Opal Quotes in Because of Winn-Dixie (2005)

Opal: I could work for you! Come in and sweep the floors, and straighten up shelves and take out the trash. I could do that.

Otis: Well that's what *I* do.

Opal: [looks down at dirty floor] Oh. You must sure need some help.

[first lines]

Opal: Safe!

Opal: Music is better if someone's listening.

Otis: No wait, miss. I can't... I can't just give you a job. I can't give you a...

Opal: Thank you! You won't be sorry! I'm a real hard worker!

[exits]

Otis: That's nice. Thank you for listening. Have a nice day, ma'am. Have a nice day.

Opal: Did the animals escape from their cages?

Otis: No. I left the cages open.

Opal: You just let them roam around?

Otis: [embarrassed] I don't know... it's no good being locked up.

Opal: Well you can't shoot a church-goin' dog. It would be a sin.

[last lines]

Opal: Everything that happened that summer happened because of... well, you know who.

Otis: [sucking on a lozenge] Tastes like music. Reminds me of... being in jail.

Opal: Otis... what were you in jail for?

[he grunts uncomfortably]

Opal: You don't have to tell me. I was just wondering.

Otis: I never hurt anybody. Never meant to. But I've been locked up. I remember the day very well. I was sitting in a park playing a little music. And there were people walking their dogs and children were laughing. It was a perfect day so I felt like playing music. I put my... I put my hat out there... but I wasn't really playing for money I just thought that if maybe someone was enjoying it then they'd throw a little change in there... not much but just...

Opal: Well music is better if somebody's listening.

Otis: Anyways... this police man came up to me... he said I was disturbing the peace and then he tried to take my guitar away from me and I guess I got real angry at him. But I'm not a bad man. I'm just not

[sung]

Otis: a lucky man.

[spoken]

Otis: Anyway they told me that I broke that policeman's nose, and they charged me with assault on a police officer, and no matter what I said they wouldn't listen... no matter what I said they wouldn't... they gave me three years... I said I'm not a bad man I'm just not

[sung]

Otis: a lucky man.

[spoken]

Otis: but you, when I, when I look at you

[sung]

Otis: you are like a butterfly... a caterpillar's dream to fly. You bust out of this old cocoon and dry your wings off. Butterfly... go ahead and fly.

Otis: Why don't you sweep up?

Opal: With your guitar?

Opal: [speaking into a micro recorder as she walks through a school bus parking lot] The buses! The buses are empty and look almost menacing, threatening, as so many yellow dragons watching me with their hollow, vacant eyes. I wonder how many little black and white children have yellow nightmares, their own special brand of fear for the yellow peril... Damn it, it's got to be more... positive. No, more negative! Start again. Yellow is the color of caution. No. Yellow is the color of cowardice. Yellow is the color of sunshine. And yet I see very little sunshine in the lives of all the little black and white children. I see their lives, rather, as a study in grayness, a mixture of black and... Oh, Christ, no. That's fascist. Yellow! Yellow, yellow, yellow. Yellow fever...

Opal: Let me see. Um, have you any children?

Linnea Reese: Yes, I have two children. I have a boy and a girl.

Opal: Oh, isn't that nice. How old are they?

Linnea Reese: Twelve and eleven.

Opal: Do they want to be singers like their mummy?

Linnea Reese: Uh, well, my children are deaf. They're... They are deaf. They were born deaf.

Opal: Oh, my God, how awful. It's so depressing.

Linnea Reese: Now, just a minute. That's not so. I wish you could see my boy.

Opal: Oh, I couldn't.

Linnea Reese: He has the most incredible personality.

Opal: It's the sadness of it.

Opal: [In an automobile junkyard] I'm wandering in a graveyard. The dead here have no crosses, nor tombstones, nor wreaths to sing of their past glory, but lie in rotting, decaying, rusty heaps, their innards ripped out by greedy, vulturous hands. Their vast, vacant skeletons... sadly sighing to the sky. The rust on their bodies... is the color of dried blood. Dried blood. I'm reminded of... of an elephant's secret burial ground. Yes. Cette aire de mystère. Cette essence de I'irréel. These cars are trying to communicate. O cars, are you trying to tell me something? Are you trying to convey to me some secret...

Kenny Fraiser: What... Excuse me?

Opal: Oh, excuse me! I thought I was completely alone. How embarrassing. Oh, you're a musician!

Opal: I'm Opal, from the BBC!

Opal: I need something like this for my documentary. I need it. It's... It's America. Those cars smashing into each other... and all those mangled corpses...

