Claudia Salinger quotes from Party of Five

Claudia

This wouldn't have happened if Mom and Dad were here. Why aren't they here?

Claudia

[in response to Bailey and Kate throwing water at each other] You know, California is now officially in a drought.

Claudia

[to Bailey] If you're thinking about making this up to me, forget it--you can't. This kind of eclipse won't happen again until 2020--I'll be 37!

Claudia

[to Walter] I'm Claudia Salinger. I'm their youngest daughter. I just wanted to see what you look like.

Claudia

[to siblings] If you want to blame someone for this, blame yourselves! I'm growing up, and I'm becoming a woman! And you're missing it.

Claudia

[to Mrs. Gideon] The only thing that's gonna ruin this for us, and that's going to stop us from being a family, is you.

Claudia

[to Mrs. Gideon] What about all the things we do right? Like the fact that Bailey gets up in the middle of the night, every night, for Owen? I mean, he's 16 and on Friday nights, he babysits! Julia trims my bangs, and she doesn't let me watch movies on cable, and Charlie has this rule about eating vegetables for dinner...and Bailey took my class on a field trip to the planetarium with, like, 3 other mothers!

Claudia

[to Ross] You'd make such a great father. You, like, never yell. And you never do that thing parents do when they're pretending to listen, but really they're just noticing you have a lot of wax in your ear.

Claudia

I mean who leads off with their crummiest characteristics? "Hi, I'm Charlie. I have a frequent body odor, a limp and a tendency towards violence. You wanna make that dinner and a movie or just dinner?"

Claudia

It must be bad, otherwise you would have leveled with me. You would have said it's cancer and one in four people who get it die. But you didn't. You said it was one hundred percent curable and then you bought me ice cream.

Claudia

The only thing that matters. The only thing that's real is the Here and Now. No matter how much you love something or how much you take it for granted, nothing lasts forever.

Claudia

That's exactly what everyone said when Mom and Dad left. "Try to get back to normal Claudia." So I tried that, I really tried. And I was getting pretty good at it. But that's it, I'm not doing it anymore. I'm not going to try to be okay with people leaving me ever again.

Claudia

Oh no. No no no, we will not, we will NOT call this off! When this family has the opportunity to sit around a table like we used to once a week? I mean, Christmas Eve, a proper Christmas Eve, means stockings, and a night before Christmas, and a cookie on the hearth for Santa, and we are going to do this one thing right, or just die trying.

Claudia

I don't know if you're right about Ned or not. What I do know? If Owen gets lost, or Diana needs ear-drops at three am, or I'm hooking up with some bass-playing loser... you're just there. And not for any reason, except, we need you. You're like this angel, Griffin, this guardian angel.

Claudia

You convinced us that this was right. You said that even if Owen gets scared or Charlie gets angry that Owen needs you, Bailey. You were right. He does.