How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from Kramer vs. Kramer.
Quote #1
TED: I just gotta call the office before they go. Joey, you're gonna be real proud of me. I got good news.
JOANNA: Ted.
TED: Yeah, one second. Let me just do this.
Ted dials the phone.
TED: You know Jack Edwards over in accounting? He committed suicide. (into the phone) Yeah, hi. Ted Kramer. Listen, I gotta get those photos from the retoucher by tomorrow morning, okay?
JOANNA: I'm leaving you.
TED: Honey, please. I can't hear. (into the phone) What? Okay. You, too. Thanks a lot. See you tomorrow.
Ted hangs up. You guys eat?JOANNA: Ted, I'm leaving you.
You don't have to physically leave someone to abandon them; a person can feel emotionally discarded, too. Joanna's like the invisible woman—minus the rad force field powers, and with an overstuffed suitcase full of her finest husband-leavin' clothes instead.
Quote #2
TED: Do me a favor; just tell me the truth, okay? Did you set my wife up to this?
MARGARET: No, I did not put Joanna up to this.
TED: Give her a little pep talk?
MARGARET: No, I did not give her any pep talk. Joanna and I talk a great deal, yes, and Joanna's a very, very unhappy woman, and you may not want to hear this, but it took a lot of courage for her to walk out of here.
TED: Mm hmm. How much courage does it take to walk out on your kid?
Hold on to your butts: We've got double the abandonment in this exchange. First, Margaret not-so-subtly points out that Joanna's been checked out of their marriage for a looong time; Ted just didn't notice. Ted then not-at-all-subtly points out that Joanna just straight-up abandoned her kid. Point, Ted?
Quote #3
BILLY: I think you forgot the milk.
TED: I didn't. Uh, milk comes last. You've always got to put the milk in last. When you're having a good time, you forget the most important thing, right? I just wanted to see if you were paying attention; it's been a long time since I made this.
On the surface level, we've got Ted acknowledging that, during his marriage, he probably made breakfast about as often as Billy agreed to go to bed early. He never permanently walked out on his family, but he was never very engaged.
Quote #4
BILLY: Daddy, it's burning! It's burning!
TED: What?
BILLY: It's burning!
TED: Oh, Jesus.
Ted grabs the hot pan handle, then drops the pan on the floor.
Damn it!
Ted holds his burned hand.TED: God damn her!
Something tells us the biggest source of Ted's pain isn't that hot pan handle.
Quote #5
TED: Miss, can you help me? (to Billy) What grade are you in?
BILLY: First.
TED: This is Billy Kramer. He's in first grade. Take care of him for me. I gotta get a taxi; I'm a little late.
Ted runs off.
Just in case you didn't believe us when we said it's possible to abandon someone and still see them every day, meet Ted. Ted doesn't know WHAT GRADE HIS SON IS IN. He's also cool with literally shoving that son at a friendly-looking lady who's, hopefully, employed by his son's school, and literally running away to catch a taxi.
Quote #6
TED: I just didn't look at the writing on the wall, so, you know, she's kinda—I think what she did last night was a way of making me stop, look, and listen, and say, "Hey, you know, I'm just as important as your work."
Good call, Ted.
Quote #7
BILLY: Daddy, are you going away?
TED: No, I'm staying right here with you. You're not gonna get rid of me that easy.
BILLY: That's why Mommy left, isn't it? 'Cause I was bad?
TED: Is that what you think?
Billy shakes his head "yes."TED: No. No, that's not it, Billy. Your mom loves you very much. The reason she left doesn't have anything to do with you. I don't know whether this is going to make any sense, but I'll try to explain it to you, okay? I think the reason why Mommy left was because, for a long time now, I kept trying to make her be a certain kind of person, Billy, a certain kind of wife that I thought she was supposed to be, and she just wasn't like that. She was—she just wasn't like that. And now that I think about it, I think that she tried for so long to make me happy, and when she couldn't, she tried to talk to me about it, see? But I wasn't listening because I was too busy; I was too wrapped up just thinking about myself, and I thought that any time I was happy, that meant that she was happy, but I think underneath she was very sad. Mommy stayed here longer than she wanted to, I think, because she loves you so much, and the reason why Mommy couldn't stay anymore was because she couldn't stand me, Billy. She didn't leave because of you. She left because of me.
This is one of the rare glimpses we get at this whole maelstrom of family drama from Billy's perspective. Little kids often blame themselves for their parents' divorce, or alcoholism, or anger, or whatever. Ted uses this speech to make it clear to Billy that Joanna didn't abandon Billy, she abandoned Ted. Ted lays the blame pretty squarely on himself.
Quote #8
JOANNA: During the last five years of our marriage, I was becoming more and more unhappy, more and more troubled, and I really needed somebody to help me, but when I turned to Ted, he just wasn't there for me, so we became more and more isolated from one another, more and more separate. He was very involved in his career, and because of his attitude towards my fears and his inability to deal with my feelings, I had come to have almost no self-esteem. I was scared, and I was very unhappy, and in my mind, I had no other choice but to leave. At the time I left, I felt that there was something terribly wrong with me, and that my son would be better off without me. And it was only after I got to California that I realized, after getting into therapy, that I wasn't such a terrible person, and just because I needed some kind of creative or emotional outlet other than my child, that didn't make me unfit to be a mother.
Hmm. What do you think: Was Billy really better off without her?
Quote #9
BILLY: You're not gonna kiss me goodnight anymore, are you, Dad?
TED: No, I won't be able to do that, but, you know, I get to visit. It's gonna be okay. Really.
BILLY: (crying) If I don't like it, can I come home?
Billy's been put through the wringer thanks to his parents. Mom leaves. Dad's a butt. Dad gets his act together. Mom comes back. Dad sends him to live with Mom against his will. Where are his bed or toys going to be? Who's going to read him bedtime stories? We feel your pain, Billy. Those are important things. Let's go out for all the ice cream, okay?