"Sometimes the mind, for reasons we don't necessarily understand, just decides
to go to the store for a quart of milk."
- Joel tries to diagnose Ed while delirious
Joel: You notice anything different about me lately...any behavioral patterns, any discernible break with
traditions, deviations from the norm, recent trends?
  Maggie: You serious? Well, I don't know.  Now that you mention it, it you do seem more relaxed lately.  I just saw you laugh out loud the other night with Holling.
Joel: Well, maybe.  He happened to be telling a very funny story.
  Maggie: You're more involved.  Town meeting last month, you SAT there.  I remember registering that. 
Of course, you left after 15 minutes.
Joel: You're right, you're absolutely right.  It's as bad as I thought.
The owl of sleep calls out to coax you to his tree of dreams.
- Marilyn translates a Tlinket lullaby for Joel
Maggie: Joel, you exhaust me. There's just too much of you, you know? And it's always working so hard.
Joel: Ok, all right, you're right, you're absolutely right, and I promise you I'm gonna work hard at not working hard.... I know, that didn't come out right.
Maggie: Look, you hold on to everything so tightly that your knuckles are white, and I need somebody who can let go a little. Maybe some distance and some time? This is not the way I want it to be. Maybe we could try this again.
- Maggie kicks Joel out
Ed: Chris, if you had the power to go back and change the future, would you? Just say you could go up to Bruce Willis and say, "Don't make Hudson Hawk."
Chris: You'd be messing with the space-time continuum, Ed. You pull one string, you never know, the whole crazy quilt might unravel.
Ed: Yeah, the prime directive from starfleet command -- do not change history.
"[Maggie] gave me more than just a sweater vest that night. She gave me all this. Nothing. She gave me nothing. That's what I need. No phone book, no Game Boy, no pasta maker, TV Guide. Nowhere to go, nothing to do. Is that what you need? Uh . . . No super 8, no cassette player, no Banff Film Festival. Just the time to be. Why don't you take some preserves with you?"
- Joel to Ed
�Electron, that's negative. Proton, positive. Not a value judgment, just tagged that way to keep them straight.�
- Chris on the air, talking electricity
Phil: You can see the future?
Ed: Well, just since yesterday. See, I ate this trout, only it wasn't really a trout.
Phil: What was it?
Ed: Well, you know
Phil: No, I don't really.
Ed: Yaith.
Phil: Yaith?
Ed: The raven, he can be a shapechanger. I guess I should have known at the time, with the way he was staring up at me and all. But, I was really hungry and had already cooked the almond slivers, so...
Phil: You ate him?
Ed: I turn it on, it makes that little beep, and the hairs on the back of my neck all stand up. It's like, all of the sudden, there's somebody else in the room with me and he's just sitting there, glowing, humming.
Phil: Ed, it's just a machine.
- Ed and Phil look at the computer
�That's what people do. They get married, pop out a rug rat, and picket-fence it!�
- Shelly to Holling on her opinion of life
Maggie: How can you want to have dinner with me? You know, I almost killed you.
Joel: It's no big deal that in your heart of hearts you wanted me dead. Part of you definitely wanted me six feet under. That's not so strange. We broke up. I moved out. I'm not your lover. I'm being deprived of an intimate ongoing relationship with Maggie O'Connel. I should be bereft, but no, I'm not. I'm happy, I'm at peace. I can see where that would be a tremendous blow to one's self-esteem.
Shelly: We're a family now, and we live above a bar. So what? Who says we can't?
Holling: Nobody, I guess.
Shelly: That's right. A house--you get in there and you go mind your Ps and Qs, making sure everything is just so.
- Shelly accepts Holling's dislike of houses
When I was a kid, I remember thinking that nothing was real. It felt like a movie set, and if you turned your head fast enough, you'd catch God changing the scenery.
- Joel to Maggie
�They stay with you even after they leave home.� 
- Ed to Maurice, on raising children
�There's an old Yiddish proverb--When you don't know where you're going, every road will take you there.�
- Rabbi to Michelle, on being lost in the forest
If they could see how the sun's setting fast And just like they say, nothing good ever lasts Well, go on now and kiss it goodbye But hold onto your lover 'Cause your heart's bound to die Go on now, and say goodbye to my town, to my town I can see the sun's going down on my town Good night... good night..."
(Iris DeMent sings "Our Town")
Chris: Hey, Walt, is it me, or is there anything crueler than a 13 year-old girl? I know lifers in the joint who weren't so judgemental.
Walt: Bad age, no doubt about it.
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