Inventing the Abbotts quotes

33 total quotes

Major cast

View Quote Actor Role Joaquin Phoenix Doug Holt Billy Crudup Jacey Holt Liv Tyler Pamela Abbott Jennifer Connelly Eleanor Abbott Will Patton Lloyd Abbott Kathy Baker Helen Holt Joanna Going Alice Abbott Barbara Williams Joan Abbott Alesandro Nivola Peter Vanlaningham Michael Keaton Narrator/Older Doug

View Quote Narrator/Older Doug: My mother was right; if the Abbotts didn't exist, Jacey would have had to invent them, but it seems to me that inventing the Abbotts was something that almost everyone in Haley did, and still do. Alice reunited with Peter, lived out the same lie of a happy marriage that her mother and father have lived, and a new generation of Abbott parties began.

View Quote Narrator/Older Doug: Although I share Jacey's Abbott interest in the opposite sex, I obviously lacked his consummate skills. When Jacey came home that summer, he picked up right where he left off with Eleanor, and she was more than eager to pick up right where she left off with him.

View Quote Doug Holt: [sarcastically] Every time an Abbott girl get her period, they throw some kind of party!

View Quote Doug Holt: Either your mad at me because you're mad at me or you're mad at me because you like me, because that's how girls act. I mean... I don't know much but I know that. So, uh, which is it?
Pamela Abbott: Both.

View Quote Eleanor Abbott: [to Jacey] I just do things. I let other people figure them out. That's what parents are for; they're really good at doing all the thinking, so why should I? I think this is what they called the silent treatment. I get enough of it from my father, I don't need it from you. So good luck at Penn.

View Quote Lloyd Abbott: I'm sorry about your mother.
Doug Holt: [incredulously] Your sorry?
Lloyd Abbott: You didn't know your mother at all if you think someone like me would ever stood a chance with someone like her.

View Quote Helen Holt: There's different kinds of love, darling. Some people you love no matter what, and others you love if the situation was right. To me, the best kind of love is the "no matter what" kind.

View Quote Doug Holt: Backyard nudity is hypocritical. It's insincere. People should do and say exactly what they feel and think and not try to hide things.

View Quote Narrator/Older Doug: I had always thought of Eleanor Abbott as just another stuck-up rich girl, a flirt, a tease. But she proved to be a bigger riddle than I ever was. Jacey and I never talked about that thing with Eleanor in the garage, but Jacey never bragged about his conquests. When he went off to college that fall, I didn't feel particularly sad, I felt free.

View Quote Coed: You know, I'm engaged.
Jacey Holt: So am I.
Coed: You are?
Jacey Holt: Sure, I'm engaged in conversation with you
Narrator/Older Doug: I was in awe of his success with women. Just the thought of Eleanor Abbott conjured up images of absolute debauchery in my mind. After a while, I didn't see Jacey lying beneath her on the old sofa in the garage, I saw me.

View Quote Doug Holt: Hey Jacey... Remember the time I got my dick caught in my zipper? Remember in school, in the first grade?

View Quote Lloyd Abbott: [to Jacey] I have plans for my daughters, Mr. Holt, they don't include you. I know you: I know you better than you know me. I know all there is to know about screwing your way into a wealthy family and there's no way I'm gonna let you screw your way into mine.

View Quote Narrator/Older Doug: Although she seemed unique to me then, I now know that the world is filled with working women raising children by themselves. There was nothing especially original about my mother... not even in the way she brought her sons back together again.

View Quote Narrator/Older Doug: Everything Jacey wanted in life, the Abbotts already had: their cars, money, country clubs. But in the beginning, more than anything else, he wanted Eleanor Abbott. I'd witnessed enough of my brother's social agony to resolve early on. I would never let the Abbotts matter to me.