Malcolm: Why do you do this to me?
Lois: Malcolm, I know this is hard for you. You're growing up. You're sick of living under my authority. You want me to cut you some slack. You're wondering when I'll finally see you as an adult. Well... that's never going to happen. That's just not the way it works. You can move away from home, you can get married, even have kids of your own, you can even become a professor of physics at MIT. I will always be your mother. And that's just the way it is until one of us dies. You want to put your head between your knees for a few seconds?
Malcolm: No, I'm okay. Look... will you please just give me one thing? Please stop smoking.
Lois: I already quit.
Malcolm: Are you lying?
Lois: Of course not.

Hal: Wow. How do they get the meat this tender?
Reese: Well, that's the thing about veal. Imagine if you took Jamie and put him in a little box where he would never see daylight. You don't let him move so his muscles don't get all tough. He's basically blind and you force-feed him nothing but milk. [cutesy voice to Jamie] That's what makes him taste so good.

Malcolm: This is ridiculous! You're being completely arbitrary and asinine. One minute you're telling me I'm doing a great job, and the next minute you're writing me up!
Lois: You broke the rules, Malcolm.
Malcolm: Come on, that box-flattening area is a stupid rule. You know I'm right.
Lois: Albert is a grade-five employee. He has put in 20 years of service time. Sometimes that's more important than what's right or wrong.
Malcolm: Who are you?!
Lois: Stop being so melodramatic.
Malcolm: No, seriously, I want to know. Because the mother I know has spent her entire life ranting about always doing the right thing, no matter what the cost, no matter how unpopular it is, and now you're standing here getting all caught up in who's a grade five and blindly obeying authority.
Lois: Honestly, Malcolm, where'd you get the idea that a job is supposed to be fun?
Malcolm: That's not what I'm talking about!
Lois: The truth is, work is hard and miserable and nobody likes doing it.

Dewey: How come you're the only good one in the family? Why didn't any of it rub off on Reese or Malcolm?
Francis: Dewey, would you cut it out?
Dewey: No, I mean it. You're such a good brother. I'll bet they didn't even appreciate it.
Francis: Dewey! I was never like this with Reese and Malcolm. I treated them like crap. Way worse than they treat you.
Dewey: That's impossible.
Francis: I tortured them all the time. I beat them up, I took their stuff, I locked them in closets. You know that scar on Reese's back? That's from a bayonet. Where did I even get a bayonet?!
Dewey: But you couldn't have. The way they talk about you... They love you so much.
Francis: Dewey, let me let you in on a little secret. Sometimes people love people for no reason. Like Whoopi Goldberg.

Reese: Dad, Mom has this stupid idea about working... [Malcolm talks at the same time]
Hal: Ah, ah, ah. That's enough. You boys heard your mother. We have always said you have to concentrate on your schoolwork before wasting your time on dead-end jobs. You have got your whole life to work and only one chance to learn.
Lois: I told them to get jobs, Hal.
Hal: The value of hard work. Money doesn't grow on trees. The sooner you two kids have jobs, the better.

Craig: Don't get too down about this probation thing. This job is mostly a beauty pageant.
Malcolm: You know what's weird? You get used to thinking of a person as being so much more powerful than you, then something shifts and it becomes kind of awkward.
Craig: Oh, my God, are you my boss now?!
Malcolm: What?
Craig: This is so unfair. Year after year, why can't... It's nice to see one of the good guys win. [chuckles] Why don't you take a load off. I'll go get you a cup of joe. No worries, chief.

Dewey: So you're saying... I'm the only one you were ever nice to?
Francis: Pretty much. You know, you have a real opportunity here. You can break the cycle. You can be a good brother to Jamie. You can be the one kid in this family who takes care of the younger one and looks out for him.
Dewey: How is that fair?
Francis: Yeah, you're right.

Dewey: There. That's it. I made your bed every day for a year.
Reese: Wow. Congratulations. I can't believe you actually did it.
Dewey: According to our deal, that means from now on I get to sleep in this bed.
Reese: That wasn't exactly our deal, Dewey.
Dewey: Yes, it was. You promised that if I did it, I'd get the bed every day after that.
Reese: Right. Every day, but I still get it at night.
Dewey: That's not fair!
Malcolm: I don't know, Dewey. His case sounds pretty solid to me.
Reese: Oh, and, Dewey, I don't want to ruin it by being too specific, but something you wear now has some kind of creature in it.

Lois: Boys, I wanted to talk to you. I've got some good news. I've been thinking. You're both growing up. You're showing a lot more maturity these days. I think you've earned the right to a little bit more independence.
Reese: We're getting a car!
Lois: You're both getting jobs.
Malcolm & Reese: What?
Lois: Malcolm, I talked to the manager of the Lucky Aide this morning. You start there tomorrow.
Malcolm: You want me to work at your store? With you?
Lois: Yes. Reese, since you've been mentioned six times by name in the security handbook, you have to look for a job somewhere else, but I want you in a paper hat by the end of the week.

Reese: My first paycheck, I'm buying this house and kicking them out.