Opal: [speaking about the Hamiltons' country house] This is Bergman. Pure, unadulterated Bergman. Of course, the people are all wrong for Bergman, aren't they?

Opal: Good Lord love a duck!

Bud Hamilton: This is a choir... a black choir... from, uh, part of... from Fisk University here in town.

Opal: Good Lord! The lady singing is... is she a missionary?

Bud Hamilton: No, she's not. She's a gospel singer. She's the wife of our attorney.

Opal: I was making a documentary in Kenya... and there was this marvelous woman who was a missionary. That's why I asked if she was a missionary. She was sensational. She was converting Kukuyos by the dozens. She was trying to convert Masais. Of course, they were hopeless. They have their own sort of religion. Look at that. That rhythm is fantastic. It's funny... You can tell it's come down in the genes... through ages and ages and hundreds of years, but it's there. I mean, take off those robes and one is in... in... in darkest Africa. I can just see their naked, frenzied bodies... dancing to the beat of... Do they carry on like that in church?

Bud Hamilton: Depends on which church you go to.

Opal: God, I thought I was in Israel. I don't know why. Certainly not the decor, was it? Must have been dreaming. I was there for about a year on a kibbutz. I was feeling very romantic about that kind of socialism at the time. I thought I'd like to have a bash at it.

Opal: Oh, you've got a Hal Phillip Walker button. No, it's Kennedy. Isn't that rather ancient? Strange. I thought that everybody in the South didn't go for Kennedy.

Lady Pearl: It's John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Well, he, he took the whole South except for Tennessee, Florida, Kentucky. And there's a reason he didn't take Tennessee but he got 481,453 votes and the asshole got 556,577 votes...

Opal: Have you been in Vietnam?

Pfc. Glenn Kelly: Huh?

[Nods]

Opal: Yes, you have. I can tell by your face. Was it awful?

Pfc. Glenn Kelly: It was kinda... hot and wet.

Opal: You're an animal, Duane, but I'm an animal, too, and I know how to handle animals like you.

Sheriff: Good Lord, what the hell is going on here?

Opal: Oh Daddy, thank God you're here!

Sheriff: What have I told you about messing with my prisoners!

Opal: He attacked me!

Sheriff: Put that blouse back on young lady, and get rid of that bull whip!

Duane Bradley: I can explain.

Sheriff: And just who the hell are you?

Duane Bradley: Duane Bradley, sir. I'm being held against my will.

Sheriff: Didn't I see you on that bus today?

Opal: He's a freak, Daddy, his brother's a monster!

Sheriff: That'll be enough outta you, now you put some clothes on and you go home. Cause you are grounded little miss! You are grounded for the next ten years! And no more car, and no more allowance, and you can forget about that pony I promised you!

Opal: But Daddy, you don't understand!

Sheriff: Oh I sure as to hell do. And any more lip out of you, I'm gonna take you across my knee and personally spank the living daylights outta you!

Sadie McKee Brennan: [showing off her bedroom] Here it is.

Opal: Lady, when you say, "I do take thee," how you take him.

Sadie McKee Brennan: [chuckles]

Opal: Got this all to yourself?

Sadie McKee Brennan: Yep, all to myself.

Opal: Always all to yourself?

Sadie McKee Brennan: Yep.

Opal: Well, a whole lot of us do a whole lot more for a whole lot less.

Opal: Feeling better?

Sadie McKee Brennan: Yes, thanks to you.

Opal: You're gonna find out about men - -the tripe.

Sadie McKee Brennan: No, thanks. Not interested.

Opal: Swell. They come to my dump to get taken, see? And if you're smart...

[to woman in subway]

Opal: Am I talking loud enough?

Sadie McKee Brennan: I'm kind of sick of men.

Opal: Oh, you're crazy. They've got what we want, all of it. And every gal has her price. Yours ought to be high.

[to woman on subway]

Opal: Every gal has her price. I don't know what got, but you sure gyped somebody.

Opal: If you've lost your marriage certificate, don't worry, very broad minded, this landlady.

Opal: Listen, are you going to be nuts about that canary all your life?

Opal: [Looking at Sadie's newspaper on the table] Hey, what are you doing with these? Keeping track of Tommy?

Sadie McKee Brennan: Mmm hmm.

Opal: Listen, are you gonna be nuts about that canary all your life?

Sadie McKee Brennan: I'm afraid so.

Opal: Well, control yourself because you got everything. Everything!