How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from Fargo.
Quote #1
CARL: Shep said you'd be here at 7:30. What gives now?
JERRY: Shep said 8:30.
CARL: We've been sitting here an hour. He's peed three times already.
They're already off to a bad start, failing to communicate correctly before they even start to set up the kidnapping scheme. This discussion sets up the bizarre and random relationship between Jerry and the kidnappers he's hired. He knows nothing about them and this interchange predicts the later trouble.
Quote #2
GAEAR: I need unguent!
Given how thrifty Gaear is with words, and his tough guy manner, it sounds bizarre to hear him demand unguent after Jean bites him. He even rifles through the Lundegaard's medicine cabinet looking for it instead of trying to find Jean. It's a dissonant and weird note in the whole kidnapping scene.
Quote #3
[Marge suddenly doubles over, putting her head between her knees down near the snow.]
LOU: Ya' see something down there, Chief?
MARGE: Uh, I just, I think I'm gonna barf.
LOU: Geez, you okay, Margie?
MARGE: I'm fine, it's just morning sickness.
This is a pretty hilarious juxtaposition of Marge's role as police chief and her status as a very pregnant woman. She's not looking on the ground for evidence or getting sick from the sight of two bloody murder victims.
Quote #4
HOOKER #1: Well, the little guy, he was kinda funny-looking.
MARGE: In what way?
HOOKER #1: I dunno, just funny-lookin'.
MARGE: Can you be any more specific?
HOOKER #1: I couldn't really say. He wasn't circumcised.
MARGE: Was he funny lookin' apart from that?
HOOKER #1: Yeah.
The hooker knows what Carl looks like but just doesn't understand how to describe it in a way that's helpful to Marge's investigation.
Quote #5
HOOKER #2: He was a little older. You know, looked like the Marlboro Man.
MARGE: Oh yah?
HOOKER #2: Yah. But maybe I'm sayin' that, you know, cause he smoked Marlboros.
MARGE: Uh-huh.
HOOKER #2: You know, like a subconscious-type thing.
Gaear, most people would agree, looks nothing like any version of the Marlboro Man, the ruggedly handsome cowboy pitchman for Marlboro cigarettes. So, she's right: it probably was a "subconscious-type thing." What's also absurd is that the hooker, who's been portrayed as kind of brainless, would go all intellectual on Marge and try to impress her with her sophistication. What's even more absurd is that several of the Marlboro man models died of diseases related to smoking.
Quote #6
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: No. No, they never married. Mike's had psychiatric problems.
MARGE: Oh. Oh, my.
In the movie's weirdest and most baffling digression, Marge catches up with an old classmate, Mike Yanagita, who unsuccessfully tries hitting on her before claiming his wife has died of leukemia. This turns out to be totally false; Mike's just suffering from mental problems. But why is it in the movie? Maybe to counterpoint Marge's own domestic happiness? Is it just there?
Quote #7
MARGE: There's more to life than money, you know. Don't you know that? And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day. Well... I just don't understand it.
Marge is talking to a guy who just murdered five people in cold blood including his accomplice. This statement really lays out the philosophy of absurdism in its classic sense: the idea that the search for meaning is pointless because there isn't any meaning. Marge can't understand it because there's nothing to understand. Gaear says nothing because there's nothing to say. The experience of watching the movie can be disorienting for this reason, so it's better to just go with the flow and not ask "why" because there's no "why."