If you could be famous for anything, what would it be?

MARIE FOSTER: Heaven knows.
RITA BUTLER: Gettin’ up in the morning!
HELEN PETTEYS: Find out what causes cancer and cure it. It makes me so damn mad. They tell you a cure is coming, they tell you it’s just around the corner. But it isn’t.
RITA: It never is.
HELEN: They won’t put the money into it.
DBG: Celia, how about you?
CELIA FLATLEY: Oh god, nothing.
LEONA BELL: Don’t wanna be famous, huh?
CELIA: No!
JIM PERRY: BOCE bus driver. Those kids loved me.
LEONA: They’re not as well behaved today.
CELIA: They’ll smack you in the back of the head.
RITA: I never thought about bein’ famous –-
PHEBE BROWN: No, I didn’t either.
RITA: So I don’t know what I’d want to be.
PHEBE: Being a good teacher.
RITA: Havin’ a good sense of humor.
DBG: You mean being a comedian?
RITA: Well, I don’t know about bein’ a comedian.
DBG: What don’t you know?
RITA: I don’t know anything about bein’ a comedian.
CELIA: You have a great sense of humor though.
RITA: That’s what I said. What would you want to be famous for?
DBG: Interviewing you.
RITA: That don’t take much intelligence! (laughs)
DBG: It doesn’t necessarily take much intelligence to be famous.
RITA: No?
DBG: There’s some dumb people that are famous. What do you think, Phebe, can dumb people be famous?
PHEBE: That depends on what you mean by dumb.
DBG: Not possessing great intelligence.
PHEBE: I’d say so.
RITA: You ask some crazy questions.
PHEBE: (laughs)
DBG: What do you mean? Isn’t this food for thought?
RITA: Ha! (laughs)
DBG: Don’t you go home and think about this?
RITA: I don’t even think about it when you’re sayin’ it!

(From a conversation at the Washington County senior citizen mealsite held at St. Paul's Parish House, Greenwich, NY, in the mid-1990s.)