Little Miss Sunshine Quotations

Little Miss Sunshine is a 2006 Academy Award-winning dramatic comedy film about a dysfunctional family going to a childrens' beauty pageant for one of the children, Olive. Traveling together in a Volkswagen Type 2 mini-bus each of them discover certain aspects of their lives that they could not see beforehand and how to relate to one another.

This 2006 film was directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. It was written by Michael Arndt.

A family on the verge of a breakdown taglines

Edwin

Dwayne? That's your name, right?

Listen to me; don't make the same mistakes I made when I was young. Fuck a lotta women Dwayne, not just one woman, a lotta women.

You know how tired I am? If some girl came up to me and begged me to fuck her, I couldn't do it.

That young stuff is the best stuff in the whole world. See, right now you're jail bait, they're jail bait. It's perfect. I mean, you get eighteen, bam! You're talking about three to five.

So pull the truck over! You are not going to shut me up, fuck you! I can say what I want--I still got Nazi bullets in my ass!

Hey, Olive, I'll give you a million dollars if you turn around!

[to Dwayne] Don't show me the pad. I don't want to see the fucking pad.

Olive, Richard's an idiot. I like a woman with a little meat on her bones.

[to Frank] Get me some porn; get me something really nasty too; I don't want any of that airbrush shit. Get yourself a little treat too; get yourself a fag rag.

Richard, whatever happens, you tried to do something on your own, which is more than most people ever do. I include myself in that category. You took a big chance, it took guts, and I'm proud of you.

You're the world champion Growler.

Do you know what a loser is? A real loser is somebody who is so afraid of not winning they don't even try.

[walking in to find that Sheryl has bought fried chicken for dinner] What's that, chicken? Every night it's the fucking chicken! Holy God Almighty! Is it possible just once we could get something to eat for dinner around here that's not the goddamned fucking chicken?!

Dwayne

(Writes): Welcome to Hell

(Writes): Please don't kill yourself tonight.

(Writes): I hate everyone

(Writes): Where's Olive?

(Writes): Go Hug Mom. (when Sheryl is crying)

[after finding out that he is color blind and cannot fly planes] Fu-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-ck!!!! [his first words in the movie]

No, you're not my family! I don't wanna be your family. I hate you fucking people!! I hate you!! Divorce?! Bankrupt?! Suicide?!! You're fucking losers!! You're losers!

You know what? Fuck beauty contests. Life is one fucking beauty contest after another. School, then college, then work... Fuck that. And fuck the Air Force Academy. If I want to fly, I'll find a way to fly. You do what you love, and fuck the rest.

Frank

Is that Nietzsche? You don't speak because of Friedrich Nietzsche? Far out.

[reading notepad] "Where's Olive?"...

No one gets left behind! No one gets left behind! Outstanding soldier! [salutes Dwayne]: Outstanding!

[After Sheryl says she is glad that he is alive] Well that makes one of us.

[On several Little Miss Sunshine candidates walking out on Olive's performance] Prissy little fuckers, I will kill them.

I'm glad you're talking again, Dwayne. You're not nearly as stupid as you look.

Wow, Richard, you've really opened my eyes to what a loser I am. How much do I owe you for those pearls of wisdom?

[While pushing the bus] Have I mentioned that I am the preeminent Proust scholar in America?

Richard

There are two kinds of people in this world - winners and losers. Inside each and everyone of you, deep inside the core of your being is a winner waiting to be awakened and unleashed upon the world.

Don't apologize Olive. It's a sign of weakness.

Oh my God, I'm getting pulled over. Everyone, just... pretend to be normal.

Sweet sweetness

We were driving for six or seven hours... and we thought he was napping...

Sarcasm is the refuge of losers.

Before Trip

Sheryl: [after Frank tried to commit suicide] I'm so glad you're still here.

Frank: Well, that makes one of us.

[Dwayne fetches Frank for dinner and with sign language instructs him to come.]

Frank: Wait, dinner? What you don't talk anymore?

[Dwayne shakes head, agreeing.]

Frank: Why not?

[Rolls eyes.]

Frank: You can talk, but you choose not to.

[Dwayne points to painting of Nietzsche]

Frank: Is that Nietzsche? You don't speak because of Friedrich Nietzsche.

[Dwayne walks off unemotionally]

Frank: Far out.

Frank: Who do you hang out with? [long pause] No one?

