Rose: I remember when I was a little girl back in St. Olaf. There was this old lady who lived up the street. She never smiled. I mean, she always looked angry. The kids said she'd kill anyone who even stepped on her property. We called her Mean Old Lady Higgenlooper.
Blanche: Yeah, kids can be pretty cruel.
Rose: No. That was her name. Mean Old Lady Higgenlooper. She had it changed legally 'cause everybody called her that anyway.
Blanche: Then how come your name isn't Big Dummy?
Rose: Well, there were already three other people in town with that name. But that's beside the point. One day I got up the courage to go up to Mean Old Lady Higgenlooper and ask her why she always frowned. Well, she had been born with no smiling muscles. I pointed out that a frown is just a smile turned upside down. So from then on, whenever I'd go by, she'd stand on her head and wave.

Rose: Well, it wasn't unnatural in St. Olaf. We not only took care of our old people, we revered them, honored them, put them on a pedestal. 'Course, that's how we got to be the broken hip capital of the Midwest.

Blanche: I, uh, I would lend you my pass to the jockeys' lounge, but you don't want to date a jockey. The sex is over too fast, and afterwards the only nice thing they have to say to you is, "Good girl, good girl."

Blanche: Well, Dorothy, I'm worried about you.
Dorothy: Oh, please, don't you start. I had a problem 15 years ago. That's a long time. I've learned a little something since then. A lot has happened. And I've lived with the temptations. [exits]
Blanche: Well, isn't that something? You think you know somebody, then you find out something like this. Hard to believe.
Rose: I'll say. To think Dorothy's lived with The Temptations. I've never even been to one of their concerts.

Sophia: What the hell were you doing at the racetrack?
Dorothy: Oh, Ma, come on, you're making too much of this. I haven't gambled in 15 years. And I didn't put down any bets for myself today, either. It was just nice to know that I could still pick a winner.
Sophia: This from a woman who's got a Dukakis bumper sticker covering up her Mondale bumper sticker?
Dorothy: Look, Ma, I admit that once I did have a small gambling problem.
Sophia: A small problem? You bet against your own son's Little League team!
Dorothy: Ma, I had to. I knew that their star pitcher had after-school detention.
Sophia: You were his teacher, you gave him detention.