“Oy with the poodles already!”: GILMORE GIRLS quotes for every occasion

“Oy with the poodles already!” As Gilmore Girls fans know, it’s a phrase that works for every occasion. “Oy” and “poodle” are two of the funniest words in the world after all. Obviously. But perhaps you’d like a few more catchphrases in your repertoire? The Gilmores have you covered. In fact, Gilmore Girls can provide the right phrase for just about any occasion. I asked people on Twitter for their favorite quotes, and as @EllieTheMod noted, “Gilmore Girls was more than just a TV show. It’s a way of life.” Indeed. So, if you agree, keep reading and use your copy and paste tool liberally. You’ll want to remember these.

Catchphrases

• “Dirty!” You know how to use it.

• “Copper boom!” For when you want to tell someone to hurry up or get to it. You could yell it when sitting in traffic, or use it when people are being extremely slow to get ready. Whatever.

• “Babette ate oatmeal.” Um, you’ll have to ask Kirk about this one.

• “Brazzlefrat.” What does it even mean? No one knows. That’s why it’s perfect.

• “Life’s short. Talk fast.” The Gilmore mantra.

The Art of Conversation

Lulls in the conversation? Here are some talking points to get you through a boring dinner, or just to make you sound more Gilmore-ific in your day-to-day life.

• To punctuate a long silence: “Remind me to tell you about the time when my Mom wore a rhinestone penis on her shirt and my Grandma towed her car.”

• If you start babbling: “Hockey puck, rattlesnake, monkey, monkey, underpants.”

• Sound advice from Emily Gilmore: “When a woman gives birth to a crack baby you do not buy her a puppy.”

• To praise (and mock) those who know stuff. Rory: “He has much knowledge.” Lorelai: “We shall form a cult around him.” Rory: “Build a statue many stories high.” Lorelai: “We shall grow our hair long and stop bathing.”

• When describing your room-mate. Lorelai: “What’s she like?” Rory: “She jogs.” Lorelai: “Enough said.”

• When discovering a new hobby, make sure to accessorize properly. “I look adorable! No one ever told me that if you fish, you get to buy an outfit. I’ll do just about anything if I can buy an outfit!”

• A response to one of life’s toughest questions. Rory: “If the house was burning down, what would you save first, the cake or me?” Lorelai: “Not fair!  The cake doesn’t have legs!”

• How to discuss the criminal justice system in a serious manner: “Rory, the penal system is not something we enjoy. It’s something with a name that makes us giggle.”

• The perfect response to oh-so many things: “Reality has no place in our world!”

• Perhaps you want to join in on some girl talk? “Fine, if you guys wanna sit around for an hour after school swapping makeover horror stories, then count me in. Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I plucked outside of my designated brow line? Man, was my face red.”

All the Single Ladies (and Gentlemen) …

“I’m a kayak, hear me roar!” ‘Nuff said.

Relationships

• Let’s say a girl asks you why you were watching her. (Awkward!) Just follow with the best pick-up line EVER: “Because you’re nice to look at, and because you’ve got unbelievable concentration. […] Last Friday these two guys were tossing around a ball and one guy nailed the other right in the face. I mean, it was a mess, blood everywhere, the nurse came out, the place was in chaos, his girlfriend was all freaking out, and you just sat there and read. I mean, you never even looked up. I thought, ‘I have never seen anyone read so intensely before in my entire life. I have to meet that girl.’” Swoon! Stalking charges averted.

• How to really let your significant other know you care: “The only way you could be more important to me is if you had a Kit Kat bar growing out of your head.”

• If the object of your affection calls you “special,” make sure to double check: “Special, like stop eating the paste special?”

• Clarifying your feelings: “I like pie. It doesn’t mean I want to date pie.”

• Wise relationship advice: “I’m afraid that once your heart’s involved, it all comes out in moron.”

• Downplaying your date, when you’re not sure how serious it is: “Maybe he just needed to get out of the house, and since I’m currently one of the women sitting home, thinking ‘if I could only find a man like Aragorn,’ he picked me.”

• Sex has consequences, people: “That’s what you get, folks, for makin’ whoopie!”

Academic Life

Whether you’re a student or a teacher, the Gilmores and their friends can provide just the right words to say.

• After a bad day at school, sometimes you must vent: “Okay, that’s it, I can’t remember. College is breaking my spirit; every single day, telling me things I don’t know. It’s making me feel stupid.”

• Alternately, here’s how to describe the average classroom experience: “I don’t know. It was just one big, long, scary, tweedy, bad eight hours.”

• To nip a potential Mary Kay Letourneau disaster in the bud: “Gilmore, do you see any of my students falling in love with me? No, and do you know why? Because you don’t fall in love with people that make you want to crap your pants!”

• Best advice to educators everywhere: “I can scare the stupid out of you but the lazy runs deep.”

The Workplace

Whether you’re an employer or employee, Lorelai, Paris, and Michel can teach you a lot.

