< Ally McBeal

Ally McBeal/Quotes


Season 1

Pilot [1.01]

Richard: Make enough money, and everything else will follow. Quote me. That's a Fishism.

Compromising Positions [1.02]

Ally: I think I need to believe that it works
Billy: What works?
Ally: Love. Couple hood. Partnerships. The idea that when people come together, they stay together. I have to take that with me when I'm going to bed at night, even if I'm going to bed alone. That's a McBealism.

The Kiss [1.03]

Richard: Everybody's alone, Ally. It's just easier to take in a relationship.

Drawing the Lines [1.08]

Ally McBeal: I mean, with all due respect, you sort of walk around with uppity breasts, and the hair flips aren't the most subtle. And your perfume - you could be flammable. Now what if somebody shut you down as a safety hazard, how would you feel then?
Renée Radick: People think you're strange, you know. Just, just sit there and don't talk.
John "The Biscuit" Cage: I am an enigma.
Renée Radick: You're a cute little enigma.

Silver Bells [1.11]

John: [about Santa Claus] A fat man, trying to squeeze through a narrow chimney, and I taunt him with Oreos and a glass of whole milk.

Happy Birthday, Baby [1.19]

Ally McBeal: I've been dumped before, Renee. This isn't pain I'm feeling, it's nostalgia.

These Are the Days [1.23]

Ally McBeal: Whenever I get depressed, I raise my hemlines. If things don't change, I am bound to be arrested. Do you ever wish you could erase a whole day from your life, a year even?
John: If you think back, and replay your year - if it doesn't bring you tears of joy or sadness, consider the year wasted.

Season 2

Making Spirits Bright [2.10]

Richard: You're not who you are, you're only what other people think you are. Fishism.

Season 4

Sex, Lies & Second Thoughts [4.01]

Ally McBeal: maybe i'll share my life with somebody; maybe not... but the truth is, when i think back of my loneliest moments, there was usually somebody sitting there next to me...

Girl's Night Out [4.02]

Ally McBeal: i have a friend who refuses to get a pet because he says in the end they die and it's just too hard... maybe it's the same with relationship.

Two's a Crowd [4.03]

Richard Fish: it's not easy finding a person to love in this world. whoever you end up with, she won't be perfect.

Ally McBeal

Ally McBeal: There's no sin in loving men. Only pain!
Ally McBeal: We're not only wired to want what we can't have, but we're also wired to want what we really don't want.
Ally McBeal: You only die once!
Ally McBeal: When guys are persistent, it's romantic, they make movies about that. If it's a woman, then they cast Glenn Close.
Ally McBeal: Law and love are the same - romantic in concept but the actual practice can give you a yeast infection.
Ally McBeal: I like being a mess. It's who I am.
Ally McBeal: I've been dumped before, Renee. This isn't pain I'm feeling, it's nostalgia.
Ally McBeal: I mean, with all due respect, you sort of walk around with uppity breasts, and the hair flips aren't the most subtle. And your perfume - you could be flammable. Now what if somebody shut you down as a safety hazard, how would you feel then?
Ally McBeal: Here I am, the victim of my own choices. And I'm just starting.
Ally McBeal: Maybe I'm happy and I just don't know it.
Ally McBeal: The real truth is, I probably don't want to be too happy or content. Because, then what? I actually like the quest, the search. That's the fun. The more lost you are, the more you have to look forward to. What do you know? I'm having a great time and I don't even know it.
Ally McBeal: Whenever I get depressed, I raise my hemlines. If things don't change, I am bound to be arrested.
Ally McBeal: [about Billy] He wants to have his cake and not eat me.
Ally McBeal: Hi! I'm Ally McBeal, homewrecker. Here's my card.
Ally McBeal: Wow... I have a boyfriend.
[Watches Nelle Porter unpin her bun and shake out her long, beautiful blonde hair]
Ally McBeal: It's official: I HATE her!
Ally McBeal: Maybe I'll share my life with somebody... maybe not. But the truth is, when I think back of my loneliest moments, there was usually somebody sitting there next to me. (s04e01)
Ally McBeal: Sometimes... there's no point in the truth if the only thing it will do is cause pain.
Ally McBeal: The idea that when people come together, they stay together. I have to take that with me when I'm going to bed at night, Even if I'm going to bed alone.
Ally McBeal: Men are like gum anyway - after you chew they lose their flavor.
Ally McBeal: Sometimes I'm more persuasive when I lack conviction.
Ally McBeal: Uh, let the record reflect that the deponent is a fat, arrogant, overweight, bald pig.
Ally McBeal: Even if I did get past all my problems, I'm just gonna get out and get new ones.
Ally McBeal: Remember, when you're with me, it's the only time you're not the strangest person in the room. So go ahead, get weird with me.
Ally McBeal: We're women. We have a double standard to live up to.
Ally McBeal: However much I know otherwise part of me has always felt that life has no real meaning until you get to share it with somebody. Maybe that's what I'm afraid of: my life finally taking meaning or suddenly becoming void of it.

