Joel Fleischman quotes from Northern Exposure

Joel

I don't don't like it - I hate it! And I demand to leave! … Well that is because you are not the one who is supposed to spend the next 4 years of his life in this Godforsaken hole in the wall, pigsty with a bunch of dirty, psychotic rednecks!

Joel

[to Maggie after a few beers] You're kinda pretty in a like, clean sort of way.

Joel

You're right. You've got yourself a regular looney bin here. It's absolutely incredible that you survived. I guess you're made of something.

Joel

I'll be in my office should a patient choose to darken our door.

Joel

You need nine guys on a field to play baseball and ten jews in a room to say kaddish.

Joel

Sometimes the mind, for reasons we don't necessarily understand, just decides to go to the store for a quart of milk.

Joel

Excuse me, would you ladies mind postponing your trenchant literary critique so we can continue with our little medical practice here?

Joel

Oh God. Oh my God. I'm sitting here eating seeds and having a serious conversation about winter clothing. First my wallet and now this. What is happening?

Joel

I know Adam is a walking pathology, but the guy's never hurt anybody, not that I know of. I mean, threats of imminent danger are just his way of saying "good morning."

Joel

First I thought it was numbness, you know, shock. The inability to believe that a just God could allow someone to destroy a gold mine of prehistoric knowledge for a year's worth of Salisbury steak. I feel like I am floating. Like I'm watching myself leave my body. I think about what happened today and I just, I want to laugh. I should be foaming at the mouth like any other normal person. Maybe what I am experiencing is a euphoria you're supposed to feel just before you give up, you know, just let the lungs fill with water. Life is a mystery. One man's life-altering experience is another man's tenderloin. I'm one of you now. I'm a Cicelean.

Ed

He is a doctor.

Joel

Oh really? Which kind?

Ed

Witch.

Joel

Which which?

Ed

Which what?

Joel

Which doctor?

Ed

Right.

Maggie

All you care about is you, and New York, and your precious career!

Joel

Look, Mother Theresa. I did not get off the plane and say that I am Marcus Welby, kindly physician, and all around swell guy! Okay!?! I was fully prepared to do my time in Anchorage, but I am contractually bound to this tundra under false pretenses and against my will. So if I resort to some unscrupulous practices to right a greater wrong, look, where's Amnesty International when it comes to Joel Fleischman?!?

Chris

Soapy once told me that the thing he loved most about country music was its sense of myth. There's heroes and villains, good and bad, right and wrong. The protagonists stroll into a bar, which he sees as a microcosm of the big picture. He contemplates his existence and he asks himself, 'who's that babe in the red dress?' [turns to Joel] All right. Well, you know the way I see it, if you're here for four more years or four more weeks; you're here right now. You know, and I think when you're somewhere you ought to be there, and because it's not about how long you stay in a place. It's about what you do while you're there. And when you go is that place any better for you having been there? Am I answering your question?.

Joel

Uh, no, not really.

Chris

[laughs] What was your question?

Joel

What am I gonna say to Maggie?

Chris

I don't know.

Joel

It would help if I hadn't had to sleep in a kennel. I-I can't even think straight.

Chris

I think you oughta just be honest. You know, don't skirt the issue. Don't... you know, just deal with it head-on.

Joel

I know.

Chris

I'd tell her she's got great lips.

Joel

Listen folks, I hate to cut this short, but we have to fly. So before we go, are there any questions, something you'd like to ask a doctor?

How will I know when it's time [to give birth]?

Joel

Trust me, all mothers show up.

[Bernard

Excuse me.

Joel

Yeah?

Bernard

Where am I?

Joel

You know, I've been asking myself that same question since I got here. I finally figured out we're somewhere between the end of the line and the middle of nowhere.

Bernard

Where is that on the map?