"You have a strange sense of nobility, Captain. You'll lay a man out for implying I'm a whore, but you keep calling me one to my face."
— Inara, Firefly
"How dare YOU! THAT'S MY BULMA!!!"
— Vegeta, Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods
"This girl, you see, may be uncute. And she's so strong, she wouldn't have gotten hurt. But, what you did to Akane just now? You really shouldn't have done that."
— Ranma to Herb, after catching Akane, who the former had just thrown at a wall in Ranma ½.
Oola: Vekk, I have bad news. It's Gadd.
Vekk: What's he upset about now?
Oola: He...He was trying to boost the power of the last golem.
Vekk: What are you saying?
Oola: There was an explosion. He didn't make it. I'm sorry.
[Vekk falls to his knees.]
<Party leader>: I don't understand. They hated each other. They argued all the time.
Oola: Fathers and sons argue sometimes. That doesn't mean they don't care.
Vekk: What's he upset about now?
Oola: He...He was trying to boost the power of the last golem.
Vekk: What are you saying?
Oola: There was an explosion. He didn't make it. I'm sorry.
[Vekk falls to his knees.]
<Party leader>: I don't understand. They hated each other. They argued all the time.
Oola: Fathers and sons argue sometimes. That doesn't mean they don't care.
— Guild Wars: Eye of the North
Mr. Wormwood: You mean... You mean, leave our daughter here with you?
Matilda: (shocked) What did you say? Did you... ?
Mrs. Wormwood: They'll be here any minute!
Matilda: Dad? You called me your daughter.
Matilda: (shocked) What did you say? Did you... ?
Mrs. Wormwood: They'll be here any minute!
Matilda: Dad? You called me your daughter.
— Matilda
Tarvek: I can't believe [Gil] was here, and you let him get away! We could have... have... kept him prisoner! We could have used him as a hostage! A bargaining chip! We could have... we could have... we could have kept him safe.
Agatha: I'm sorry.
Agatha: I'm sorry.
Here's a story. When I was a teenager, I performed a comedy routine for my high school talent show. There was this cool jacket that I wanted to wear because I thought it would make me look like Albert Brooks. For months I saved up for this jacket, but when I finally had enough, I went to the store and it was gone. They'd just sold it to someone else. So I went home and I told my mother and she said, "Let that be a lesson; that's the good that comes from wanting things." She was really good at dispensing life lessons that always seemed to circle back to everything being my fault. But then, on the day of the talent show, my mother had a surprise for me. She had bought me the jacket. And even though she didn't know how to say it, I knew this meant that she loved me. Now that's a good story about my mother. It's not true, but it's a good story, right? I stole it from an episode of Maude I saw when I was a kid when she talks about her father. I remember when I saw it thinking, "That's the kind of story I want to tell about my parents when they die." But I don't having any stories like that. All I know about being good I learned from TV. And in TV, flawed characters are constantly showing people they care with these surprising grand gestures and I think a part of me still believes that's what love is. But in real life, the big gesture isn't enough. You need to be consistent, you need to be dependably good, you can't just screw everything up then take a boat out into the ocean to save your best friend or solve a mystery and fly to Kansas, you need to do it every day, which is ''so'' hard. When you're a kid, you convince yourself the grand gesture could be enough, that even though your parents aren't what you need them to be over and over and over again, at any moment they might surprise you with something wonderful. I kept waiting for that, the proof that even though my mother was a hard woman, deep down, she loved me, and cared about me, and wanted me to know that I made her life a little bit brighter. And even now, I find myself waiting. Hey Mom, knock once if you love me and care about me and want me to know I made your life a little bit brighter.
— Bojack, BoJack Horseman, deconstructing this trope, "Free Churro"
...ch-chris? Chris, this can't be real... Who's mom am i going to make fun off?
— Swagmaster69696969696, Supermarioglitchy4's Super Mario 64 Bloopers, "World War Mario"
She may be infuriating, and she may be annoying, and she may be a pain in the ass to deal with most of the time, and she may be a ginger, and she may overall be the human personification of a toothache that never seems to go away no matter what you do to try and treat it…but he does kinda like her, and he’s capable of sympathy, thank you very much.