John "The Biscuit" Cage

John: That's the trouble I suppose in coming at people with honesty, some times they counter with it.
John: I'm not going through an odd phase, I really am odd.
John: The world is no longer a romantic place. Some of its people still are however, and therein lies the promise. Don't let the world win, Ally McBeal.

Richard Fish

Richard: [A judge has just denied his motion] Let the record show: dammit.
Richard: Is that the two cents? I'd be looking for change.
Richard: Objection! Your Honor, this is boring!
Richard: Helping others is never more rewarding than when it's in your own self interest.
Richard: Let me tell you something. I didn't become a lawyer because I like the law; the law sucks. It's boring, but it can also be used as a weapon. You want to bankrupt somebody? Cost him everything he's worked for? Make his wife leave him, even make his kids cry? Yeah, we can do that.
Richard: "Problem" is just a bleak word for challenge.
Richard: She told her that you told her about what she told you. I'm in the middle and clueless. I feel like Elaine.
Richard: You know, I had a great aunt once who said if you stare at a beautiful woman too long, you turn to stone. She was partially right.
[Talking to Margaret Camaro, butch lesbian sociologist]
Richard: Camaro. Isn't that a muscle car?
Richard: Er... love without sex is er... meaningless... Senior Fishism!
Richard: Mmmm lesbians.
Richard: The key to successful parenting is knowing when not to.

Elaine Vassal

Elaine: That was with all due respect?
Elaine: A lot of people forget what they're saying in a fit of rage, so I'll be happy to take the minutes.
Elaine: Sometimes she just looks snappish.
Elaine: That was a snappish remark disguised in a soft tone.
Elaine: I'm sure she's quite stupid, and in time, gravity will get her.
Elaine: She's two-thirds of a Rice Krispie treat. She's already snapped, and crackled, and she's ready for the final pop.
Elaine: Oh, forgive my bluntness. It's a device I use to cope.

Ling Woo

Ling: It's a problem being beautiful. It's only the handsome men that ask us out because they're the only ones who think they have a chance. And handsome men are dolts. Life is unfair to us. At some point we have to face the certain reality: despite all the good the world seems to offer, true happiness can only be found in one thing - shopping.
Ling: (About Elaine) This woman drips with sarcasm at my personal expense.
Ling: Nelle is like a sister; when she's in pain, I throw up!
Ling: I'm rich. I only go into work to wear my outfits!
Ling: I am really a very funny person.
Ling: He's about to take a very long moment
[After co-worker Billy announces he has a brain tumour]
Ling: I hope he's not going to milk this...
[to a man in a wheelchair]
Ling: Watch where you are going! It's bad enough that you people get all the parking spots!
Ling: I think Tourettes is so cool. It would be great to be able to annoy people like that. You get to woop and twitch. Any other good ones?
[When pointed out "there are real blind people in the world", Ling retorts]
Ling: It's not like any of them saw me
[After a blind man accidentally taps her with his cane]
Ling: OW! I so prefer the deaf to the blind.
Ling: I Object! I'm bored! As an officer of the court, I have a duty to be open and forthright. I think the witness is tedious and I'm concerned for the jury's attention span
Ling: A woman hasn't got true control of a man until her hand is on the dumb stick
Ling: There's nothing I enjoy more then seeing a happy couple and coming between them

Others

Dr. Tracy Clark [plays a tape of people laughing]: Sometimes when a patient says something so competely naive, I find that my own laughter just isn't enough.
Nelle Porter: Ling, one of the disadvantages of having magnetism is that you bring people out, people that otherwise would go unnoticed. The fact that she can be so annoying is really a tribute to you!
Georgia Thomas: At the end of the day, life is just this big wall of reality that we all crash into.
Liza Bump [to Nelle Porter]: Do you talk, or do I have to pull a string?
Camaro: Why should I do anything for you? The last time I was here you called me a vicious lesbian!
Steven Milter: The younger man are trainable. If you find him attractive, if he's smart, take him home. Take him shopping! Take him into your bosom. It's not the man who makes the man. It's the woman!

