a Playboy. Eli Nute died a month before his subscription expired.
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Oh no. Really?
[trying not to look interested in the Playboy]
Ruth: Women of Norway.
[reading the caption]
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Yeah well, I mean a lot of exceptional writers contribute to Playboy. There's Philip Roth, uh, Norman Mailer, the late Roald Dahl. An interview with Shintaro Ishihara?
Ruth: Don't worry Dr. Fleishmann, its that time of year. Everybody's libido has run amok.
Dr. Joel Fleischman: They rate the top ten single malt scotches! Now I, uh, wanna read this!
Ruth: I think I've got something for you a little racier in the back room.

Holling: Anita, this is my Shelly.
Anita: [to Shelly] Hi honey.
Shelly: Hi.
Anita: [to Holling] She's adorable.She looks just like you. You didn't tell me you had a daughter.
Shelly: I'm not his daughter, I'm his w... what?
Holling: Eh, she's my almost wife.

Maurice J. Minnifield: This is Cicely, Alaska, not San Francisco.

Ed: So, you're Black.
Bernard: Yeah?
Ed: We had a Black logger here, but he left.
Bernard: Why is that?
Ed: I guess he wasn't into drinking beer and fighting.

Chris: I think, uh, Kierkegaard said it, oh, so well. "The self is only that which it's in the process of becoming." Art, same thing. James Joyce had something to say about it too. "Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race." We're here today to fling something that bubbled up from the collective unconsciousness of our community. Ed, you about ready? The thing I learned, folks- this is absolutely key- it's not the thing you fling, it's the fling itself.

Chris: We all carry around so much pain in our hearts. Love and pain and beauty. They all seem to go together like one little tidy confusing package. It's a messy business, life. It's hard to figure - full of surprises. Some good. Some bad.

Ed: Boy, Rick sure was lucky.
Dr. Joel Fleischman: Lucky? He's dead.
Ed: Yeah. But how many people get to get hit by a satellite? I bet he makes the Guinness Book of World Records.