- Anya: Are they gonna cut the body open?
- Willow Rosenberg: Oh my God! Would you just stop talking? Just... shut your mouth, please!
- Anya: What am I doing?
- Willow Rosenberg: How can you act like that?
- Anya: Am I supposed to be changing my clothes a lot? I mean, is that the helpful thing to do?
- Xander Harris: Guys...
- Willow Rosenberg: The way you behave...
- Anya: Nobody will tell me.
- Willow Rosenberg: Because it's not okay for you to be asking these things!
- Anya: But I don't understand! I don't understand how this all happens,
- [starts crying]
- Anya: how we go through this. I mean, I *knew* her, and then she's- There's just a body, and I don't understand why she just can't get back in it and not be dead anymore. It's stupid. It's mortal and stupid. And-And Xander's crying and not talking. And-And I was having fruit punch, and I thought, well, "Joyce will never have any more fruit punch, *ever*, and she'll never have eggs or yawn or brush her hair, not ever." And no one will explain to me why.
- Buffy Summers: Was it sudden?
- Tara Maclay: What?
- Buffy Summers: Your mother.
- Tara Maclay: No... And yes... It's always sudden.
- Anya: I wish that Joyce didn't die... because she was nice. And now we all hurt.
- Xander Harris: Anya, ever the wordsmith.
- Buffy Summers: Thank you.
- Dawn Summers: Um, guys, hello. Puberty. Sort of figured out the whole no-Santa thing.
- Anya: That's a myth.
- Dawn Summers: Yeah.
- Anya: No, I mean, it-it's a myth *that* it's a myth. There is a Santa Claus.
- Xander Harris: The advantage of having a thousand-year-old girlfriend. Inside scoop.
- Tara Maclay: There's a Santa Claus?
- Anya: Mm-hmm. Been around since, like, the 1500s. But he wasn't always called Santa. But with, you know, Christmas night, flying reindeer, coming down the chimney, all true.
- Dawn Summers: *All* true?
- Anya: Well, he doesn't traditionally bring presents so much as, you know, disembowel children. But otherwise...
- Tara Maclay: The reindeer part was nice.
- Buffy Summers: She's cold...
- 911 Operator: The body's cold?
- Buffy Summers: No, my mom! Should-Should I make her warm?
- Dawn Summers: You know, my big sister could really beat the crap out of her. I mean, *really* really.
- Joyce Summers: I think we're just about ready for pie.
- Xander Harris: Then I'll be pretty much ready for barf.
- Buffy Summers: Xander!
- Dawn Summers: Gross.
- Xander Harris: o, no, barf from the eating, 'cause all was good, and too much goodness...
- Joyce Summers: I'm taking it as a compliment.
- [first lines]
- [Buffy enters her house, sees a bouquet of flowers and a note for her mom]
- Buffy Summers: Hey, flower-gettin' lady, want me to pick Dawn up from school?
- [sees her mom lying on the couch]
- Buffy Summers: Mom? What are you doing?
- [moves closer to see her lying still with her eyes open and fixed]
- Buffy Summers: [quieter] Mom...? Mom...? Mommy?
- Tara Maclay: [to Willow] Oh, baby. Want me to rub your tummy?
- [to group]
- Tara Maclay: She likes it when I, uh... s-stop explaining things.
- Willow Rosenberg: Santa always passes me by. Something puts him off. Could be the big-honking Menorah.
- [last lines]
- Dawn Summers: Is she cold?
- Buffy Summers: It's not her... It's not her... She's gone.
- Dawn Summers: Where'd she go?
- Joyce Summers: You are a demon child.
- Buffy Summers: I live to torment you. Is that so wrong?
- Joyce Summers: A daughter's duty, I suppose.
- Anya: Anya: "But I don't understand! I don't understand how this all happens. How we go through this. I mean, I knew her, and then she's, there's just a body, and I don't understand why she just can't get back in it and not be dead anymore! It's stupid! It's mortal and stupid! And, and Xander's crying and not talking, and, and I was having fruit punch, and I thought, well Joyce will never have any more fruit punch, ever, and she'll never have eggs, or yawn or brush her hair, not ever, and no one will explain to me why. "