A young woman with a Southern background runs away from her husband in Alabama and reinvents herself as a New York socialite.

Young Melanie: Why would you want to marry me for, anyhow?
Young Jake: So I can kiss you anytime I want.
[they kiss, and lightening strikes]
Jake: Honey, just cuz I talk slow doesn't mean I'm stupid.
Melanie Carmichael: You're the first boy I ever kissed, Jake, and I want you to be the last.
Melanie Carmichael: The truth is I gave my heart away a long time ago, my whole heart, and I never really got it back.
Jake: [not recognizing Melanie in her sunglasses] Can I help you?
Melanie Carmichael: Well, for starters, you can get your stubborn ass down here and give me a divorce.
Jake: You're shittin' me, right?
Melanie Carmichael: I never fully understood that expression, but no, I am not "shitting" you.
Jake: You show up here, after seven years, without so much as a "Hey there, Jake, remember me... your wife!" Or a, "Hi honey, lookin' good. How's the family?"
Melanie Carmichael: You expect me to tell you look good? What, did they run out of soap at the Piggly Wiggly since I left?
Melanie Carmichael: [of Bryant the dog] Can he swim?
Jake: Doesn't look like it.
Jake: Nobody finds their soul mate when they're ten. I mean, where's the fun in that, right?
Jake: The only reason I ain't signing is cause you've turned into some hoity-toity Yankee bitch, and I'd like nothing better right now than to piss you off.
Mayor Kate Hennings: [smacks mosquito] One down, a six million to go.
Earl Smooter: Careful, you just killed the state bird of Alabama!
Bobby Ray: You can take the girl out of the honky tonk, but you can't take the honky tonk out of the girl.
Melanie Carmichael: Hi honey! Looking good! How's the family?
Jake: Cut the shit! Where's my stuff?
Melanie Carmichael: Now what kind of wife would I be if I didn't pick up after my husband?
Jake: The kind that don't live here! Now I'm gonna ask you one last time, where is the hide-a-key?
Melanie Carmichael: I had the sweetest talk with Wade's mama about her tractor.
Jake: Nice to see you got your accent back.
Melanie Carmichael: Oh, I stubbled across a few things today.
Jake: Holy shit, what happened to the stove? Oh and where are them little magnets I had over here huh? What the hell is this? Chick food?
Melanie Carmichael: Light beer. Less calories. I tried to pick out a new bed but have you been to the Sit and Sleep lately? Yuck. I suppose I'll just have to order something from New York.
Jake: Whatever blows your dress up darlin'. You go right ahead and spend your money.
Melanie Carmichael: Oh but darlin', I thought you said we should think of it as our money? Just a guess, but I'm thinking the words "joint checking" are flashing into your head right now?
Jake: How much did you take?
Melanie Carmichael: All of it!
Jake: Son of a bitch!
Jake: You can't have roots and wings.
Wade: [breaking up Melanie and Jake's kiss in the rain] What the hell are you two tryin' to do... get yourselves killed?
Melanie Carmichael: What seems to be the trouble, officer?
Wade: I'm here to bring you in, young lady!
Jake: What did she do this time?
Wade: Well, the way I hear it... seems she run out on a perfectly good cake!
[from trailer]
Melanie Carmichael: Look at you, you have a baby... In a bar.
Earl Smooter: You can't ride two horses with one ass, sugarbean.
Pearl Smooter: Your daddy... Lord, but I was a fool for that man. I couldn't even put one foot in front of the other. I just kept thinking, "Oh, preacher, hurry up before he changes his mind!" Now that man makes me so crazy sometimes I could wring his neck!
Melanie Carmichael: You still love him, though.
Pearl Smooter: God knows I do. And only He knows why.
Jake: [after looking at divorce papers] I better have my lawyer take a look at these. I'm just a simple country boy. There's all kinds of big words in here I can't even pronounce. Hell, you might be takin' me to the cleaners for all I know.
Melanie Carmichael: People need a passport to come down here.
Melanie Carmichael: I forgot how beautiful it is around here.
Bobby Ray: Guess it doesn't take much for you to forget a lot of things.
Melanie Carmichael: Bobby Ray, it's not like that.
Bobby Ray: No I'll tell you what it's not like. It's not like Jake's the only one 'round here that you run out on.
Melanie Carmichael: Well, you must be Jake's hot date. I'm Melanie, Jake's snotty Yankee bitch wife whom he refuses to divorce.
Mayor Kate Hennings: Why don't you go back to your double-wide and fry something.
Melanie Carmichael: ["decks" Kate] Nobody talks to my Momma like that!
Earl Smooter: Praise the Lord, the South has risen again!
