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Buffy quotes for every occasion. Part 1: Everyday Conversation


I had originally planned to post a list of my favorite Buffy quotes as a closing feature for our celebration of Vampire Month. The list was too long, though, and I tried and tried, but found it impossible to narrow it down to article-size. And then I realized that I had to do more than one post. So this is part one.

As Josie mentioned in Don't you just love vampires, Josie, a good Buffy quote can be used in everyday speech. I tend to throw them in more than I should, despite the blank looks I often get in return. I also use them in reviews. The advantage to that, of course, is no blank looks.

So I decided to start with the ones that I've actually said in conversation, with my very own mouth. Okay, or in a review. Or email. Or maybe it's something I just wish I'd said. If it's a longish quote and I only use part of it, that part is in italics.

Buffy: "To make you a vampire they have to suck your blood. And then you have to suck their blood. It's like a whole big sucking thing."

(Hasn't everyone described something at work as a whole big sucking thing?)

Buffy: "I didn't say I'd never slay another vampire. It's not like I have all these fluffy bunny feelings for them, I'm just not gonna get way extracurricular with it."

Xander: "I laugh in the face of danger. Then I hide until it goes away."

Xander: "We're right behind you, only further back."

Willow: "How'd it go?"
Xander: "On a scale of one to ten, it sucked."

(I used this one in a review, of course. My first Roy Dupuis movie review, actually.)

Buffy: "Cordelia, your mouth is open. Sound is coming from it. This is never good."

Xander: "And speaking of love..."
Willow: "We were talking about the re-animation of dead tissue."
Xander: "Do I deconstruct your segues?"

Cordelia: "You're starting to look a little slagged. What, are you just skipping foundation entirely now?"
Buffy: "Cordelia, I have at least three lives to contend with, none of which really mesh. It's kind of like oil and water and ... a third unmeshable thing."
Cordelia: "Yeah, and I can see the oil."

Buffy: "Well, I'll just jump off that bridge when I come to it."

Cordelia: "'I aspire to help my fellow man.' Check. As long as he's not smelly, dirty or something gross."
Xander: "Cordelia Chase, always ready to give a helping hand to the rich and the pretty."
Cordelia: "Which, lucky me, excludes you. Twice."
Xander: "Is murder always a crime?"

(This one is a favorite. Although I've noticed that it always seems to be about someone at work.)

Giles: "I believe the subtext here is rapidly becoming text."

Xander: "Sorry I snapped at you before."
Cordelia: "Well, I'm reeling from that new experience."

Giles: "It's classic battle strategy to throw one's opponent off his game. He's just trying to provoke you. Uh, to taunt you, to, to goad you into, uh, some mishap of some sort."
Xander: "The nyah-nyah-nuh-nyah-nyah approach to battle?"
Giles: "Yes, Xander, once more you've managed to boil a complex thought down to its simplest possible form."

Cordelia: "So this isn't about you being afraid of hospitals 'cause your friend died and you want to conjure up a monster that you can fight so you can save everybody and not feel so helpless?"
Giles: "Cordelia, have you actually ever heard of tact?"

(This has always been one of my absolute favorites. I've brought it up in several reviews.)

Spike: "Let me guess. Someone pulls out the sword..."
Angelus: "Someone worthy."
Spike: "The demon wakes up, and wackiness ensues."

Oz: "Well, I can see why you'd be upset. That was my sarcastic voice."
Xander: "You know, it sounds a lot like your regular voice."

(Dan and I say this one all the time, so it's the one I use the most.)

Buffy: "Why don't you come in from the entire lack of cold?"

(I've used this one a lot since I moved to southern California.)

Buffy: "I'm way off my game. My game's left the country. It's in Cuernavaca."

Buffy: "How's she doing?"
Angel: "It's like talking to a wall. Only you get more from a wall."

Evil Willow: "Wanna be bad?"
Willow: "This just can't get more disturbing."

Cordelia: "I have a paper to write for English and you're English, so I thought ... What? Is it so wrong to be getting an insider's perspective? I study best in a good restaurant, around eightish? Think it over?"
Xander: "And on the day the words 'flimsy excuse' were redefined, we stood in awe and watched."

