- John Monroe: You have always done the shopping and bought my Christmas present to Lydia. It's a family tradition.
- Ellen Monroe: It's a tradition we ought to change.
- John Monroe: You don't change tradition, you respect it.
- Ellen Monroe: What would you say if I told you she's actually been working on your present in arts and crafts?
- John Monroe: I'd say, what is it?
- Ellen Monroe: It's a paperweight made out of a very attractive rock she found at Pawtucket last summer.
- John Monroe: An "attractive rock" for Christmas?
- Ellen Monroe: It has green felt padding on the bottom.
- John Monroe: Why couldn't Mother Nature think of that?
- John Monroe: One of the first signs Christmas is upon us is when your basic, garden-variety milkman, barely civil for fifty weeks of the year, becomes a fawning hypocrite, a milk-bearing Uriah Heep, a sudden expert literary critic, founder of the John Monroe Fan Clubs of America. Yes, sir, Christmas is at our throats again.