Joan of Arcadia/Quotes

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


God: (As a naval officer) I want you to build a boat.
Joan: What's with the random make-work projects? All these annoying bogus assignments instead of something really big, like, y'know, saving the world.
God: Last time I asked someone to build a boat, it turned out to be something really big, like, y'know, saving the world.

Joan: So do you just go around appearing to people?
God: (As a cute boy) Minor correction. I'm not appearing to you. You're seeing me.
Joan: Okay. Fine. Is it weird for me to have a crush on you?

God: Let me explain something to you, Joan. It goes like this: I don't look like this. I don't look like anything you'd recognize. You can't see me. I don't sound like this. I don't sound like anything you'd recognize. You see, I'm beyond your experience. I take this form because you're comfortable with it. It makes sense to you. And if I'm "snippy" it's because you understand snippy. Do ya get it?
Joan: Sort of.
God: Good, 'cause I'm really not snippy. I've got a great personality. You'd like me.

Joan: So, my true nature is to be a catalyst? That is mad anti-climatic.
God: Anti-climactic. Anti-climatic means you're against the weather.


God: Oh, Joan. Would have been so much easier if you just read the book. Now I'm gonna have to send you to the basement.
Joan: You mean like, Hell?
God: No, I mean, like, the basement. There's one in the school. Check it out.


God: Just because I speak doesn't mean that anyone will listen.


Joan: Oh, the package is C.O.D.? Uh, I don't have any cash...
God: You have 12 dollars in your pocket which you were going to buy a muffin and a frappucino with while you ditched history class, which you really shouldn't do, by the way.


[Joan is talking to God in the hallway of her school. God appears as an older woman selling cupcakes]
Joan: So what do you want me to fail at this time?
God: Now what makes you think you failed? You did exactly what I asked you to do -- you observed.
Joan: Hmm! And what good did that do anybody? Ramsey's going to jail, Adam hates me even more...
God: Observation is a more powerful force than you could possibly reckon. The invisible, the overlooked, and the unobserved are the most in danger of reaching the end of the spectrum. They lose the last of their light. From there, anything can happen.
Joan: [Sighs] Okay. Fine, I observe Ramsey, his life is still ruined.
God: His life wasn't the only one at stake.
Joan: What do you mean?
God: [Starts pointing out different students in the hallway] There's Laura Eason, ninth grader. She plays the flute. She would have been one of the first to go,
[gunshot sound]
God: coming out of Orchestra at the wrong time. And Andrew Bayer -- he would have tried to save his friend Lawrence DiStasi and lost his life
[two gunshots]
God: And Gavin Price
[gunshot]
God: and three other students in the cafeteria. And Mr. Harvey. And Ms. Schmidt in the library. And finally, Steve Ramsey himself. And for each of these faces, Joan, there are twelve more whose lives would have come to an end today -- lives altered forever by you. By the simple effect of being present, by entering the light, by joining the dance.
[Joan wipes away a tear]


God: Good is relative. Beauty's relative. Everything's relative. Except for me. I'm absolute.
Joan: I thought that was vodka.