- Ricky: I'm gonna stay the same... You like me now but, you won't like me later. You're gonna grow up... I'm not.
- Harriet: I think Gwen was mostly upset that I'd gotten married before her, seeing as how I was so much younger.
- Harriet: Prince Ricky, I grant you three wishes.
- Ricky: I don't want to do that.
- Harriet: Come on!
- Ricky: Okay. I want to stay here.
- Harriet: That's one, you've got two more!
- Ricky: Umm... I want my mom to live forever!
- Harriet: That's two. One more.
- Ricky: I want a hundred more wishes!
- Harriet: You can't do that you only have three!
- Ricky: I want to be as smart as everybody else... just for a day.
- Harriet: Gwen?
- Gwen: Down here...
- Harriet: You're supposed to wait with me till the sandman comes.
- Gwen: Okay... Am I supposed to tell you a story?
- Harriet: Sometimes, but mostly we just talk about stuff.
- Gwen: Okay. Do I pick the subject or do you?
- Harriet: Either... Turn out the light?
- Gwen: Okay... ready?
- Harriet: I always wished for the same two things which were really only one thing. I wanted something magical to happen to me, and I wanted my mother to get well.
- Harriet: My mother says I was born with an angel on my shoulder. This is supposed to bring me luck and happiness. I think she lied.
- Harriet: Sometimes I thought my mother was smart and really beautiful. Other times I worried a nest of spiders was living in her hair and they were eating through her skull and chewing on her brain.
- Ricky: My mother says before I was born I was the same as everybody else, better even. My mom says I'm from a place where I'm the smartest person there. Everybody sings.
- Harriet: Well, maybe the home will be like that, and it'll look like a castle and have a moat around it and have gardens and bushes shaped like animals.
- Ricky: I don't want to go to a home.
- Harriet: Mom, is there a planet where everyone's dumber than us?
- Mrs. Frankovitz: Sure, that's the one all of Gwen's boyfriends are from.
- Gwen: You want to sleep in my room with me tonight?
- Harriet: No!
- Gwen: Don't be mad at me about mom, it's not my fault. Don't think it's your fault either.
- Harriet: I'm glad she's dead!
- Gwen: You don't mean that.
- Harriet: I won't miss her at all.
- Gwen: Harriet you loved her. She loved you too, very much. Sometimes, just... things just happen sometimes... Look; you don't have to worry about being an orphan or anything. You've got me.
- Harriet: The booby prize.
- Gwen: I'm trying to tell you something here, Harriet... So... I'm going to be your mother now. What do you think about that?
- Harriet: I don't need a mother.
- Gwen: Sure you do.
- Harriet: My mother is in a box covered with dirt.
- Gwen: No, I'm your mother... I had you when I was fifteen. I was letting Mom be your mother.
- Harriet: You're lying.
- Gwen: No... Sorry. I'm not.
- Harriet: Go away Gwen, I wish you'd died!
- Gwen: I'm not mad at you, okay? But I want you to promise me something...
- Harriet: What?
- Gwen: Promise me you won't hang around Ricky anymore.
- Harriet: But Ricky is my best friend.
- Gwen: He can't be Harriet. He's a man, he's a grown-up, he's a... retarded. If you hang around him long enough you'll start talking like him or walking like him or maybe even acting like him.
- Harriet: Well, at least it would be better than talking and walking and acting like you.
- Harriet: Have you ever, ever, ever in your very long life seen a long-legged sailor and his long-legged wife? No, I never ever, ever in my very long life seen a long-legged sailor and his long-legged wife.
- [first lines]
- Harriet: My mother lived in one world. I was always looking for another.
- Harriet: Once I tried to squeeze down a rabbit hole.
- [fire department arriving]
- Harriet: Then I tried digging all the way to China.
- [sparks fly]
- Harriet: That's when I learned a mysterious electric force protected the center of the Earth. Then I tried to make the carpet from the front hall fly me to Persia.
- Harriet: I always wish for the same two things, which are really only one thing. I want something magical to happen to me. And I wanted my mother to get well.