There were a lot of ’80s movies about high-school angst and taking revenge on the mean popular kids, but we’re still talking about the cult classic, Heathers, because of the crazy black humor that has cheered up generations of nerds and outcasts.
Most of the best lines were uttered by the heroine, Veronica, and hero, J.D. – or the anti-heroine and anti-hero, depending on how you look at it – while others come from the original mean girls themselves, the Heathers, who ran their high school like their own private fiefdom, creating a dystopian nightmare for anyone who ran afoul of them.
Here are a few of the lines that made it so memorable:
Veronica: Dear Diary: My teen angst bullshit now has a body count.
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J.D.: Our love is God. Let’s go get a slushy.
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Heather Chandler: Did you have a brain tumor for breakfast?
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Veronica: If you were happy every day of your life, you wouldn’t be a human. You’d be a game show host.
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Veronica: Are we going to prom or to hell?
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J.D.: Chaos is what killed the dinosaurs, darling.
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Heather Duke: Veronica, you look like hell.
Veronica: Yeah? I just got back.
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Kurt’s dad: My son’s a homosexual, and I love him. I love my dead gay son.
J.D.: Wonder how he’d react if his son had a limp wrist with a pulse.
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Veronica: I just killed my best friend.
J.D.: And your worst enemy.
Veronica: Same difference.
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Veronica: If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you?
Heather McNamara: Probably.
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Veronica: How very.
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J.D.: Wanna go out tonight? Catch a movie? Miniature golf?
Veronica: I was thinking more along the lines of slitting Heather Duke’s wrists open, making it look like suicide.
J.D.: Ah, now you’re talking. I can be up for that. I’ve already started underlining meaningful passages in her copy of Moby Dick, if you know what I mean.
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Veronica: I say we just grow up, be adults and die.
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(As they write Heather’s suicide note after killing her:)
J.D.: Um... “to me, though, suicide is the natural answer to the myriad of problems life has given me.”
Veronica Sawyer: That’s good but Heather would never use the word myriad.
J.D.: This is the last thing she’ll ever write; she’ll want to use as many 50-cent words as possible.
Veronica Sawyer: She missed “myriad” on the vocab test two weeks ago.
J.D.: That only proves my point more. The word is a badge for her failures at school.
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Veronica: It’s one thing to want someone out of your life, but it’s another thing to serve them a wake-up cup full of Liquid Drano.
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Veronica: Great pâté, mom, but I gotta motor if I wanna be ready for that funeral.
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Veronica: Watch it Heather, you might be digesting food there.
Heather McNamara: Yeah, where’s your urge to purge?
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Veronica: My parents wanted to move me into high school out of the sixth grade, but we decided to chuck the idea because I’d have trouble making friends, blah, blah, blah. Now blah, blah, blah is all I ever do. I use my grand IQ to decide what color lip gloss to wear in the morning and how to hit three keggers before curfew...
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J.D.: Let’s pretend I blew up the school… all the schools. Now that you’re dead, what are you gonna do with your life?
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Veronica: Heather, why can’t you just be a friend? Why do you have to be such a mega-bitch?
Heather Duke: Because I can be.
Heather Chandler: Ugh, such a pillowcase.
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Veronica: Tomorrow, I’ll be kissing her aerobicized ass, but tonight, let me dream of a world without Heather, a world where I am free.