Welsey: "Mr. Giles. I'd like your opinion. While the last thing I want to do is muddle bad behavior in front of impressionable youth, I wonder if asking Miss Chase to dance would..."
Giles: "For God's sake, man, she's eighteen. And you have the emotional maturity of a blueberry scone."

Willow: "Panic is a thing people can share in times of crisis."

Buffy: "How do you get to be renowned? I mean, like, do you have to be 'nowned' first?"
Willow: "Yes, first there's the painful 'nowning' process."

Riley: "I can't dance."
Willow: "Then talk. Keep eye contact. Funny is good, but don't be glib. And remember, if you hurt her, I will beat you to death with a shovel. A vague disclaimer is nobody's friend. Have fun."

Buffy: "I'm getting married! Can you believe it?"
Riley: "I don't think 'no' is a strong enough word."

Riley: "I take it you're not an Angel fan either?"
Xander: "Well, it's not like I hate the guy. Just, you know, the guts part of him."

Spike: "Can you fix it?"
Willow: "Crack a government encryption code on my laptop? Easy as really difficult pie."

Anya: "You don't want me to have a hobby."
Xander: "Not a vengeance hobby, no! It's dangerous. People can't do anything they want. Society has rules, and borders, and an end zone."

Giles: "What am I supposed to do with all of this?"
Spike: "You gotta make up your mind, Rupes. What are you wasting your time for? Haven't you figured it all out yet, with your enormous squishy frontal lobes?"

Buffy: "Dawn, touch nothing."
Dawn: "Who died and made you the Iron Chef?"

Xander: "So, what do you wanna do now, Dawnster? Keeping in mind that I won't chase you because I'm old and I'm stuffed full of moo goo gai starch."

Willow: "We can come by between classes. Usually I use that time to copy over my class notes with a system of different colored pens, but it's been pointed out to me that that's, you know, insane."

Buffy: "I need your help."
Spike: "Great. I need your cash."
Buffy: "I'm serious. You have to look after them."
Spike: "Well, that's a boatload of manly responsibility to come flying out of nowhere."

Xander: "I'm supportive. I'm totally supportive! I'm a flying buttress of support."

Spike: "You should go back inside. Finish the big group sing. Get your kum-ba-yayas out."

Xander: "I just feel weird feeling bad that my friend's not dead. It's too mind-boggling. So I've decided to simplify the whole thing. Me like Buffy. Buffy's alive, so, me glad."

(I've said this about my favorite currently running show. Me love Supernatural. Supernatural renewed, so me glad.)

Spike: "I thought they were demons."
Buffy: "Way to go with the keen observiness, Jessica Fletcher."

(And I've never even sat through an entire episode of Murder, She Wrote.)

Philip: "It eliminates variation. Every burger at every DoubleMeat Palace is the same. People don't like variation."
Buffy: "Got it. Variety is the spice of bad."

Willow: "Bored now."

(I think every Buffy fan uses this one. I alternate it with the last one on the list.)

Xander: "Can I just ask, what's with the makeover of the damned?"

Buffy: "My sister's about to go to the same high school that tried to kill me for three years. I can't change districts, I can't afford private school, and I can't begin to prepare for what could possibly come out of there. So... peachy with a side of keen, that would be me."

Holden: "Just answer me this. Whose fault was your parents divorce?"
Buffy: "Okay, you know, this is beyond evil. This is insane troll logic."

Andrew: "Keep the chatter down! Or, speak up so I can hear you. I'm bored. Episode One bored."

That's it for this installment. Next Sunday, I'll take on Buffy quotes on gender roles. I know you all can't wait for that one. Until then... respect the cruller, and tame the donut. And post your favorite Buffy bon mot in the comments section below.
---
Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

19 comments:

  1. This is a great list, looking forward to the next one. I'm one of those obsessive fans who has been using "bored now" alot :)

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  2. Although i don't think i quote buffyisms in every day life , I've just realised how much i miss Joss Wedon. And that i'm pretty sure my mother would say that the sarcastic voice sounding alot like the regular voice quote could have been written expressly for me.

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  3. "Fire bad, tree pretty" is a great one for when you're happy but too tired to go into details.

    There's also Cordelia's reply to one of yours above: "tact is just not saying true stuff, I'll pass."

