- Mrs. Oleson: [to her husband, who is holding a shotgun, when they catch daughter Nellie with her new husband] Nels - make her a WIDOW!
- Laura: I wanted to clean the blackboards extra good today, to make up for being late.
- Mary Ingalls Kendall: And talking in class?
- Laura: I was NOT talking!
- Mary Ingalls Kendall: You were, too!
- Laura: Was NOT! Nellie was TALKING and I was ANSWERING.
- Mrs. Oleson: [after an argument] Mrs. Ingalls, we will not be requiring any more eggs in the immediate future.
- Caroline: Mrs. Oleson, the hens will be RELIEVED to hear that!
- Nellie Oleson: Half the time, you don't even SMELL like a girl! You're either sweaty, or you stink of fish!
- Laura: Well... I sweat a lot and I fish a lot!
- Alice Garvey: Sometimes I wonder how Harriet Oleson has managed to stay alive for as long as she has!
- Mrs. Oleson: Nels, are you going to miss me?
- Nelson "Nels" Oleson: [mutters] Like a crutch.
- Mrs. Oleson: What did you say?
- Nelson "Nels" Oleson: I said, "very much."
- Mrs. Oleson: My back is killing me again...
- Nelson "Nels" Oleson: [doing inventory on his shoes] ... and again, and again...
- Mrs. Oleson: What did you say?
- Nelson "Nels" Oleson: I'm just counting these shoe sizes dear. And a ten and a ten, four sizes.
- Mrs. Oleson: You disgraced me in front of the town.
- Reverend Robert Alden: [trying to heal their broken marriage] Please - there must be forgiveness!
- Nelson "Nels" Oleson: Don't talk to me about forgiveness 'til you lived with a woman like that!
- Mrs. Oleson: Tsk!
- [both of them leave the church]
- Laura: Why don't you give like the rest of the children?
- Nellie Oleson: My mother say's we're not like the rest of the children!
- Laura: I suppose she's right.
- Laura: You know something, Mary...?
- Mary Ingalls Kendall: No, what?
- Laura: Life sure is a lot easier when you don't like boys!
- Nelson "Nels" Oleson: [to Mrs. Oleson] You should be locked up in a cage and fed with a stick; you have made life miserable for everyone.
- Mrs. Oleson: If God wanted me to talk with my hands, he wouldn't have given me a mouth.
- Nelson "Nels" Oleson: I guess even God can make mistakes!
- Albert Quinn Ingalls: Ma, please don't tell me I'm too young to know how I feel!
- Caroline: I wasn't going to tell you that, and don't ever raise your voice to me while you live in this house.