Rose: I haven't seen Buzz in almost 40 years, since we were dating in high school.
Dorothy: Rose, I didn't think you dated anyone before Charlie.
Rose: Actually, it was while I dated Charlie.
Blanche: Rose Nylund. You were in a love triangle and never told us.
Rose: Well, I didn't think you'd be interested.
Dorothy: Oh, but you were certain that we'd be interested in the story about little Yimminy, the boy who was raised by a wild moose?
Rose: May I remind you, Dorothy, that moose didn't just raise little Yimminy, he put him through medical school.

Miles: I mean, it is amazing, isn't it, how with a few carefully chosen words, a poet can convey the immediacy of a specific life experience?
Rose: You don't have to tell me. Remember, I grew up in a small farm town. "Here a quack, there a quack, everywhere a quack, quack."

Blanche: Well, all right, Rose, how does it make you feel?
Rose: To be honest, a little bit like Mr. Snuffles.
Sophia: Blanche, would you mind? You're closer to the knife drawer.
Rose: One summer, when I was a little girl, Henrietta, our pig, gave birth to a litter of six. And the next day, my father won the annual St. Olaf watermelon-seed spitting contest and he brought home a prize piglet.
Blanche: Mr. Snuffles.
Rose: Exactly.
Sophia: You're listening?
Rose: Anyway, I loved Mr. Snuffles. I watched him grow. I suffered with him. The way Henrietta's brood made him feel like such an outsider. It was an awful thing to see.
Sophia: Hey, hearing it is no walk in the park.
Rose: Mr. Snuffles never did get over his feeling of alienation. He grew fat and despondent. The last report we had on him, he stowed away in a truck to Chicago and tearfully surrendered himself to the Oscar Mayer people. I don't want that to happen to me, Sophia.

Rose: We had a neighbor in Minnesota who killed her husband. She backed over him with a combine and she didn't even know she had done it until she found little bits of plaid in the corn. She said, "Funny, that looks like bits of Joe's plaid shirt, and that looks like bits of Joe's overalls, and that looks like bits of Joe's arms and that looks like bits of..."
Blanche: Rose! We get the picture!
Rose: They had a very little coffin-
Blanche: Ah!
Dorothy: Listen, Rose. You are not to blame. Now, you know that.
Rose: Of course I know that. She was driving the combine. I wasn't anywhere near their farm.

Rose: Two hours of learning about thimbles from foreign lands. I couldn't wait to give the headset back.
Dorothy: Look, Rose, have you talked to Miles?
Rose: I think this is just who he is. I don't think I was ever bored for one day when I was with Charlie. He had a theory, "Even a trip to the bank can be exciting if you wear a ski mask."
Dorothy: He would say that often?
Rose: Almost as often as he'd say, "Don't shoot. It's me, Charlie Nylund."

Blanche: Oh, you're back from your session early. Was it as cathartic as you thought?
Dorothy: Well, I don't know if "cathartic" is the word.
Rose: You should do what I do. I find if I repeat a word that's confused me, I look smarter than I really am. Like, "Was it cathartic?" "Oh, I've had a catharticism." "Of course, I'm not the type to kiss and cathartirize."

Rose: Well, is everybody ready for a spirited game of Googenspritzer?
Blanche: Googenspritzer? You said we were gonna play Monopoly.
Rose: I said it was like Monopoly, only instead of Atlantic City, they use St. Olaf geography.
Blanche: Well, I'll be the bank.
Rose: Oh, good. There's the cashbox.
Blanche: Well, honey, this is empty.
Rose: Oh, I know. The St. Olaf Bank was one of the first savings and loans to go under.
Dorothy: Bad management?
Rose: Bad contractor. They built the bank on marshland, and it sank. All that was left were a few deposit slips and a pen with a chain attached to it, floating in the muck.

Reverend Avery: Well, before we open the doors, I just wanna thank you all for taking time away from your own Christmas to provide Christmas for some that are less fortunate. We promise to turn away no one, remembering how Mary and Joseph were turned away at the inn.
Rose: Reverend Avery, it's always puzzled me, why didn't Mary and Joseph call ahead for reservations? Surely they must have realized how impossible it is to get a hotel room during the Christmas season?
Reverend Avery: I guess that's one for the theologians, Rose.

Rose: The reason these confidence men don't get caught is because people are embarrassed to come forward and admit they were conned.
Blanche: I'm sorry, Rose. I just can't.
Rose: Well, perhaps this little story might make you change your mind. Back in St. Olaf there was a shepherd boy who tended his flock on the hill above the town. A wolf kept coming down and stealing his sheep, but the boy never caught him doing it. Because he never saw it happening, he became known around St. Olaf as the boy who didn't cry wolf. Anyway, one day the townspeople heard the boy on the hill yelling, "Wolf, Wolf. " Well, they all figured, if the boy never cried wolf when the wolf was there, if he yelled wolf now, it stood to reason the wolf wasn't there.
Sophia: Boy, nothing gets by you people.
Rose: Damn straight. It was a bear. A huge, ferocious, grizzly bear.
Blanche: What happened to the boy?
Rose: He became known as the boy who cried continuously.

Rose: I think it's great that you want to have your baby here. Boy, in St. Olaf, the mother was always with the daughter when she gave birth. And if the mother was out of town, then the mother of the father was there. And if she was out of town, then we'd call Lucky Gunther.
Dorothy: Oh, what the hell. She has a birthday coming up. Why, Rose?
Rose: After the thresher accident, they replaced Lucky's arm with a forceps. Yep. Lucky Gunther. He was in charge of delivering babies and handing out corn at the Rotary picnics.
Dorothy: Shut up, Rose.