Lorelai: I'm just saying it's a cliche.
Emily: What is?
Lorelai: Hospital food being bad.
Emily: Exactly.
Lorelai: What?
Emily: It's a cliche for a reason. Cliches are true things that people are tired of being true. Like, "a penny saved is a penny earned." Well it is, invested wisely.
Lorelai: I don't think that's a cliche, mom.
Emily: What do you mean? Of course it's a cliche.
Lorelai: It's not a cliche. That's more an overused saying, like "I'm sweating bullets" or "it's as cold as ice."
Emily: Well, some overused sayings are true, like "children should be seen and not heard."
Lorelai: "Mother knows best."
Emily: "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

Emily: What happened to all the competent people? That's what I'd like to know. Was there some giant hole they all fell into or a virus that struck them all down, leaving the morons of the world to sit behind the desks?
Lorelai: Mom, wouldn't you like to sit down, have a nice cup of tea?
Emily: I don't want a cup of tea. What I want is the most perfunctory level of competence from the people with whom I interact. And that apparently is far too much to ask for.
Rory: Grandma, we have snacks.
Lorelai: Yes, Mom, snacks. We have salty snacks and sweet snacks and sweet/salty hybrid snacks.
Emily: I mean, even at the club, I'm telling you, the young men and women that work there must have a combined I.Q. of a grapefruit. You ask them for a towel, and they look at you with the most vacant eyes. I'm telling you, I thought the girl at reception was blind the entire first month she worked there. Blind, but very enthusiastic about the application of eyeliner.
Lorelai: Sounds pretty.
Emily: My husband has a heart attack, and how long does it take them to find me? 40 minutes. The nitwit probably got lost between the front desk and the tennis courts.

Rory: I keep thinking this is all just a nightmare.
Lorelai: I know.
Rory: But it's not.
Lorelai: No. I mean, it's a nightmare but not a nightmare nightmare. I know 'cause I have shoes on. In my nightmares, I never am wearing shoes.
Rory: I didn't know that.
Lorelai: Yeah, yeah. It's the worst thing in the dream, too. I could be chased by snakes or in a nuclear explosion, but then I look down, and, "Oh, my god! I'm not wearing shoes!"
Rory: Huh. I wonder what that means.
Lorelai: Well, probably means I have a fear of hurting my bare feet or of losing my shoes.
Rory: Not so Freudian, huh?
Lorelai: For me, a snake is just a snake, a slingback is just a slingback.