- Novalee Nation: It's too late, isn't it, Forney?
- Forney Hull: Too late for what?
- Novalee Nation: I lied to you, when you asked me if I loved you, and I said no. Remember?
- Forney Hull: Yes.
- Novalee Nation: I lied. It wasn't true, I-I love you. It's just I lied because I thought you deserved something better.
- Forney Hull: Something better than you? Novalee, there isn't anything better than you.
- [they kiss]
- Novalee Nation: You tell them that our lives can change with every breath we take... and tell 'em to hold on like hell to what they've got: each other, and a mother who would die for them and almost did... You tell them we've all got meanness in us, but we've got goodness too. And the only thing worth living for is the good. And that's why we've got to make sure we pass it on.
- Thelma 'Sister' Husband: Dear Lord, we ask that you bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies. And we ask forgiveness, Lord, for the fornication that Mr. Sprock and me committed this morning on this very table.
- Americus: Forney, if you give a cow chocolate will you get chocolate milk?
- Forney Hull: Yeah. And if you spin a cow around real fast you'll get whipped cream.
- Americus: Wow! You know a lot.
- Forney Hull: Well, I work in the library.
- Orderly: Lexie, one of your kids is on the phone.
- Lexie Coop: Which one?
- Orderly: Oh, I don't know. Pez? Twinkie? One of 'em.
- Novalee Nation: Do I look professional?
- Forney Hull: Well you know what'd help?
- Novalee Nation: What?
- Forney Hull: If you brought your camera
- Novalee Nation: SHIT!...
- [to Americus]
- Novalee Nation: Mommy didn't say shit!
- Americus: Yes, she did.
- Lexie Coop: Americus? What kind of a name is Americus?
- Novalee Nation: I wanted her to have a strong name.
- Lexie Coop: Well, I guess I shouldn't talk. I named my kids after snack foods: Brownie, Praline, Cherry and Baby Ruth.
- Novalee Nation: 5 days old she got the Jaundice. 5 weeks old she got an ear infection. 5 months old she was kidnapped. 5 years old? I'm not lighting any fires, thank you.
- Lexie Coop: [driving up to the curb] Hi! Sorry honey but I made it.
- Novalee Nation: Was it a big inconvenience?
- Lexie Coop: Novalee, I have 5 children. Everything is an inconvenience. Mind if I drive real slow on the way home? I'd like to pretend it's a vacation.
- Lexie Coop: This old gypsy woman once told me that if you jump backwards nine times before the sun come up you won't be pregnant. Well, I jumped so far I had to take a bus back and then I had twins.
- Thelma 'Sister' Husband: That's what the late Brother Husband used to say...
- Novalee Nation: Brother Husband... Was he your husband?
- Thelma 'Sister' Husband: No, he was my brother.
- Willy Jack Pickens: Why does anyone lie? Cuz we're scared? Or crazy? Or just mean?... There's a million reasons why a person lies... But sometimes, you tell a lie so big... that it changes your whole life... Lie's so big... it makes you think...
- Lexie Coop: Honey, I know that your mother walked out on you and what that butthole Willie Jack did. But that is what makes them trash, not you.
- Rhonda: You know the floor is missing?
- Novalee Nation: Willy Jack got the whole car for 80 bucks. He had to fix everything on it. And here's the best part.
- [points at the license plate]
- Novalee Nation: No fives!
- Nicki: You and your fives.
- Rhonda: What fives?
- Novalee Nation: On my fifth birthday my mama ran off with a baseball umpire named Fred and never came back. And after I dropped out of school and was waiting tables at Red's, one of the regulars there named Gladys went crazy. When I tried to calm her down she jumped at me with a steak knife and cut me from my wrist to my elbow.
- Rhonda: And what's that got to do with fives?
- Nicki: It took 55 stitches to close her up.
- Novalee Nation: I don't like fives.
- Forney Hull: Are you finding everything you need?
- Novalee Nation: I don't know what they're talking about. I have to look up every other word in the dictionary then I have to look up those words in the children's dictionary. Takes me a half hour to read a page.
