Homecoming: A Christmas Story

Jim-Bob Walton:
What's the matter with Mary Ellen?

John-Boy:
Well, she's just crazy, everybody goes crazy when you're thirteen.

Mary Ellen:
The world is a big round ball! Eight-thousand miles smack through the middle! Waltons Mountain is just a tiny speck on it!

John-Boy:
Grandpa, do we got something to show we own Walton's Mountain?

Grandpa:
You can't own a mountain any more than you can own an ocean or a piece of the sky. You hold it in trust. You live on it, you take life from it, and once you're dead, you rest in it.

John-Boy:
I'd just as soon not think about that part.

Grandpa:
You're not ready for it yet.

John-Boy:
Are you?

Grandpa:
Never!

Grandpa:
There's your tree, Boy!

John-Boy:
Woo-hoo! She's a dandy, Grandpa!

Grandpa:
It's the one I've watched grow all the time of its life.

John-Boy:
You sure know how to pick'em!

Olivia:
What are we going to live on this coming week?

John:
Love, Woman.

Ben:
John Boy, did you go crazy when you were 13.

John-Boy:
I didn't have time. I was so busy taking care of YOU CHILDREN!

Elizabeth:
Mary Ellen called us piss ants.

Olivia:
Well you know better than that don't you, Elizabeth?

Elizabeth:
I don't feel like a piss ant.

Olivia:
There, you see?

Olivia:
If John doesn't get home soon with money, all we'll have for Christmas dinner is my applesauce cake. We won't even have that if I don't get a move on.

Olivia:
What were you doing up there?

John-Boy:
Nothing, Mama.

Olivia:
Then what's the door locked for?

John-Boy:
I reckon it just got locked.

Olivia:
A door don't get locked all by itself. Now what were you doing up there behind locked doors?

John-Boy:
Sometimes I like a little privacy, Mama.

Mary Ellen:
Let Erin help you, she's such a prissy-butt.

Erin:
I am not a prissy-butt!

Olivia:
Would you girls stop arguing and get busy? GO!

Grandpa:
This is fought-for land.

John-Boy:
Battles right here?

Grandpa:
More than one: flood, fire, freezing weather, diptheria, scarlet fever, whooping cough, loneliness, hard times.

John-Boy:
I thought you meant wars.

Grandpa:
Them too.

John-Boy:
Santa Claus is gonna take one look at that bird poop and he's gonna head right back up the chimney.

Mary Ellen:
I'm so hungry I could eat a horse.

Grandma:
If this depression get's any worse, you may have to.

Ike Godsey:
Sheriff, why don't you wait until after Christmas to lock Charlie up? He's a man of his word, he won't run out on you.

Sheriff Bridges:
You double dog right he won't. He's going to jail.

Charlie Sneed:
Christmas ain't no time to be locking a man up in that old, drafty jail of yours. I could die of pneumonia before morning. You want that on your conscience that I died of pneumonia on Christmas?

Sheriff Bridges:
You should've given that some thought while you was stealing them turkeys and hams.

John-Boy:
You know what's in that tablet, Mama? All my secret thoughts. What I feel and what I think about. What it's like late at night to hear a whipoorwill call and hear it's mate call back. The rumbling of the midnight train crossing the tressel at Rockfish, or just watching the water go by the creek and knowing some day it will reach the ocean, wondering if I'll ever seen an ocean and what a wonder that would be. You know, Mama, sometimes I hike on over to the highway and I sit and watch the buses go by and the people in them and I'm wondering what they're like and what they say to each other and where they're bound for. Things stay in my mind, I can't forget anything and it all get's bottled up in here and sometimes I feel like a crazy man. I can't rest or sleep or anything until I rush up here and write it down in that tablet. Sometimes I think I really am crazy.

Elizabeth:
Good night, John Boy.

John-Boy:
Good night, Elizabeth. Good night, Daddy.

John:
Good night, Son. Good night, Mary Ellen.

Mary Ellen:
Good night, Daddy. Good night, Mama.

Olivia:
Good night, Mary Ellen. Good night, Jim Bob.

Jim Bob:
Good night, Mama. Good night, Erin.

Erin:
Good night, Jim Bob. Good night, Ben.

Ben:
Good night, Erin. Good night, everybody.

Charlie Sneed:
Ike, the keys to my car are in my pocket right over here. Now you take them and drive that boy all over town.

Ike Godsey:
Oh Charlie you know I can't do that until the law finishes his pool game.

Grandma:
Cross the ocean? Why I wouldn't fly from here to Rockfish in one of the things.

John-Boy:
Nobody ever gave away anything worth keeping, I guess.

John:
You won't be having another day like this one. I'm not going back.

Olivia:
You quit your job?

John:
I think hard times are almost over. I think the country is going to get better. Until it does get better, I'll make a living here on Walton's Mountain.

John-Boy:
Is Daddy home yet?

Olivia:
Not yet. Who was that that let you off down by the gate?

John-Boy:
That was Miss Mamie and Miss Emily Baldwin. They gave me a ride home in their pappy's sleigh.

Olivia:
What am I gonna do with you, boy? I send you looking for your daddy and you end up joyriding with two old lady BOOTLEGGERS!

John-Boy:
I wasn't joyriding, Mama. They took me to look for Daddy. We got right far but there a tree down in the road stopped us dead.

“I sure picked a peach when I came courting you, gal.” To Olivia