Other Dialogue

Judge Jennifer "Whipper" Cone: No, I don't think you're nuts, but I don't think that you have both feet on the ground either.
Ally McBeal: You mean some people do?
Ally McBeal: You loved me.
Billy: Yeah. That's the truth. So much that sometimes, when we were apart, we used to keep an open phone line at night so while sleeping I could listen to your breath.
Dr. Tracy Clark: You kissed him? You're a slut!
Ally McBeal: I... I am not! I am not a slut!
Dr. Tracy Clark: Oh, come on! Don't fool yourself!
Ally McBeal: Where does she come up with these things?
Nelle Porter: Well, Ling wasn't editor of law review for nothing.
Ally McBeal: Ling went to Law School? Ling is a LAWYER?
Ally McBeal: Love isn't always enough.
Larry: Yeah, it is. You go without it long enough and you realize it's everything.

Season 4. Episode 10. The ex-files

Nelle Porter: You having fun with this case?
Ling Woo: It's okay. I prefer being a plaintiff, but a defendant's nice too. I get a martyr glow.
Ling Woo: So Jackson Duper, you don't tell a woman your real name?
Jackson Duper: Hey, for all I knew...
Ling Woo: You knew me well enough to go to bed with me.
Jackson Duper: Look...
Ling Woo: Why the alias? You wanted?
Jackson Duper: No.
Ling Woo: Certainly not by me.
Jackson Duper: Excellent. Do I get to talk
Ling Woo: Fine. Quick, think up something.
Jackson Duper: Look...
Ling Woo: We're back to look.
Jackson Duper: Hey...
Ling Woo: We're back to hey.
Jackson Duper: Ling...
Ling Woo: How do you know my real name? Oh that's right, I gave it to you. What an odd thing to do.
[Ally is outraged when Ling convinces a dying boy that he could sue God]
Ling Woo: Do you know how his father died?
Ally McBeal: No. Do you?
Ling Woo: Yes, I overheard the nurses talking. He was crushed by a tree that was struck by lightning. THAT was an act of God, so we go after the Church, HOUSE of God. I need to pee.
Elaine Vassal: In a pinch, I sometimes allude to not wearing any underwear.
Ally McBeal: I won't be in that pinch.
Georgia Thomas: Ally, what makes your problems so much bigger than everybody else's?
Ally McBeal: They're mine.
Rabbi Stern: Are you always such a bitchy little thing?
Ally McBeal: Bitchy?
Rabbi Stern: Coming in here, insulting the Talmud, insulting me!
Ally McBeal: What kind of rabbi calls somebody bitchy?
Rabbi Stern: I'm going to have to ask you to leave.
Ally McBeal: 'Cause I'm bitchy? God has no love for the bitchy?
Rabbi Stern: Get out.
John "The Biscuit" Cage: Have no fear, Nelle, that girl is a bagel!
Nelle Porter: Bagel?
John "The Biscuit" Cage: [pauses] I meant to say 'toast.'
Ally McBeal: I am good in bed, Renee.
[Renee laughs]
Ally McBeal: What?
Renée Radick: Ally, I'm your roommate. We have thin walls, and you...
[Renee imitates small whining noises]
Ally McBeal: I don't sound like that.
Renée Radick: I make more noise breaking in a new shoe.
Ally McBeal: So how has it come to this? We're smart women, we're fairly attractive...
Renée Radick: I'm even hot.
Greg: You kicked him?
Ally McBeal: I didn't know he was real; I thought he was pretend.
Greg: You only kick pretend people?
Ally McBeal: [pause] Yes.
Renée Radick: Well, don't get me wrong, Ally...
Ally McBeal: Why does everyone say that to me? Do I get everything wrong?
Renée Radick: No, it's just that what I am about to say may sound like an insult, so I want to buffer it.
Ally McBeal: Oh, okay.
Renée Radick: Emotionally, you're an idiot.
John "The Biscuit" Cage: Let's not forget that Lizzie Borden was found innocent of killing her parents.
Richard Fish: Oh, she did it; the jury just took pity on her for being an orphan.
Georgia Thomas: Well, by all means let's hear your opinion, Richard.
Richard Fish: Simple. Men and women. Friction.
Georgia Thomas: That's it? Friction?
Richard Fish: Friction, friction, friction, orgasm. Fishism. Are we going to dance or not?
Billy: Why do therapists always have to talk about sex?
Dr. Hooper: What can I say, Freud was a perv.
Ally McBeal: I'm trying to desensitize myself to murder so I can be a better lawyer.
Billy: Why don't you just watch the news?
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