- Forney Hull: Well maybe this is something that's hard to learn from books. I mean, it's photography.
- Novalee Nation: Hard for me, anyway.
- Thelma 'Sister' Husband: [answers the door] Yes?
- Religious Man: Ma'am, we've come here today to give the word of God to the Wal-Mart baby, and to her young unmarried mother.
- Religious Woman: We drove all the way up from Midnight, Mississippi.
- Thelma 'Sister' Husband: Well, you folks could have saved yourselves a trip because the word of God has been in this house for a very long time.
- [slams door in their faces]
- Lexie Coop: He told you he loved you, and you didn't say anything?
- Novalee Nation: I'm a dope. I'm such a dope, but I was scared. I was confused. The whole thing is just strange.
- Lexie Coop: Honey, don't take this the wrong way, but Forney is strange.
- Forney Hull: Do you love me?
- Novalee Nation: You are the best friend I've ever had.
- Forney Hull: Just answer me.
- Novalee Nation: You delivered my baby.
- Forney Hull: Do you love me?
- Novalee Nation: No. No, Forney, I don't love you. Not that way.
- Willy Jack Pickens: I was coming to see you.
- Novalee Nation: Sure.
- Willy Jack Pickens: I was.
- Novalee Nation: What were you going to do, Willy Jack? Go back to the Wal-Mart. Think I'd still be there waiting for you 5 years later?
- Willy Jack Pickens: No. I just.
- Novalee Nation: I gave birth at a Wal-Mart.
- Willy Jack Pickens: Was it a boy? Was it a girl?
- [yells]
- Willy Jack Pickens: Is it alright? Does it have a name?
- Novalee Nation: Yes, it's a girl. Her name is Americus and she's mine. You stay away from her!
- Willy Jack Pickens: Stay away from her? I can't even get out of this bed, Novalee. What am I going to do, run away with her?
- Novalee Nation: If you think I'm going to feel sorry for you.
- Willy Jack Pickens: [interrupts] I just get some new legs and a new liver. That's all.
- Novalee Nation: [yells] Then why'd you come here? Why you coming after us?
- Novalee Nation: Oh, I got money. The president of Wal-Mart gave me five hundred dollars.
- Mama Lil: Why, he's not the father of the baby, is he?
- Novalee Nation: No.
- Mama Lil: Ah, shit.
- Ruth Meyers: Jesus Christ, another guitar player. What's your name?
- Willy Jack Pickens: Willie Jack Pickens.
- Ruth Meyers: I bet you didn't even have to make that up, did you?
- Willy Jack Pickens: What?
- Ruth Meyers: So, you just carry that guitar around to keep your balance?
- Willy Jack Pickens: You want me to play?
- Ruth Meyers: What the fuck do you think I want you to do, call bingo? One tune; your best shot.
- Willy Jack Pickens: Well, I wrote this one myself.
- Ruth Meyers: I have goosebumps already.
- Novalee Nation: What do you think? It took me a whole month to get back to my old size.
- Thelma 'Sister' Husband: Oh, well, a little weight on a woman is no harm.
- Novalee Nation: I swear I spent more on film than I got paid.
- Thelma 'Sister' Husband: [looking at wedding pictures] What's going on here?
- Novalee Nation: Well it turns out the groom's former girlfriend was a waitress at the reception. This was right after the bride called her a cheap, big-ass tramp.
- Thelma 'Sister' Husband: Who's this on the stretcher?
- Novalee Nation: That's the waitress after the bridesmaids finished jumping up and down on her.
- Thelma 'Sister' Husband: [laughing] You think they're gonna want these pictures?
- Novalee Nation: I think I might be pregnant. You remember that guy I told you about last month?
- Lexie Coop: The good-lookin' mechanic?
- Novalee Nation: I don't know what's wrong with me. I didn't even want to be with him.
- Lexie Coop: Didn't he use anything?
- Novalee Nation: Just me.
- Thelma 'Sister' Husband: I'm Sister Husband! Oh you remember me! You used to call me Telma because you couldn't say Thelma.
