- [in the school lunch room]
- The Beaver: Larry, how come you eat your cake first?
- Larry Mondello: If I eat the samwiches first, I might not have room for the cake.
- Ward Cleaver: If we start praising Wally in front of The Beaver for being neat, Beaver'll get the idea. All kids want the approval of their parents.
- June Cleaver: Well, I just hate to see you force it. Maybe The Beaver will outgrow being sloppy.
- Ward Cleaver: [shifting into facetious mode] Oh, June, that's not the modern approach. You can't wait for kids to outgrow things.
- June Cleaver: No?
- Ward Cleaver: No, you have to send them to orthodontists, psychologists... they've even got experts to teach children how to play. No self-respecting parent would dream of relying on nature any more.
- June Cleaver: Ward, why do you always put the silverware backwards?
- Ward Cleaver: Oh that's a hangover from my prep school days. We always did it that way. It was our method of striking back at the social order.
- June Cleaver: You know dear, I'm afraid we hurt the Beaver's feelings last night.
- Ward Cleaver: Well we may have hurt him a little bit, but I think we got the message across.
- June Cleaver: Well I wish we could get the message across with love and kindness.
- Ward Cleaver: Oh cheer up June. If everything else fails we can always resort to that.
- June Cleaver: Y'know, it's funny.
- Ward Cleaver: [Ward is in old clothes, painting the kitchen door] What's funny?
- June Cleaver: The human male goes through three stages. From a messy little boy in dirty jeans and a sweatshirt to a neat young man. He gets married and he goes right back to the dirty jeans and the sweatshirt.
- Ward Cleaver: Dear, uh, a married man being neat is like running for a bus after you've caught it.
- June Cleaver: Ha, ha, ha. Aren't we the kitchen comedian, though.