Joan of Arcadia (TV Series)

The Gift (2004)

Amber Tamblyn: Joan Girardi

Quotes 

• Adam Rove : You didn't have to heave an eraser at me.

  Joan Girardi : [brushing chalk out of his hair]  Oh... Adam, look...

  [laughing] 

  Joan Girardi : I-I know 19th century Europe can be kind of a snooze, but you were snoring, you know, like the Three Stooges with the little "whee" at the end.

• Grace Polk : Dude, my English teacher wants us to be able to draw on everything we read this semester. Who remembers January? Did we even have one this year?

  Joan Girardi : Well, I can't use a calculator on my math final. That's civilized. Do they want us to ride horses to school, too? Maybe kill our own food?

• Rich Woman God : That didn't go very well, did it?

  Joan Girardi : Isn't this a little over the top, even for you?

  Rich Woman God : What you tried to give Adam wasn't a gift, Joan. It was an attempt to avoid giving, just like your Internet search. Giving isn't about things.

  Joan Girardi : Oh, you're gonna lecture me on materialism? That rock on your finger could end world hunger.

  Rich Woman God : Just carbon. Same element that makes up the graphite in your pencils. People have endowed it with value. It might just as easily have gone the other way around.

  Joan Girardi : $50,000 pencils?

  Rich Woman God : [indicating her ring]  Why not? They do more than this.

  Joan Girardi : Okay, let's swap. Your ring for my Ticonderoga.

• Rich Woman God : A gift is an offering, a selfless act that adds something to someone's life, something that they need, and only the two of you can decide the value of that gift.

  Joan Girardi : He won't give me any hints.

  Rich Woman God : They're everywhere, Joan. You should know that by now. Find out what he needs, Joan.

• Joan Girardi : Great. You have a locker now. What do you keep in there, wrath?

  Cute Boy God : So, are you gonna walk away from him just when you're starting to get close?

  Joan Girardi : I need some time to think, okay? I don't like what you're asking me to do.

  Cute Boy God : I just asked you to get to know him better.

  Joan Girardi : I did. It's turning out to be really weird.

  Cute Boy God : Intimacy is never easy, Joan.

• Rich Woman God : So, you know what to give him.

  Joan Girardi : Do you know what I was planning on doing when I went up there?

  Rich Woman God : I know everything.

  Joan Girardi : Then how could you let it go that far? I'm sure you've seen the... latest polls on teenage sex.

  Rich Woman God : You're always faced with difficult decisions. I can't make your choices for you. I'm really committed to that free will thing.

  Joan Girardi : That's a cop-out, if you ask me.

  Rich Woman God : If you hadn't gone in there, you wouldn't have found out what Adam needs.

  Joan Girardi : Adam needs to have faith in himself. That's your department, isn't it?

  Rich Woman God : No. It's yours. Faith is believing when there's no rational reason to believe, like your seeing me. Who would believe that's rational? Yet you know that it's true. You're the one who has the faith, Joan. Find a way to give a little to Adam.

• Helen Girardi : I thought you were studying.

  Will Girardi : You don't have any school books. So-so what were you doing in a hotel room with Adam and no books?

  Joan Girardi : Do we really have to go there?

  Will Girardi : We're already there.

  Joan Girardi : Do you really think...

  Helen Girardi : What do you think we think?

  Will Girardi : Of course we think. What would you think?

  Joan Girardi : Well, is this a real conversation or an Abbott and Costello routine?

  Will Girardi : Answer the question.

  [she moves to respond] 

  Will Girardi : No, wait. Don't.

• Helen Girardi : Look, honey, we know you and Adam are close, right?

  Joan Girardi : Yes. I-I love him.

  Will Girardi : You love him?

  Joan Girardi : Yes.

  Helen Girardi : You were alone with Adam in a hotel room, and you love him.

  Will Girardi : And he was shampooing the rug. I'm a cop, Joan. This is when I start reading you your rights.

• Adam Rove : I thought maybe you weren't gonna make it again.

  Joan Girardi : [handing him a framed photograph]  I was finishing this. For you. Rodin. He was a sculptor like you. He had to support his family by being a bricklayer. And this is his, um, his girlfriend Rose. His house in Paris is a museum now. It's filled with... all the stuff that he made.

  Adam Rove : I'm not Rodin, Jane.

  Joan Girardi : No. You're Adam Rove. And you have what you asked for. Something real that you can hold in your hands. And it doesn't have to make sense, you know? We don't. That doesn't mean it's not real.