Most-quoted character in The Wonder Years: in 234 of its 239 quotes Most scenes with: Kevin (15), Jack Arnold (10), Norma Arnold (6)
Lines by Narrator 201
Narrator
By the time you've made it to age sixteen, you pretty much know all there is to know. About history, philosophy - the world. About life. There was virtually no situation you can't handle. Yeah, you're on top of your game - the pinnacle of poise, the essence of cool. No doubt about it - from the right thing to wear, to the right place to sit, to the right person to sit with. At sixteen, you pretty much learned it all. Well, almost all. OK. So there's one subject you're just as dumb about as you ever were. Yeah - love. Like I said, at sixteen - you've learned nothing. Nothing at all.
And there you have it. The awful truth, the bottom line. When it comes to love... there's no simple fix. You're out there, on your own, and maybe all you can do is hang on...and hope for the best. And lead with your heart. When you're sixteen, passions run high. A simple misunderstanding becomes a matter of life or death. You live from moment to moment. And sometimes, when you're sixteen, the only way to get your love back... is to take it.
They say men are children, but sometimes children are men; maybe that's where the confusion lies... All I knew was that night the world suddenly seemed very big and I felt very small, so I did what I could...1972 was a crazy time. Kids played football, drove cars, went to school, celebrated life; while soldiers, heroes, their brothers struggled to find their way home from war; and young boys watched and grew wiser in their dreams.
We'd come this far. No sense turning back, now. We fished the rest of that day. We didn't catch much. Dad said he'd like to move up here, and open a bait shop. I told him it was a great idea. I think he believed it. And in the end... I guess we finally figured out why we'd come here in the first place. We'd come... to say goodbye.
It seems to me, a wedding means something different to everyone. To some, it's an occasion for simple pleasures. And for others, a wedding's implications are more profound. For some... it's a time for contemplation. For others, a time for regrets. A chance to measure just how far we've come in life... against the promise of those just starting out.
It was a testament to romance at its finest and most pure. It was a declaration of virtue. Simple, and gracious, and real. And after a day of infidelities... some proposed and planned, some more subtle... I felt for the first time... that someone believed in something a little different. In love. In commitment. In each other. It almost made me glad to be there. I guess you could say that weddings mean a lot of things to a lot of people. We might cry at the romance unfulfilled in our own lives. And shrink at the unseen compromises our lives have held for us. But weddings also bring out hope. And promise. And possibility. After all, as we choose our partners... some of us make our choices for life. And some of us dance with just one of many. And sometimes - for the lucky ones - we remember why we picked who we did. And after years of fighting over burnt toast...and bounced checks... we might, for a brief moment... look at each other as we once did - before kids, and mortgages and routine conspired against us. And others are content to postpone their choices... knowing somehow, that the future, like that Saturday afternoon, will tempt us with dances - both slow, and fast.
Junior year was a time of... exploration. A time for expanding horizons, broadening perspectives, seeking answers to little-known questions. It was an opportunity to grapple with the great issues of our day, which as it happened, boiled down to only two. One was sex. Miss Farmer. Our social studies teacher. In one of the great cosmic ironies of our time... the board of education had hired her to mold and develop our formative young minds.
In a world where everyone was taking advantage of everybody else... sex and economics were facts of life. For all of us. I continued to see Miss Farmer every day, but, somehow, it wasn't the same after that. After all, in a way, she had done me a favor - taught me a lesson in "life". To wit, when it came to beautiful women and money, it would always end like this - some guy would get stuck on a ladder in November... and some guy would end up alone. All I know for sure is, it took me six weeks to finish painting that house. It cost me two-hundred-and-fourteen dollars of my own hard-earned money. And the next spring, Mr. Kaplan put up aluminum siding.
Every four years, our country is gripped by a case of temporary insanity. We call it... the presidential election. It's democracy defined. A chance for politicians who know better... to make promises they can't keep. And come November... it's a chance for us to believe them.
They say you can live a lifetime and never find love. So I guess I was lucky. Because true love crossed my path the first time I met the girl next door - Winnie Cooper. Winnie and I'd been together longer than any couple I knew. Still, history only goes so far. Kinda like Winnie. Unfortunately, the mathematics of the situation were open to interpretation. To me, they led forward, to that great unknown. But to Winnie, they led... back! See, the great thing about us was that we had this past together. The bad thing about us was that we had this past together. Not that I minded being part of Winnie's past. It's just, when it came to who I was... she seemed to regard me as a known quantity.
They say hindsight's twenty-twenty, and I guess it's true. Because as I stood outside Winnie's house that night, I suddenly saw it all so clearly. I'd sold both of us short, by taking something that most people never have and throwing it away for something less. I'd been in such a hurry to impress people that didn't matter, I'd torn apart the only ones who did...us.
My father worked at NORCOM over half his life. And eventually... he rose to the ranks of middle management. Where every day, was filled with crisis... challenges... and Rol-Aids. Yep... through the years my father had given a lot to NORCOM. And now... he had given them... Wayne. My brother had been employed in the mail-room for about six months. Don't ask me how. And if his work-ethic didn't exactly match Dad's... at least he was trying to find a niche for himself. Make new acquaintances. Bonnie Douglas. She was twenty-three, funny, smart, and, oh yeah - divorced. It was no wonder Wayne felt the way he did. Whatever Dad felt about all of this... he was keeping it to himself. Like all the Arnold men... he had a lot of things on his mind.
It was that simple. And it was that complex. Love can kill you. It can tear you apart. But if you're very lucky... it can bring you back together. Sometimes love is unexpected... and unpredictable. And sometimes... you just have to go with your heart. And hope for the best.
For most kids I went to high school with, Tuesday and Friday nights meant homework, hanging out, dating - the usual agonies and ecstasies of teenage life. For me, those nights meant something else. My high school job. I was "Kevin Arnold - Chinese food delivery boy". Where you found harried waiters, agile cooks, Peking ducks, and of course... Mr. Chong. After four months on the job, we'd finally learned how to communicate.
The Wonder Years · 239 quotes
Narrator
