Joy Burns Quotes in Pieces of April (2003)

Joy Burns: I only have one *nice* April memory. only one. She was about three or four. And she was sitting at the window. An she turned to me and said "oh mother don't you just love every day?"

[Joy has just rudely requested that Beth stop singing]

Joy Burns: I'm sorry, I'm terrible.

Grandma Dottie: [pause] Who are you?

Joy Burns: Don't start with that, you know who I am.

Grandma Dottie: I know who you say you are, but my daugther is kind, and sweet, and soft-spoken.

Joy Burns: Not anymore.

Grandma Dottie: Then I don't know you.

Joy Burns: This way, instead of April showing up with some new piercing or some ugly new tattoo and, God forbid, staying overnight, this way, we get to show up, experience the disaster that is her life, smile through it, and before you know it, we're on our way back home.

Joy Burns: I don't know why I'm so hard on you Beth, when you've always been the daughter of my dreams. We're almost the same person, except I don't have your weight problems and you're making the same mistakes I did and I wish you would make your own.

Joy Burns: [Joy is smoking marijuana in a convenience store bathroom] Honey, roll it tighter next time.

Timmy Burns: Sorry, mom.

[Beth has just finished singing]

Jim Burns: Bravo! Encore, encore!

Beth Burns: Any requests?

Joy Burns: That you stop.

Jim Burns: Just remember everybody. April is cooking.

Joy Burns: We'll need an extra dozen glazed.

Joy Burns: I'm giving you a choice. You can either let me study the map, or you can rely on my uncanny sense of direction. Which will it be?

Timmy Burns: Uncanny sense of direction!

Joy Burns: Okay.

[silence]

Joy Burns: Where are we?

Joy Burns: I keep waiting for a good time to tell you, but there's really no good time. I need everyone to listen.

[pause]

Joy Burns: I don't know how to say this.

[pause]

Joy Burns: We need to discuss how each of you, Oh God...

Jim Burns: It's OK, sweetie.

[everyone assumes that Joy is trying to discuss her imminent death from cancer]

Joy Burns: How each of you is going to handle

[pause]

Joy Burns: discarding food without letting our hostess know.

[starts laughing]

Joy Burns: The thing about Smack Daddy is...

Grandma Dottie: Who?

Joy Burns: Smack Daddy.

Jim Burns: Have I ever heard of Smack Daddy?

Timmy Burns: He's a black singer, dad, you wouldn't know him.

Jim Burns: Oh, no! I never head of, uh, James Brown, or Barry White, or Puffy the Dog...

Joy Burns: Smack Daddy - man alive, is he sexy! Which does lead to this whole sexual thing. I mean, it does bring up some sort of nice memories.

Beth Burns: You mean with like dad, right?

Joy Burns: ...Him too.