Dwayne writes: I hate everyone.

Frank: What about your family?

[Dwayne underlines 'everyone'.]

Olive: Hi Uncle Frank!

Frank: Oh, hey Olive. Wow, you're getting big, almost like a real person.

Grandpa: Again with the fucking chicken.

Richard: Dad.

Grandpa: It's always with the god damn fucking chicken. Christ.

Richard: Whenever you are ready to cook your own food, you're more than welcome to it.

Grandpa: Well at Sunset Manor, ya know--

Richard: If you liked Sunset Manor so much, you shouldn't have gotten yourself kicked out of there, right?

Olive: Why did you try and kill yourself?

Frank: I tried to kill myself [over Richards demands not to listen to Frank], because I was very unhappy. [continues after being called a sick man by Richard]

Olive: Why were you unhappy?

Frank:There were a lot of reasons; mainly though I fell in love with someone who didn't love me back.

Olive: Who?

Frank: One of my grad students. I was very much in love with him.

Olive: Him? It was a boy? You fell in love with a boy?

Frank: Yes, I did. Very much so.

Olive: That's silly.

Frank: Yes you're right. It was very, very silly.

Grandpa: [under his breath] There's another word for it.

Olive: So that's when you tried to--?

Frank: Well, no, you see that was okay, except he went and fell in love with a colleague of mine; Larry Sugarman.

Sheryl: Who's Larry Sugarman?

Frank: He's the second highest regarded expert on Marcel Proust in the US.

Richard: Oh. Who's number 1?

Frank: That would be me, Richard.

Frank: Is he always like this? [speaking about Richards obsessiveness with winning]

[Dwayne nods head]

Frank: How can you stand it?

Olive: I practice everyday.

Frank: Well then good luck.

Richard: It's not about luck, Frank. Luck is the name Losers give to their own failings. It's about wanting to win.

Cindy: [Sheryl's sister on answering machine] The girl who won had to forfeit her crown. I don't know why, something about diet pills. But anyway, now she has a place in the state contest.

Sheryl: She can't go. They've got some equestrian thing.

Richard: Oh, they do that horse shit every weekend.

[after being persuaded to go on the trip, Dwayne writes]

Frank: [reading Dwayne's writing] "Ok, but I'm not going to have any fun." Yeah, well, I'm with you on that one, Dwayne.

Grandpa: I'm not driving.

Sheryl: Well Grandpa doesn't have to come.

Grandpa: What? I coached her. I gave her the moves.

Dwayne writes: Please Don't Kill Yourself Tonight

Frank: Not on your watch; I wouldn't do that to you.

Dwayne writes: Welcome to Hell

Frank: Thank you Dwayne. Coming from you, that means a lot. Goodnight.

----

----

Beginning of Trip

Grandpa: Can I give you some advice?

Dwayne: [shakes head "no"]

Grandpa: Well, I'm going to give it to you anyway. I don't want you making the same mistakes I made when I was young. Dwayne, that's your name, right? Dwayne? Listen to me, this is the voice of experience talking--are you listening? Fuck a lot of women, Dwayne.

Richard: Dad!

Grandpa: I got no reason to lie to you kid, fuck a lotta women. Not just one, a lot. So are you gettin' any? Is it going anywhere?

Dwayne: [shakes his head no]

Grandpa: No? Jesus! What are you? 15? You should be gettin' that young stuff! That young stuff is the best stuff in the world!

Sheryl: [to Frank] He started snorting heroin.

Frank: [to Grandpa] You started snorting heroin?

Grandpa: [in response to Frank, aimed at Dwayne] Let me tell ya, don't you go doing that stuff. When you're young, you're crazy to do that shit.

Frank: [to Grandpa] Well what about you?

Grandpa: [to Frank] What about me? I'm old! When you're old you're crazy not to do it.

Frank: I take it you didn't like it at Sunset Manor?

Sheryl: Frank--

Grandpa: Are you kidding me?! It was a fucking paradise. They got pool, they got golf; now I'm stuck with Mr. Happy here, sleeping on a fucking sofa. Look, I know you are a homo and all, but maybe you can appreciate this. You go to one of those places, there's four women for every guy. Can you imagine what that's like?

Frank: You must have been very busy.

Grandpa: Ho oh. I had second degree burns on my johnson, I kid you not.

Frank: Really?

