Movie Quote Stuck in My Head: ‘Lady Bird’

Published June 17, 2018

Lady Bird was released in December, but I didn’t get around to watching it until awards season, just before the Oscars. I meant to write something about it sooner, but life got in the way. I loved it enough to buy it, and I re-watched it this weekend.

Because I tend to overthink how to summarize a movie’s storyline before jumping into the quote stuck in my head, this paragraph by Dehlia on IMDb is perfect for this post: Christine “Lady Bird” MacPherson is a high school senior from the “wrong side of the tracks.” She longs for adventure, sophistication, and opportunity, but finds none of that in her Sacramento Catholic high school. LADY BIRD follows the title character’s senior year in high school, including her first romance, her participation in the school play, and most importantly, her applying for college.

As can happen with such a good movie, there are plenty of memorable quotes in “Lady Bird.” One, the first thing you see on a black screen — before any characters, scenery or dialogue — is from Joan Didion: “Anybody who talks about California hedonism has never spent a Christmas in Sacramento.” (This piece in Vanity Fair puts the quote, and Didion’s influence on writer-director Greta Gerwig, in context.) For the purposes of this post, it’s instructive to note that the title character of “Lady Bird” speaks of Sacramento with disdain for much of the 94 minutes that we spend in her world.

Other quotes I won’t soon forget:

“Six inches for the Holy Spirit” — a reminder by a nun at the school dance who instructs the students on how much distance there should be between their bodies while slow dancing. One suspects that the students snickered at that line, such low-hanging unintentional-comedy fruit.

This next sequence, at a shop where Lady Bird and her mom are looking for a dress that the teenager can wear to Thanksgiving at the home of a boy she’s interested in, helps our understanding of the relationship between mother and daughter.

Mom: “Are you tired?” Then, after a brief distraction: “Cuz if you’re tired, we can sit down.”
Lady Bird: “I’m not tired.”
Mom: “Oh, OK, I just couldn’t tell because you were dragging your feet.”
LB: (glares silently)
Mom: “Well, I just couldn’t tell.”
LB: “Why didn’t you just say, ‘Pick up your feet’?”
Mom: “I didn’t know if you were tired.”
LB: “You’re being passive-aggressive.”
Mom: “No, I wasn’t.”
LB: “You are so infuriating.”
Mom: “Please stop yelling.”
LB:(still not yelling) “I’m not yelling.”

Then, her mom holds up a dress that she’s just discovered.

LB: “Oh, it’s perfect.”
Mom: “Do you love it?”

But my favorite quote comes as Lady Bird meets with a nun who is helping her navigate the harrowing world of applying for colleges. She tells Lady Bird that she read her college essay.

“You clearly love Sacramento,” Sister Sarah Joan tells her.
Lady Bird, surprised, says, “I do?”
“You write about Sacramento so affectionately,” the nun says, “and with such care.”
“Well,” Lady Bird replies, “I was just describing it.”
“Well, it comes across as love,” Sister Sarah Joan says.
“Sure,” Lady Bird says unconvincingly. “I guess I pay attention.”
Sister Sarah Joan then has a point to make, in the form of a question.

Don’t you think maybe they are the same thing — love and attention?”

In so many ways, in all kinds of relationships, they are.

Don’t you think?

“Movie Quote Stuck in My Head” is self-explanatory, but it’s more than that. It’s a chance to dig inside an old quote for new meaning, or a new quote for an old truth, or to chew on a line for fun or sustenance. It’s also inspired by and a tribute to “Real Time Song Stuck in My Head,” a popular feature on the Twitter feed of the late Craig Stanke, a former editor for CBSSports.com and, for too short a time, a leader by example to me during my time working there. You can read about him here.