Quotes from Tracy Letts

CHARLIE: So you can't even see Ivy's point? MATTIE FAE: No. CHARLIE: That Little Charles and Beverly share some kind of . . . complication. MATTIE FAE: Honey, you have to be smart to be complicated. CHARLIE: That's our boy. Are you saying our boy isn't smart? MATTIE FAE: Yes, that's what I'm saying.

Well, I don't live in New York and I don't pretend to understand the way the theater works there.

MATTIE FAE: I'm still very sexy, thank you very much. VIOLET: You're about as sexy as a wet cardboard box, Mattie Fae, you and me both. Don't kid yourself.

I think my parents did a better job of raising me than I did of raising my own kids.

In church, I look around... I have a secret world in my mind, and if they could see it, they might... I don't know. Stone me.

You lack freedom, so you fantasize about it.

BARBARA: Even if things don't work out with you and Marsha. BILL: Cindy. BARBARA: Cindy. BILL: Right. Even if things don't work out. BARBARA: And I'm never really going to understand why, am I? (Bill struggles . . . it seems as if he might say something more, but then:) BILL: Probably not. (Silence. Bill heads for the door. Barbara watches him go and sobs.) BARBARA: I love you . . . I love you . . . (He stands for a moment, his back to her. He exits. Barbara stands, alone.)

BARBARA: You're never coming back to me, are you, Bill? BILL: Never say never, but . . . BARBARA: But no. BILL: But no.

A nun's habit is authentic, but wearing one doesn't make you a nun.

defensiveness bores me, because it all sounds the same.

Gracias a Dios que no podemos adivinar el futuro. Si nos dijeran lo que iba a pasar, no nos levantaríamos nunca de la cama.

All Americans are defensive. You can't help it.

You know, I've buried so many of my friends, I got callouses on my hands from carrying caskets. Folks my age, or who would be my age. It's tough, sometimes, just not to find people you can sit with, talk to.

I'm sick of the whole notion of the enduring female. GROW UP! 'Cause while you're going through your fifth puberty, the world is falling apart and I can't handle it! (Barbara Weston)

Dissipation is actually much worse than cataclysm.

BARBARA: God, Deon, you look really good. You really . . . filled out. Nicely, I mean. You just look great. SHERIFF GILBEAU: Thanks. BARBARA: How 'bout me, don't I look good? SHERIFF GILBEAU: Yes, sorry, yes. You look great, too, just great.

BILL: Anyway, if you want me to explain the creepy character of the Midwest, you're asking the wrong— BARBARA: Hey. Please. This is not the Midwest. All right? Michigan is the Midwest, God knows why. This is the Plains: a state of mind, right, some spiritual affliction, like the Blues.

JOHNNA: "This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends . . ." VIOLET:—and then you're gone, and then you're gone, and then you're gone, and then you're gone—

IVY: Is she clean? BARBARA: Clean-ish. IVY: So she's not clean. BARBARA: The woman's got brain-damage, dummy. If you think I'm going to strip-search her every time she slurs a word— IVY: You know the difference. BARBARA: She's moderately clean. IVY: "Moderately"? BARBARA: You don't like "moderately"? Then let's say tolerably. IVY: Is she clean, or not? BARBARA: Back off. We're trying to get by here, okay?

KAREN: What do you want me to say? BARBARA: Tell him we got a sick woman here. VIOLET: You can't do this! This is my house! This is my house! BARBARA: You don't get it, do you? (With a burst of adrenaline, she strides to Violet, towers over her) I'M RUNNING THINGS NOW! (Blackout.)

BARBARA: Lot of fish in the sea. Surely you can rule out the one single man in the world you're related to. IVY: I happen to love the man I'm related— BARBARA: Fuck love, what a crock of shit. People can convince themselves they love a painted rock.

BARBARA: Right. (Beat) You've known about Daddy and Mattie Fae all these years. VIOLET: Oh, sure. I never told them I knew. But your father knew. He knew I knew. He always knew I knew. But we never talked about it. I chose the higher ground.

All women need makeup. Don't let anybody tell you different. The only woman who was pretty enough to go without makeup was Elizabeth Taylor and she wore a ton.

Violet really has a way of putting you in attack mode, you know it? BARBARA: She doesn't have anything to do with it. BILL: Don't you believe it. You feel such rage for her that you can't help dishing it my direction— BARBARA: I swear to God, you psychoanalyze me right now, I skin you.