Grandpa: Forget about it.

Olive: [takes off her headphones] What are you talking about?

Grandpa: Politics.

Olive: Oh. [Puts her headphones back on]

Grandpa: [To Dwayne] Fuck a lotta women, kid. I've got no reason to lie to you. Not just one woman. A lotta women.

Frank: Actually Olive, 'a la mode' in French translates literally as 'in the fashion.' A la mode [French accent]. 'Mode' is derived from latin 'modus' do or proper--

Richard: Frank, shut up. Olive can I tell you a little something about ice-cream?

Frank: No one gets left behind! No one gets left behind! Outstanding soldier! [saluting Dwayne]

Frank: Outstanding!

Richard: I feel sorry for you.

Frank: [Sarcastically] You do?

Richard: Sarcasm is the refuge of losers.

Frank: [Sarcastically] It is? Really?

Richard: Sarcasm is losers trying to bring winners down to their level and that's step four in the program.

Frank: [Sarcastically] Thank you for opening my eyes to what a loser I am! How much do I owe you for those pearls of wisdom?

Richard: Oh, that one's on the house!

Sheryl: Guys, stop it, stop it! (bickering between Richard and Frank)

Frank: He started it!

Sheryl: What happened?

Richard: I'll tell you when I regain consciousness.

Olive: Grandpa, am I pretty?

Grandpa: Olive, you are the most beautiful girl in the whole world.

Olive: You're just saying that.

Grandpa: No! I'm madly in love with you and it's not because of your brains or your personality. It's because you're beautiful, inside and out.

Olive: Mom? Dad?

Richard: [half asleep] What is it?

Olive: Grandpa won't wake up.

Olive: [going over eye test pamphlets] Mom, Dwayne's got 20/20 vision!

Sheryl: I bet he does.

Olive: Now, let's see if you're colorblind.

[Olive opens the pamphlet]

Olive: What's the letter in the circle?

[Dwayne looks confused]

Olive: The letter in the circle?

Frank: Can you see a letter, Dwayne?

Olive: It's an A. See? Right there?

Frank: It's bright green.

[Dwayne scribbles anxiously on his notepad - "What?"]

Frank: Dwayne, I think you might be colorblind.

[pause, Dwayne holds up his notepad again - "What?"]

Frank: You can't fly if you're colorblind.

Olive: Do you eat ice cream?

Miss California: Yes. My favorite is Cherry Chocolate Garcia, except technically I think it's a frozen yogurt.

Dwayne: I wish I could just sleep until I was eighteen and skip all of this, high school, everything.

Frank: Do you know who Marcel Proust is?

Dwayne: He's the guy you teach.

Frank: Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one reads. But he's also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he, uh, he gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, Those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn't learn a thing. So, if you sleep until you're 18--Ah, think of the suffering you're gonna miss. I mean high school? High school-those are your prime suffering years. You don't get better suffering than that. "

Pageant Assistant Pam: [Dwayne walks swiftly by] Are you authorized to be backstage?

Dwayne: [emotionless; without stopping] No.

Dwayne: Hey, where are the dressing rooms?

Contestant: Are you even allowed back here?

Dwayne: Just tell me where the dressing rooms are!

Olive: I'd like to dedicate this to my grandpa, who showed me these moves.

Pageant MC: Aww, that is so sweet.

[Audience applauds]

Pageant MC: Is he here? Where's your grandpa right now?

Olive: In the trunk of our car.

Pageant Official Jenkins: [outraged at Olive's talent act] What is your daughter doing?

Richard: She's kickin' ass, that's what she's doing.

Frank: Do you want to go back?

Dwayne: Not really. [long pause] Yeah, we should go back.

----

Sheryl: "We have to let Olive be Olive."

----

[once olive is done dancing] YEAH! ALRIGHT! [screemed out by the big tatooed audience member sitting next to richard]

----

Officer Martinez: Okay, you're out. On the condition that you never enter your daughter in a beauty pageant in the state of California, ever again... ever.

Frank: I think we can live with that.

Taglines

Welcome to hell

Where's Olive?

A family on the verge of a breakdown

Everyone just pretend to be normal

Cast

Abigail Breslin - Olive
Greg Kinnear - Richard
Paul Dano - Dwayne
Alan Arkin - Edwin (Grampa)
Toni Collette - Sheryl
Steve Carell - Frank