Jean Stapleton: Edith Bunker

Quotes 

• Archie Bunker : [discussing their bedroom problems]  Ain't I always there? When you're in the mood?

  Edith Bunker : Yeah, Archie, and even when I ain't.

  Archie Bunker : Even when you ain't, how lucky can you get?

  Edith Bunker : I know. I was always lucky about that.

  Archie Bunker : Certainly you was always lucky about that.

  Edith Bunker : Even before we was married.

  Archie Bunker : Who'd you get lucky with before we was married?

  Edith Bunker : No, Archie, I didn't mean that. I mean that before we was married I had a long talk with my mother, see?

  [Archie visibly cringes] 

  Edith Bunker : And she said to me that there was one thing about marriage that I wasn't gonna like, but it was a wife's duty, and I thought she was talking about doing the laundry, cause that's the only part about marriage that wasn't no fun.

  Archie Bunker : Is this gonna be long, Edith?

  Edith Bunker : No. So when I got pregnant...

  Archie Bunker : Not a nice word, not a nice word.

  Edith Bunker : When I got 'in the family way' with Gloria...

  Archie Bunker : Better, better, better, yeah.

  Edith Bunker : My mother said to me 'I see you're doing your duty as a wife', and I knew what she meant! And I didn't have the heart to tell her

  [grins, blushes] 

  Edith Bunker : that I liked it.

  Archie Bunker : [stunned]  But you should have told the old lady that! I mean maybe she would've given me some kind of respect.

• Gloria Bunker-Stivic : Ma, the best thing for a person to do when they're having a problem is to talk it over with the person they're having the problem with. Can't you talk to daddy?

  Edith Bunker : I can't talk to your father about it, he won't listen. I can't do it.

  Gloria Bunker-Stivic : You listen to me. If you can't talk to him about him about it, who can?

  Michael 'Meathead' Stivic : [cut to Mike in his house]  Not me!

• Edith Bunker : Archie, do I make you happy?

  Archie Bunker : Do you make me happy? Edith. You make me happy in every way.

  [winks at her, then glances upstairs] 

  Archie Bunker : When it comes to making a guy happy, YOU wrote the book.

  Edith Bunker : The book!

  [suddenly realizes he didn't mean the sex book and starts to laugh] 

• Gloria Bunker-Stivic : [after finding the book Edith's reading]  Ma, what are you doing with that book?

  Edith Bunker : Well, they was talking about it on the Dinah Shore show, and I figured if Dinah read it it's okay for me to read it cause she ain't even been married lately.

  Gloria Bunker-Stivic : Ma, I know all about this book. It's just trashy, it's full of all sorts of lies, and it gives you advice to do ridiculous, kinky thinks to make yourself more attractive to your husband, it's yucky!