- Noreen Vanderslice: Personally not sure why you're makin' all this effort.
- Ed Blumquist: Gonna buy the shop, be my own boss.
- Noreen Vanderslice: And?
- Ed Blumquist: And what? That's the American dream.
- Noreen Vanderslice: What's the point? Just gonna die, anyway.
- Ed Blumquist: What do you mean?
- Noreen Vanderslice: Camus says knowing we're all gonna die makes life a joke.
- Ed Blumquist: So what, you just you just give up?
- Noreen Vanderslice: You could kill yourself, get it over with.
- Ed Blumquist: Okay, that - that's not...
- [Stammers]
- Ed Blumquist: I-I mean, come on, you gotta... you gotta try.
- Noreen Vanderslice: No.
- Ed Blumquist: You go to school, you get a job, you start a family.
- Noreen Vanderslice: Die.
- Ed Blumquist: That's... would you please stop saying that? I'm gonna live a long, long life. My... my grandpa was 96.
- Noreen Vanderslice: At which point he did what? Died.
- Mike Milligan: My mother could find the cloud in every silver lining.
- Simone Gerhardt: That's cute. Mine smiles all the time, like some ghoul. I think it's 'cause dad hits her when she looks sad.
- Lou Solverson: Governor, I don't mean to, uh... What we did over there, the war? Um... and now? My wife's got lymphoma. Uh, Stage III. And, uh, lately, the state of things, uh... Well, sometimes, I... late at night... I wonder if maybe the sickness of this world, if it isn't inside my wife somehow. The - the cancer. I don't - I don't know what I'm saying, except... Do you really think we'll get out of this mess we're in?
- Ronald Reagan: Son, there's not a challenge on God's Earth that can't be overcome by an American. I truly believe that.
- Lou Solverson: Yeah... But how?
- [Reagan walks away with no response]
- Dodd Gerhardt: Where you been?
- Simone Gerhardt: I just met a-a friend.
- Dodd Gerhardt: Mm. You think you're grown, is that it?
- Simone Gerhardt: What?
- Dodd Gerhardt: With your clothes and your hair and no bra? Like you know somethin' about the world? Being grown's got a price. Kid gets slapped when he's bad. When you're grown, you get the fist or the knife.
- Hank Larsson: Oh, what the heck.
- Betsy Solverson: Thank you, Dad.
- Hank Larsson: Yeah, sure, you get some rest. We'll just be here eating sugar cereal and playing with my service weapon.