The Golden Girls (TV Series)

The Days and Nights of Sophia Petrillo (1988)

Betty White: Rose Nylund

Quotes 

• Dorothy Petrillo Zbornak : The most amazing thing about Grandma was that, in 1952, she decided to go into politics.

  Rose Nylund : Politics?

  Dorothy Petrillo Zbornak : Uh huh, she felt it was her personal responsibility to elect Adlai Stevenson president.

  [pauses] 

  Dorothy Petrillo Zbornak : Well, she didn't care for Eisenhower because, you know, he claimed to have liberated Italy, and she said Italy was liberated enough. Already too many people eating meat on Friday

  [chuckling] 

  Dorothy Petrillo Zbornak : ... and wearing condoms on Saturday.

  Rose Nylund : Whatever happened to her?

  Dorothy Petrillo Zbornak : [sarcastically]  She colonized life on Venus. Rose, she was 94 when I was 6. She died, you idiot!

  Rose Nylund : How did she die?

  Dorothy Petrillo Zbornak : You know, we're not sure. One night, she left in her wheelchair and she never came back. The next day, the neighborhood kids had a go cart with two *really big* back wheels.

• Blanche Devereaux : He had these long, floppy ears. Kind of like a basset hound. When he came to pick me up for our blind date, I couldn't believe it. He jumped out of the car, and ran up the walk, and bounded up on to the front porch, and I remember thinking, "He's gonna trip on those ears." But he didn't. So there he stood before me introducing himself, and I don't know, I was still so stunned, I just kind of half-muttered a "Howdy-do" and he said, "I beg your pardon? I didn't hear you." Well, I don't know what came over me, but I just blurted out, "Didn't hear me? I think you could pick up Radio Free Europe with those ears!" And you know what he did? He laughed. Well, right then and there I started growing very fond of Mr. Preston Bougainvillea, and over the next several months we saw quite a lot of each other.

  Rose Nylund : Oh, that's really very sweet, Blanche.

  Blanche Devereaux : I know... By the way, did you girls know that the size of a man's ears is directly proportionate to the size of his other... bodily organs?

  Rose Nylund : ...What do you mean?

  Dorothy Petrillo Zbornak : He had a big, floppy pancreas, Rose.

• Sophia Petrillo : I'm going to the market to buy a nectarine. At 83 that's life, a round trip on the number 12 bus to buy a nectarine.

  Rose Nylund : That's sad.

  Sophia Petrillo : Not sad, life! Sad is when you have to mash the nectarine with a fork!

• Rose Nylund : I'm so depressed. We didn't accomplish a single thing today.

  Dorothy Petrillo Zbornak : Sure we did, we found out that in a pinch, fruit cocktail is not bad on a bagel.

• Rose Nylund : Don't you just love waking up with rain tapping on your bedroom window?

  Blanche Devereaux : Oh, absolutely. I always throw open the window, uncork a bottle of cold duck, and slip into my Frederick's of Hollywood ostrich-feather nightie.

  Dorothy Petrillo Zbornak : Just because of rain tapping at your window?

  Blanche Devereaux : Oh, I thought she said *Wayne*.