- Professor Lillian Friedman: I'm not sure why people have kids. You know, first there's the nine months of agony, your body hurts, it's hot, it's cold, you crave pickles, and there's no words to describe whatever the fuck labor is. And then this little stranger comes out, sucking every bit of life you have left in you, and as soon as you're ready to jump out of a window, all of a sudden, he smiles.
- Professor Lillian Friedman: [about her lunch] Jesus Christ, this is good.
- Professor Lillian Friedman: And whatever you do, however you do it, however you imagine your child's life, or what kind of parent you'd be, 29 years later, he's in some shrink's office accusing you of some stupid thing that you said or did that for the life of you, you can't remember saying or doing.
- Eleanor Rigby: I remember the train ride better than anything. We were all so gussied up. Katy and me wearing those silly matching dresses, standing on the seats, looking out at everything, pointing at this and that. Everything seemed so limitless. It was.
- Julian Rigby: It still is.
- Eleanor Rigby: How many more times do you think I'll remember that moment?
- Julian Rigby: What?
- Eleanor Rigby: It was such a good moment, but I'll probably only... remember it a couple of more times in my life, if that.
- Eleanor Rigby: How have you and mom made it this far?
- Julian Rigby: I'm not sure. Endurance. Everyone starts out thinking, this is forever. But then things get hard... at some point or another. And then other things don't pan out the way you thought they would. I suppose the trick is not running for the hills, even when you think it's the most rational thing to do.
- Julian Rigby: I don't know.
- Eleanor Rigby: I'm okay. Is it okay to be okay?
- Katy Rigby: Yeah, okay okay all you want. Are you really okay?
- Eleanor Rigby: I can pretend.
- Professor Lillian Friedman: You're just taking classes just to take classes, right?
- Eleanor Rigby: Something like that.
- Professor Lillian Friedman: Well, let me save you some time. All the perpetual students, the hedge-fund wives, and your generation of too many choices, they usually go to Tim Gunn's class and listen to him talk about Project Runway. Or you could take the art history class on the advent of color photography, just for good cocktail party conversation.
- Eleanor Rigby: My "generation of too many choices?"
- Professor Lillian Friedman: Democracy has its drawbacks... Here's a double espresso, three Splendas.
- Eleanor Rigby: Thank you. You're... teaching classes just to teach classes, right?
- Professor Lillian Friedman: Something like that.
- Professor Lillian Friedman: You okay?
- Eleanor Rigby: Sure.
- Professor Lillian Friedman: Liar.
- Eleanor Rigby: Sure.
- Eleanor Rigby: It went that badly?
- Katy Rigby: I could've given him a normal kiss good night instead of jamming my tongue down his throat.
- [giggling uncontrollably]
- Eleanor Rigby: You want to do something stupid this weekend?
- Katy Rigby: Yeah. I'm the queen of doing something stupid.
- Eleanor Rigby: [almost having sex with a stranger] You ever have that moment where you... know you're doing something stupid, but you do it anyway?
- Guy from Club: Yeah, every day.
- Charlie: No more with the acting?
- Katy Rigby: No. I mean... life just... kind of put a damper on it.
- Charlie: Whatever happened to dreams? / I think our entire generation is going to grad school, delaying real life as long as possible. / Every single one of all these friends is getting a MBA or a JD or a JD MBA. / I lost one of my interns last month, and the magazine's lost a whole bunch...
- Eleanor Rigby: Shut the fuck up, Charlie.
- Professor Lillian Friedman: Hey, you okay?
- Eleanor Rigby: Yeah. Um...
- Professor Lillian Friedman: What happened?
- Eleanor Rigby: No, my husband... I don't know what to call him anymore.
- Professor Lillian Friedman: Oh, yeah! I have one of those.
- Professor Lillian Friedman: He won a tenure at University of Oregon, and I got it here. He went soft, I stayed hard, that was that.
- [after a monologue about raising a child]
- Professor Lillian Friedman: Who's that man who chased you out of my classroom the other day?
- Eleanor Rigby: He went soft, I stayed hard, that was that.
- Professor Lillian Friedman: You know, there's this really cool thing called chairs.
- Eleanor Rigby: Yeah, I-I heard about those.
- Conor Ludlow: I was gonna say something good. Something that would've solved all our problems and made everything all better. But, you know what, I forgot what it was.
- Ukrainian Cabbie: Where to?
- Eleanor Rigby: Just make a loop around the city.
- Ukrainian Cabbie: Got a destination?
- Eleanor Rigby: Eventually.
- [Eleanor stops Katy from leaving by holding her arm]
- Katy Rigby: What?
- Eleanor Rigby: I was hoping you could read my mind.
- Mary Rigby: I didn't realize I wouldn't be able to retrieve all the opportunities I threw away then. You're not the only one who's done stupid things to herself.
- [touches Eleanor's lock of hair]
- Mary Rigby: My darling.