Funny moments from the film
TBD
Funny moments from the novel
- Ollie-O in an email describing his plan to lure more "Mercedes Parents" to Bee's school:Ollie-O: Mercedes Parents are afraid their children won't get "the best education possible," which has nothing to do with actual education and everything to do with the number of other Mercedes Parents at a school.
- Audrey Griffin's emergency room bill
- Manjula's terse reply after Bernadette wrote her a long-winded story about the house they lived in in response to Manjula's question about what a "manse" is.
- How Bee's family ended up at Daniel's Broiler (a faux high-end place that advertises a lot and serves enormous portions) for Thanksgiving, and how her classmates were jealous that she got to eat there.
- Bee, coming downstairs Thanksgiving morning:Bee: I must have made some kind of face. But I'm sorry, it's weird to come down and see your Dad wearing a bra, even if it is for his posture.
- Bee's deadpan response to Audrey Griffin when Audrey tried to badmouth Bernadette for sending Bee to boarding school saying she'd never do that to her son Kyle:Bee: I guess you love Kyle more than my mom loves me.
- Kyle's telephone prank on the Galer Street School parents.
- HARSH DIGITAL TWO-SECOND SILENCE
- Bernadette ranting about people who have tattoos:Bernadette: They're covered in tattoos! What, you're so cool that you ink yourself from head-to-toe, but you don't know the difference between an enchilada and a burrito?Bernadette: A paper clip! It used to be so daring to get a tattoo. And now people are tattooing office supplies on their bodies.
- Bernadette's email to Paul Jellinek is hilarious from start to finish (except where she diverges into stories of her miscarriages). Some gems:
- "Greetings from sunny Seattle, where women are 'gals,' people are 'folks,' a little bit is a 'shosh,' if you're tired you're 'logy,' if something is slightly off it's 'hinky,' you can't sit Indian-style but you can sit 'crisscross applesauce,' when the sun comes out it's never called 'sun' but always 'sunshine', boyfriends and girlfriends are 'partners,' nobody swears but someone occasionally might 'drop the f-bomb,' you're allowed to cough but only into your elbow, and any request, reasonable or unreasonable, is met with 'no worries.' Have I mentioned how much I hate it here?
- Wait, did I say Microsoft is marvelous and Utopian? I meant to say sinister and evil.
- I've moved to a state that neighbors Idaho. And any life that might still be left in me kind of goes poof.
- There are two hairstyles here: short gray hair and long gray hair. You go into a salon asking for hair color, and they flap their elbows and cluck, "Oh, goody, we never get to do color!"
- I can't tell you the number of times I've been in the middle of a perfunctory conversation, and someone will say, "Tell us what you really think."
- So why didn't I switch schools? The other good schools I could have sent Bee to... well, to get to them, I'd have to drive past a Buca di Beppo.
- Bee to her Dad, who had tried to soften his revelation that he was sending her to boarding school early by comparing her being still in junior high to being a lame duck:Bee: So it's like saying the day you start eighth grade, the whole year is a lame-duck year. Or when you turn fourteen, it's a lame-duck year until you turn fifteen.
- Detective Driscoll gets in a few gems during the attempt to have Bernadette committed:Detective Driscoll: Please proceed, Captain Kurtz—sorry, Dr. Kurtz.
- Bernadette, when Dr. Kurtz mention that she would be spending time with Bernadette (i.e., in the mental hospital) while Elgin and Bee are in Antarctica:Bernadette: You're going on the trip with us? That's so exotic.
- Detective Driscoll again when he realizes that they are trying to have Bernadette committed:Detective Driscoll: Shit, are you?
- Soo-Lin's email to Audrey Griffin from Ushuaia while she's hinky due to pregnancy hormones (the funniest thing is, although she's hinky, in a hurry, and the keyboard can't type right, she still manages to add the accent above the e in café):Soo-Lin: I'm in an Internet café in South America,, and this keypoard is so dirty and sticky and HORRIPLE and the P makes a B and the B makes a P and the comma sticks and you have to immediately hit packsbace or else the whole email will pe commas!
- Bee to her Dad, while they are at Soo-Lin's, who had a one-night stand with Elgin (Bee would later say the Yoko Ono reference was because Soo-Lin seemed to have broken up her parents' marriage, not because Soo-Lin was Asian.):Bee: "I'm grieving over what a jerk you are," Bee told Elgie. "And how you've fallen under the spell of Yoko Ono."
