- Lou Grant: Boy, the language they use: 'pregnancy wastage', 'fetal salvage'. Sounds like they're talking about a junkyard, not a woman's body.
- Lou Grant: Don't you talk to your mother? She's sleeping in your living room.
- Billie Newman: I can't talk to her about these things, Lou, she's old fashioned.
- Lou Grant: Slip her a note at the dinner table, that way you won't have to say it out loud.
- Billie Newman: Lou, I've got to to South Dakota.
- Lou Grant: Have you ever been to South Dakota this time of year?
- Billie Newman: I grew up there, remember?
- Lou Grant: Then you should know better.
- Mrs. Pynchon: You know, I read your story on the DES daughter, I thought it was well handled. You really made me see the suffering those two women went through.
- Billie Newman: Well, that's my job.
- Mrs. Pynchon: But I find it hard believing I'm talking to the writer of that article...
- Billie Newman: Why?
- Mrs. Pynchon: Because you could understand that mother so well, but you can't see what your own mother's going through.