Blanche: Oh, girls, I'm so sorry to be late. I ran out of gas on the way home. It was just horrible. Nobody would stop to help me. This could never have happened in the Old South. What has become of chivalry, when men used to open doors for you, pull out your chair, tip their hat, kiss your hand, help you down out of your carriage, leave calling cards on little silver salvers?
Dorothy: So how far back do you want to go, Blanche? Do you still want to be able to vote?

Rose: Don't you think it's crazy that Blanche is actually gonna marry Jamie?
Dorothy: Why? They practically grew up together. Rose, they've known each other most of their lives so it's very comfortable. He's like an old friend.
Rose: But he's her late husband's brother. I remember back in St. Olaf when Inga Engstran married her late husband's brother Lars, and the whole town was shocked. Of course, that could've been because at the time Inga was on trial for her late husband's dismemberment.
Dorothy: It was probably a factor.
Rose: The trial went on for months. Attorney's fees cost her an arm and a leg.
Sophia: Rose, get to where they steal the brain out of the dead body and sew it into your head.
Rose: So anyway, she got a suspended sentence.
Sophia: They let her go?
Rose: No, they hanged her.
Sophia: I'm going to sleep. I don't know how long I've got, but I deserve better company in my final years.

Sophia: In my village in Sicily we had a custom. If your mother-in-law died, you were forced to wear a hair shirt, eat dirt and pound your head on a rock. Anything to keep you from laughing.