- [Novalee just looks at her]
- Thelma 'Sister' Husband: Can you say Thelma?
- Novalee Nation: [softly] Thelma.
- Novalee Nation: At the end of each letter he writes, "Please tell your mother I extend my best wishes."
- Lexie Coop: Hot.
- Moses Whitecotten: Have you thought of a name yet?
- Novalee Nation: Well, I was thinking about Wendi with an "i."
- Moses Whitecotten: Oh no, don't you dare.
- Novalee Nation: I hope we can find a place to live that overlooks the ocean.
- Willy Jack Pickens: Hell, Novalee, you can't see the ocean from Bakersfield!
- Novalee Nation: Well... well, maybe a pond then.
- Thelma 'Sister' Husband: On behalf of the merchants and businessman's association of the city of Sequoia, Oklahoma I do present you with this basket of gifts and merchandise.
- Novalee Nation: [takes basket] Thank you.
- Thelma 'Sister' Husband: You've got discount coupons, matches, a map of the city, emery boards.
- [interrupts herself]
- Thelma 'Sister' Husband: Oh, oh yeah. Now you see this little appointment book? Well I ran out of these last week so I had to put two or three of my own appointments in this one. But if you're not an alcoholic you'll know those meetings aren't for you.
- Novalee Nation: No ma'am. I'm not.
- Thelma 'Sister' Husband: Good. I think that's good.
- Lexie Coop: Forney is in love with you! Tell me you don't know that.
- Novalee Nation: It's just not like that with me and Forney.
- Lexie Coop: I have seen him. He loves you. He loves the way you walk, he loves your hair, he loves everything about you.
- Novalee Nation: Forney and me we're just not that way. Forney's different from us. He went to college. His family had money.
- Lexie Coop: What are you trying to say? That you're not good enough for him?
- Mama Lil: You got a man?
- Novalee Nation: No.
- Mama Lil: This isn't one of them artificial spermanation things, is it?
- Novalee Nation: No.
- Mama Lil: Then where is the prick who put you in this mess?
- Novalee Nation: California.
- Mama Lil: [chuckles] That figures. All the pricks move to California. They oughta call it Prickafornia.
- Thelma 'Sister' Husband: Home is where your history begins. Home is where they catch you when you fall.
- Forney Hull: Here!
- [throws books on the table]
- Forney Hull: Look up Buckeye in the index.
- Novalee Nation: The what?
- Forney Hull: I'll start slower, these are called books. You still with me?
- Novalee Nation: Hey!
- Forney Hull: There. See, read.
- Novalee Nation: Leaf rot. Root damage. Night nitro.
- [struggling]
- Novalee Nation: Night nitrogen defic... defic...
- Forney Hull: Deficiency! Keep reading.
- Novalee Nation: [uncertainly] I'm looking for a book.
- Forney Hull: What kind of book?
- Novalee Nation: About... 'bout trees?
- Forney Hull: Trees?
- Novalee Nation: Yeah.
- [makes motion over her head to demonstrate]
- Novalee Nation: You know.
- Forney Hull: Forestry? Environment? Agriculture? Botany? What do you want to know about trees?
- Willy Jack Pickens: Hey Novalee! Wake up, you sound like the damn pig! Jesus, what the hell is the matter with you? And where are your shoes?
- [looks through the back windshield]
- Willy Jack Pickens: Well that's just great. That's great.
- Novalee Nation: My feet are swollen. I had to take them off.
- Novalee Nation: [yells] Ooh!
- Willy Jack Pickens: What the hell?
- Novalee Nation: Wal-Mart! I can go to the bathroom!
- Willy Jack Pickens: Alright, hurry up.
- Novalee Nation: Hun, I'm gonna need some money.
- Willy Jack Pickens: They're gonna charge you to pee?
- Novalee Nation: I could get some house shoes. I gotta get some kind of shoes.
- Willy Jack Pickens: Alright, get you some house shoes. Get you some green polka dot house shoes. That way everyone will be sure to notice you!
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