Nikki: You boys ought to relax.
Mitchell: Oh, I'm sorry. We just- We really want to make a good impression.
Nikki: Hmm. Gay adoptive parents with a minority baby? Sugars, you can get into any school you want.
Mitchell: I'm sorry. Really?
Nikki: Oh, you didn't know that? Oh, yeah. All of these schools like to brag about their diversity. You're diverse times three. In demand. You're like Jimmy Buffett tickets to these hybrid-driving, straight white folks.
Cameron: I hear that, girl.
Nikki: Yeah.

Claire: How was your day at work?
Phil: Amazing.
Claire: Great. What happened?
Phil: Instead of wasting my lunch hour surfing the Web, checking football stats I put on some mellow music and I meditated.
Claire: Wow. For how long?
Phil: I have no idea. I just woke up 20 minutes ago.

Luke: Look what I built, Dad. Dunphy Towers. 200 condos, a happy family in every one.
Phil: Way to go, buddy. I gotta hand it to you, honey. Twenty-four hours without video games he's already contributing to society.
Luke: [knocking cans over] Die! Die!
Claire: To be fair, he's using his imagination.
Luke: [high-pitched voice] "There's no fire escapes! They cut corners!" I'll cut your corners!

Jay: Hey, buddy. What you reading?
Manny: The Old Man and the Sea.
Jay: You like it?
Manny: I like that Hemingway gets to the point.
Jay: You read a lot of his stuff?
Manny: That was a hint, Jay.

Jay: I wanna ask you something, between you and me.
Manny: You wanna know if I think my mom did something to that dog.
Jay: Yeah.
Manny: Sit.
Jay: Don't most kids drink soda?
Manny: [sips espresso] Who knows what they do?

Jay: So. Your mom.
Manny: Jay, I have learned a few things in my 12 years. Don't skimp on linens. Don't compliment a teacher on her figure. And when it comes to my mom never ask questions I don't want the answers to.
Jay: I don't buy it. A sensitive kid like you I think you want to know every bit as much as I do.
Manny: You're wrong.
Jay: Then why is your hand shaking?
Manny: This is my fifth one of these today. I-I may have a problem.

Cameron: Since when do you call me your "life partner"?
Mitchell: Since a spot opened up at Billingsley Academy.
Cameron: But I like Wagon Wheel. It had all the duckies. And it reminded me of where I went in Missouri.
Mitchell: Cam, everyone goes to Billingsley for a reason. It's the Harvard of preschools.
Cameron: She's not even two years old yet. She doesn't need the Harvard of preschools. She needs finger painting and duckies.
Mitchell: I'm begging you to please just say "ducks."

Jay: Ah! Don't sneak up on me like that. What are you doing out here?
Manny: You got in my head about my mom. Is that the rat shovel?
Jay: Yeah.
Manny: Are you checking it for signs of dog?
Jay: I was going to.
Manny: Well, let's do this quick. If she catches us, we're as dead as that dog probably is.

Gloria: What are you doing here?
Jay: Nothing.
Gloria: Why are you looking at that shovel? Do you think someone did something with that shovel, Manny?
Manny: He thinks you killed the dog!
Jay: You little rat.
Manny: Don't call me a rat! She kills rats!

Gloria: You really think that I would kill a dog?
Jay: Well, what was I supposed to think?
Gloria: I don't know. How about I didn't kill a dog?
Jay: Just tell me what you did with it.
Gloria: He's in a better place.
Jay: That's what people say when something's dead.
Gloria: Okay, fine. I took him to a farm where he has plenty of room to run.
Jay: That's the second thing people say when something's dead.
Gloria: My hairdresser's brother has three kids. They live in the country. They were so happy to have the dog that they gave me a jar of pickles. Is that also what they say when something is dead?