20 Funniest Quotes From Adam Sandler’s Billy Madison

June 15, 2019, 7 p.m.

Movies

20 Funniest Quotes From Adam Sandler’s Billy Madison

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Summary Adam Sandler's comedic roots trace back to SNL, with "Billy Madison" shaping his early movies with Tim Herlihy.

Billy's low intelligence brings humor and heart to "Billy Madison," resonating with audiences for its underdog comedy.

Memorable quotes like "Chlorophyll? More like Borophyll!" highlight Billy's immaturity and innocence in funny ways.

The funniest Billy Madison quotes are a mix of silly one-liners, still-iconic punchlines, and occasional bits of wisdom. Directed by Tamra Davis, Adam Sandler plays the titular childish and under-achieving hotel empire heir in 1995's Billy Madison. In order to prove that he's smart enough to take over the company, Billy goes back to elementary school to finish all 12 grades, with each grade lasting for 2 weeks. Today, for those who can understand and appreciate Sandler's laid-back, underdog comedy, Billy Madison is still considered one of the greatest comedy movies of the '90s.

The Adam Sandler movies on Netflix have ensured that the comedian remains well-known among younger audiences. However, Sandler's comedic roots can be traced back to Saturday Night Live in the ‘90s, and his breakthrough roles in the likes of Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore. The scripts for these films and more are the work of both Sandler and actor, producer, and screenwriter Tim Herlihy, who also worked on SNL. The best Billy Madison quotes represent the earliest movie collaboration between Herlihy and Sandler, which set the foundations for the storytelling in Sandler's early movies.

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20 “You Blew It!”

Billy Madison

Even though Billy and Veronica Vaughn (Bridgette Wilson) despise each other at first, he quickly grows affection for his teacher. When trying to get Veronica to go out with him, Billy decides to make his classmate Ernie call their teacher.

Thinking that Ernie is trying to ask her out on a date, she explains that grown-ups like to go out with other grown-ups. Veronica insults Billy by saying Ernie is more of a grown-up than him, which causes Billy to retaliate and impersonate his buddy over the phone.

The scene ends with Billy hilariously screaming, “You blew it!” even though it was clearly his own fault. This is a great scene that explains how Billy Madison has almost as limited ability to talk to women as an elementary school student. When he loses his temper, he is as mad at himself as he is at Ernie, who realistically did nothing wrong because Billy put him into this awkward position in the first place.

19 "Sometimes I Feel Like An Idiot, But I Am An Idiot So It Kinda Works Out."

Billy Madison

With Billy Madison revolving around him going back to elementary school at the age of 27, Billy seems to have a somewhat accurate awareness of his level of intelligence. During one of his various graduation parties, Billy and Veronica begin to bond a bit. As they are walking through Billy’s yard, Billy explains, "Sometimes I feel like an idiot. But I am an idiot, so it kinda works out.”

Billy Madison would have been a very short film had Billy actually been intelligent, but as shown through one of the more insightful of the funniest quotes, he at least recognizes that he should probably stay in school.

This is also a moment that shows how Billy is the more innocent of most of the people in the movie, including those who are trying to sabotage his attempts to better himself and those who attempt to ruin his chances at making it through school. Billy knows he needs help, while others who are more intelligent are devious in their actions.

18 "I Am The Smartest Man Alive!"

Billy Madison

It goes without saying that Billy is not as smart as the typical 27-year-old, but he does complete what he plans to do — finish first through twelfth grade. Billy is always super proud of himself whenever he gets the tiniest thing correct, which is fueled by his father always throwing him graduation parties for each grade he completes. In order to pass second grade, Billy has to win the spelling bee by spelling the word “couch.”

Billy almost fails by saying "C-O-R..." but then saves it by asking his teacher, “Are you going to the mall later?” before actually spelling "couch" correctly. Billy then declares, “I am the smartest man alive!” and this was a funny Billy Madison quote because he was smart enough to save himself when he realized he was about to get it wrong, and for the fact that he finally spelled it right after he made the save. it was quick thinking that was not always normal for Billy, which is probably why he was so proud — more than just for spelling "couch" correctly.

17 "Well, 'Sorry' Doesn't Put The Triscuit Crackers In My Stomach, Now Does It, Carl?"

Eric Gordon

While Adam Sandler obviously gets most of the funniest Billy Madison quotes, Bradley Whitford's villainous Eric Gordon gets a few memorable lines as well. While waiting for Billy to show up to dinner, Eric is complaining about how hungry he is when Carl Alphonse (Larry Hankin) says that he should have eaten some of the Triscuit crackers that he had in the car.

After Carl apologizes for not telling Eric he had the crackers, Eric responds, “Well ‘sorry’ doesn’t put the Triscuit crackers in my stomach now does it, Carl?” The line wasn’t just funny, but it also showed that Eric could sometimes be just as childish as Billy.

The big difference between Eric and Billy is that Billy admits that he know he isn't smart and tries to make the best of it. Eric, on the other hand, is completely oblivious to his deficiencies and prefers to instead act out with insolence when things don't go his way. In the end, the company is better with someone honest like Billy than someone as clueless as Eric.

16 "Chlorophyll? More Like Borophyll."

Billy Madison

After Billy Madison passes the easier grades, he moves on to high school. In one scene, Billy is in science class learning about chlorophyll, when he blurts out the joke, “Chlorophyll? More like Borophyll!” The other students in his class don’t find the joke to be funny, especially the girl sitting next to Billy.