Lurlynn: You know he went up there?
Melanie Carmichael: Who? Jake?
Lurlynn: I'm not supposed to know but Clinton let it slip once.
Melanie Carmichael: When?
Lurlynn: About a year after you left. He told Clinton he'd never seen anything like it. He knew that it would take more than an apology to get you back. He'd have to conquer the world first. He's been trying ever since.
Melanie Carmichael: That's why he kept sending the papers back.
Bobby Ray: We weren't aimin' for ya, but I doubt I woulda gone to your funeral.
Lurlynn: It's funny how things don't turn out...
Melanie Carmichael: ...It's funny how they do.
Stella: You know for someone whose been holding onto something for so long, you're pretty quick to let it go.
Jake: I can't control her, any more than I can control the weather.
Melanie Carmichael: [on her cell phone] I can't. I'm in Alabama.
Tabatha Wadmore-Smith: [in New York] Oh... my God.
Melanie Carmichael: [referring to Bobby Ray] Oh why don't you just go to a gay bar!
Eldon: [walks up and puts arm around Bobby Ray] Now, what would Bobby Ray do at a gay bar?
[realizes, takes arm away and backs up]
Melanie Carmichael: [gets up to leave] Jake, I can't do this.
Jake: [grabs her arm so she faces him] I know.
[they kiss]
Jake: [eventually pulling away] Go home, Mel.
Andrew: You married your *cousin*?
Jake: C'mon, I wanna show you something.
Melanie Carmichael: I can't.
Jake: Can't? Or won't?
Melanie Carmichael: Both.
Jake: The girl I knew used to be fearless.
Melanie Carmichael: The girl you knew didn't have a life.
Jake: Guess you better get on with it then.
Melanie Carmichael: My life in New York works, Jake. But then I come down here... and this fits too.
Bobby Ray: What'd I ever do to you?
Melanie Carmichael: Oh, you didn't do anything to me, darlin'... or any other girl in town!
Melanie Carmichael: And don't even pretend like you missed me.
Jake: Oh, I missed you all right, but at this range, my aim is bound to improve.
Bobby Ray: Well, aren't you just a big fat liar.
Jake: Anybody think of anything in here that, uh, might bother Bobby Ray?
Wade: Uh, Clinton's breath.
Jake: You still the same Bobby Ray from last night?
Bobby Ray: Last time I checked, yeah.
Jake: [puts arm on shoulder] Well, then, let me buy you a drink.
Bobby Ray: Well, you're really not my type, I mean...
[laughter]
Clinton: Well hell's bells, if it ain't Felony Melanie.
Earl Smooter: Praise the Lord, the South has risen again.
Mayor Kate Hennings: There is nothing wrong with poor people. I get elected by poor people.
Melanie Carmichael: Oh God honey, what if they hate me?
Andrew: No, they're critics Mel. They hate themselves.
Mayor Kate Hennings: [after Melanie tells Andrew that she still loves Jake at the wedding] I've never met anyone so manipulative, so deceitful, and I'm in politics.
Wade: The law is the law and she has done nothing wrong.
Jake: I supposed shoplifting steaks from Winn Dixie's okay?
Melanie Carmichael: Oh, Oh! I took 'em back and you know it!
Jake: What about that incident of vandalism in the stockyard... totally her!
Melanie Carmichael: Like I could tip a cow... by myself!
Jake: Wade, isn't there some outstanding for whoever drove your mama's tractor into the fishing pond?
Melanie Carmichael: [horrified realizing what he meant] OH!
Melanie Carmichael: Bobby Ray, it's not like that.
Bobby Ray: No, I'll tell you what it's not like. It's not like Jake's the only one you run out on.
Frederick Montana: [looking at Jake's plane] Do we know... Mo?
Bobby Ray: Guys just get a stick, lets play some pool, alright? And if ya can't find a cue just pull the one shoved up her ass.
Jake: [seeing Andrew walking up to the Carmichael house where Bobby Ray is currently at] You, uh, you here to see Bobby Ray?
Melanie Carmichael: You dumb stubborn redneck hick.
Bobby Ray: [Opening the door to see Jake and Andrew. Obviously thinks Andrew is attractive] What's going on, Jake?
Bobby Ray: You know us Southerns. I mean, the minute the Confederacy died it became immortal.
[roughly chuckles]
Bobby Ray: Melanie?
[referring to the male 'reporter' with Melanie]
Bobby Ray: What are YOU doin' in the closet?
Earl Smooter: C'mon, c'mon, let's not let all the bought air out.
Bobby Ray: Woo-oo. You look like sex on a stick in that Frederick Montana getup.
Mayor Kate Hennings: What ever happened to responsible journalism?