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  4. It was "a thing" to put some favorite quotes at the front of your PhD thesis when I was in grad school. In the front of mine was a nice, respectable quote from Shakespeare followed by this little Buffy gem:

    "I wear the cheese, it does not wear me."

    And yes, I made sure to cite the character, episode title, and season number. hahaha... Take that PhD committee!

    -DrA

    P.S. A close friend had the one about "it hurts my occipital lobe". (I can't remember the whole thing offhand....)

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  5. Jo, we're just laconic. If people can't tell our sarcasm from our not-casm, they're not even worth our time.

    Billie, you located the insane troll logic quote! I've never been able to figure out which episode that's from. Answer? One of my absolute favorites. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

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  6. "makeover of the dammned" you used that in a recent True Blood review and i thought it was original haha!

    You're giving away all your secrets! I always think "oh she can be so witty in her reviews" and now i find out its all stolen :P

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  7. Billie, you’ve made me more nostalgic for Buffy in one article than thirty odd issues of season 8 were ever able to do. Bravo!

    Personally speaking, I’ve long had a fondness for this little gem from season 5:

    Anya: "We're just kinda thrown by you having sex with Spike."
    Buffy: "The who whatting how with huh?"

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  8. Yes, I did use "makeover of the damned" in a recent True Blood review. I couldn't resist. How often are you going to have an opportunity to use a phrase like that? :)

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  9. Very fun list. I definitely use "Bored now." I think I also tend to use Joss-ish phrases or words, more than actual quotes.

    Josie, apparently the "insane troll logic" first came up in Season 5's 'Triangle.' Olaf tells Xander he has to choose between Anya and Willow (because he intends to kill the other one) and Xander says that's insane troll logic.

    And the only reason I know this is because I was reading Noel Murray's Season 5 Buffy/Season 2 Angel reviews over at the Onion's A.V. Club just the other day and he made a note of it in his review for that episode. I remembered Josie citing it as one of her favorite Buffy-isms and went, "Oh! That's where that quote is from!"

    Looking forward to next week's edition!

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  10. On the one hand, it's a pity I live in a Portuguese speaking country, which makes it very hard to slip in a tv series quote into conversation. On the other hand, I can say them translated, nobody will never know they're stolen and I'll look witty. On yet a third hand (we're talking Buffy, after all), these quotes don't sound so cool in Portuguese.

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  11. Xander: "What have we learned about beer?"

    NeanderBuff: "FOAMY!"

    Xander: "Good -- as long as that's clear."


    :-)

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  12. I’m not large with the Buffy quotage myself, but I have noticed an impacty thingy on my syntaxing.

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  13. "On the one hand, it's a pity I live in a Portuguese speaking country, which makes it very hard to slip in a tv series quote into conversation."

    Gustavo, are you kidding me? Witty dialogue is universal! =P

    I too live in a Portuguese speaking country (Brazil) and it's awesome to use translated Buffy quotes.

    My favorite quote was already posted by Mark:

    "The who whatting how with huh?"

    Everytime I ask that question translated to Portuguese I get, well, blank looks.

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  14. Tom
    I'm Brazilian too, and I live in São Paulo.

    I agree, wit *is* universal. But it's untranslatable as well. Wit is work with what is specific in a language. What works with one probably won't work with the other.

    That's why tv subtitles are never so funny. And why drama spreads more among cultures.

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  15. Billie - thank you for this!

    You should mark it not safe for work, cause I almost laughed out really loud :D

    Really made me want to see Buffy/Angel again :))

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  16. Okay, this one is Firefly-related, but in the same vein:
    One of my greatest moments of all time, and I mean right up there with my wedding day, was when I was shopping for a gown for a fancy formal event. The saleslady in the store asked, "Are you looking for something more ballgown-y or something more slinky?"

    To which I replied, "If I'm going to wear a dress, I'd want something with some slink."

    And out of nowhere, a girl from ten yards away and two rows over shouts, "Whedon! Counted!"

    And the saleslady just stared.

    Honestly, I think I was less excited after my first kiss.

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  17. "different colored pens"

    ARGGGHHH ! The pens again ! Sorry, I don't read in order !

    Joss Wheden is now, at least for me, the Jay Man. Love, love his wittyness ! And June the 7th is approaching....

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