• How to be the best and most supportive boss EVER: “Remember, I’m your editor. I’m not your mother or hugger. If you need love, get a hooker. If you’re having a bad day, find a ledge or deal. My door is not open to you, ever. You have five minutes to eat your cookies. Welcome to the Yale Daily News.”

• Fear is a great motivator. Use it. “I’d like to discuss deadlines with you. Emphasis on dead.”

• When you just can’t possibly answer another phone-call: “No. People are particularly stupid today. I can’t talk to any more of them.”

• And make sure everyone knows that, “As long as everything is exactly the way I want it, I’m totally flexible!”

Parenting

• When your kid returns from a high school party. Lorelai: “So not only were you at a cop-raided party, you started the raid?”  Rory: “Your point?” Lorelai, singing: “Did you ever knooooow that you’re my hero …” It’s important to let your children know when you are proud of them.

• Flawless advice: “Does he have a motorcycle? Cuz if you’re gonna throw your life away, he better have a motorcycle!”

• How to compliment your child to others: “Rory is very low maintenance. Kind of like that robot kid in A.I., only way less mother-obsessed. Oh my God, that kid was so annoying. I would’ve pushed him out of the car while it was still moving.”  Bonus: No one will ever ask you to babysit their annoying children.

• Let your daughter know that she’s really really smart: “You do know that if you weren’t so pretty you would have gotten the crap kicked out of you every day of your life.”

• Commemorate the important milestones in your child’s life: “Oh, my baby’s discovered her first hangover food! I wish I had a picture to hang up next your clay handprint.”

Dining

Here’s how to order, Lorelai style:

• “Coffee coffee coffee!” Because saying it once is never enough.

• “Give me a burger, onion rings, and a list of people who killed their parents and got away with it. I’m looking for heroes.”

• “Four menus, one coffee, and an anvil please.”

Redecorating

If you should ever find yourself redecorating, you will need to memorize this painting song:

“Grab your brush and grab your rollers,
All you kids and all you … bowlers!
‘Cause we’re goin’ paintin’ today!”

Recreation

Bored?  Well, pull a Lorelai and get the party started:

• “I’ve got half the pieces from Candy Land and half the pieces from Battleship. I figured we’d mix them together and create a whole new game: Candyship Battleland … war never tasted so good!”

• “Super cool party people!” The fun always follows. Also, when you’re leaving the party: “Super cool party people bid you super cool adieu!”

Put-downs

• It is no surprise that Paris Geller is the queen in this regard. Stranger: “Is it raining?” Paris: “No, its National Baptism Day.  Tie your tubes, idiot!”

• When someone’s inner a**hole rears its ugly head: “Wow, zero to jackass in 3.2 seconds.”

• Because sometimes people must be laughed at: “I just have to cancel everything I have scheduled for the next three months ‘cause I’ll still be laughing my ass off.”

• When at a public-speaking event involving young people: “God, I love this. You don’t realize how unqualified most of America’s youth is until you gather them all up in a room and make them speak.”

• When you feel like pretending that you’re French. Make sure to speak in an incredibly terrible “French” accent. Lorelai: “We spit on you … you repressed, puritanical ninnies.” Rory: “We smirk in your general direction.” Lorelai: We cast sidelong glances that are vague, but slightly threatening.” Rory: “We eschew your quaint double entendre for the appealing lasciviousness of the entendre singular.”

• Let us all bow down to Emily Gilmore, and then only use this put-down if the person on the receiving end is particularly vile: “You were a two-bit gold digger, straight off the bus from Hicksville when you met Mitchum at whatever bar you happened to stumble into and what made Mitchum choose you to marry against the pack of woman he was banging at the time, I’ll never know. But hats off to you for bagging him. He’s still a playboy, you know? Well of course you know, that would explain why your weight goes up and down 30 pounds every other month.”

• The humorous and more subtle version of “Please shut-up.” Lorelai: “You know how on All in the Family when Edith would be yapping about something and Archie would pretend to make a noose and hang himself or shoot himself in the head?” Rory: Yeah?” Lorelai: “I don’t know. Something about this moment just made me think of that.”

• The go-to insult for a frustrating employer: “Every day that you breathe you make my life harder.”

• When you need a particularly sophisticated response: “Jerk, ass, arrogant, inconsiderate, mindless frat boy, lowlife, butt-faced miscreant.”

• When someone sarcastically undervalues what you just said: “Well for you, how ice is made is probably fascinating.  See ya!!”

• But when the insults get out of control, and it verges on bullying, here’s a way to make everyone gain some perspective: “I heard he controls the weather and wrote the screenplay to Glitter!”

Of course, if you can’t think of anything to say, if no Gilmore Girls quote will quite do the trick, you know what you have to do.  Yes, you will have to break out the Bop-It. Just remember: “Don’t hurt the Bop-It, guys. It has feelings too.”

Special thanks to some lovely Gilmore Girls fans on Twitter who contributed their favorite quotes: @EllieTheMod, @amysbp, @Serrae, @PhantomRat, @bluedaisy16, and @firkinluvr. I would totally attend a town meeting with these ladies. We could throw things at Taylor from the back row.