Natalie Portman credited as playing...
Novalee Nation
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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?
- Lexie Coop: I think I might be pregnant. You remember that guy I told you about last month?
- Novalee Nation: The good-lookin' mechanic?
- Lexie Coop: 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?
- Lexie Coop: 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.