She calls Billy a loser and tells him not to talk to her, so Billy embarrasses her by saying, “No, I will not make out with you!” What makes Billy's initial joke one of the funniest is how badly it bombed in the room, and for highlighting how Billy is more childish than high school students.

This is another quote that shows how hard Billy made it on himself to get through school because, while he wanted to succeed, he was still too immature, even by teenager's standards, to get through it without causing problems.

15 "Stop Looking At Me, Swan!"

Billy Madison

In one of the earlier scenes in the film, Brian Madison’s guests and business associates are waiting for Billy so that they can sit down and begin eating. Meanwhile, Billy is upstairs taking a bath. Billy is intoxicated, like usual, and is playing with a bottle of shampoo and conditioner as if they were bath toys. He is making them argue about which product is better, before throwing both bottles in the tub. Then Billy turns to the faucet, which is a golden swan, and says, “Stop looking at me, Swan!"

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It's one of the funniest Billy Madison quotes because of how it reveals the nonsense that Billy gets up to when he's alone. This is one of the Billy Madison quotes that shows that he isn't just putting on a show for other people or trying to get attention. He is immature and childlike all the time, even when he is alone in the bathtub with his toys.

14 "Don't Tell Me My Business, Devil Woman!"

Old Men Clemens

Some of the funniest Billy Madison quotes come from minor characters, like Old Man Clemens (Jack Mather). Mr. Clemens is at the butt-end of one of Billy and his friends' pranks, in which they put dog poop in a paper bag and set it on fire on Mr. Clemens's doorstep.

“It’s another one of those flaming bags again!” shouts Clemens, but his wife tells him not to put it out using his boots, to which Clemens yells back, “Don’t tell me my business, devil woman!” What's even better is that Clemens immediately gets punished for not listening to his wife's sound advice when he stomps out the fire and ruins his boots with the dog feces.

This is another case where the people who live around Billy Madison are just as immature and simple-minded as Billy, and he might not be that out of the ordinary, despite his lack of education. Incidents like this also help Billy and his friends seem at least smarter than the people they prank.

13 "You Ain't Cool Unless You Pee Your Pants!"

Billy Madison

One of the more touching moments of Billy Madison is when Billy pretends to pee his pants so that his young friend Ernie isn’t embarrassed. To save Ernie from having the kids laugh at him, Billy splashes water on his jeans. As the kids start to make fun of him, Billy explains, “You ain’t cool unless you pee your pants.”

Since Billy is so much older than them, the young kids think he is right, which means that Ernie is cool too. Apart from being a funny moment, this also helped Billy's friendship with Ernie, and even got him one step closer to winning over Veronica. Billy is not always the nicest person to the kids, and he has treated Ernie with disrespect more than once.

However, it is different to make fun of your friend and for others to do it as well. Here, Billy shows that despite all the trouble he gives Ernie, he won't let anyone else be mean to his friend. Billy does it out of affection, but he won't stand for kids who do it out of cruelty.

12 “T-T-T-Today Jr!”

Billy Madison

While Billy definitely developed over the course of the movie, he started off as a big bully. When Billy reaches third grade, he is introduced to Veronica Vaughn, who wants nothing to do with him. On one of the first days of third grade, Billy is listening to a kid trying to read a passage from a book.

The boy is having some trouble and is stuttering his words, so Billy makes fun of him by saying, “T-T-T-Today JR!” However, Veronica quickly drags him out of the classroom by his ear - a fair payout for one of the meanest Billy Madison quotes. The comment by Billy is cruel and is not like him when it comes down to it.

He is not usually a mean-spirited person, but he is also someone who doesn't know how to deal with his frustrations. When he lashed out here, it caused Veronica to dress Billy down and let him know she would not accept this attitude. It is where Billy starts to grow a little more when it comes to how he treats others around him.

11 "What Does A Horseshoe Do? Are There Any Horse Socks? Is Anybody Listening To Me?"

Tour Guide

Around the time Billy is slowly earning Veronica’s respect, the third-grade class takes a field trip. Near the scene where Ernie pees his pants and Billy stands up for him, the old lady who serves as a tour guide to the class has another gem of a line. As the class is walking along, she asks the students, “What is a horseshoe? What does a horseshoe do? Are there any horse socks? Is anybody listening to me?”

This moment is really just a funny one that shows that the tour guide knows that the kids are not really listening to her, and she starts to say the most random things likely in an attempt to amuse herself. However, this isn't the only quote that this actress gives in the movie, as she is there again with more hilarious Billy Madison quotes later in the movie. Played by Gladys O'Connor, the old lady appears only briefly, but manages to serve not just one, but two of the funniest Billy Madison quotes.

10 "If Peeing In Your Pants Is Cool, Consider Me Miles Davis"

Tour Guide

Billy Madison is a comedy through and through, but there are some scenes that do have some heart to them. One of these scenes is when Ernie pees his pants, and Billy sticks up for his young friend. After telling everyone that peeing their pants is cool, the old farm lady says, “If peeing in your pants is cool, consider me Miles Davis.”

The kids probably don’t even know who the famous jazz trumpeter is, but the audience does. Billy made sure that he let the other kids know that making fun of Ernie was out of the question. To do this, he makes sure to humiliate himself and tells the kids that it makes him cool. The old farm lady who serves as the tour guide doesn't let this go unnoticed.

She surely knows that Billy is doing something to help his friend, and she wants to take part as well. She admits that she can't hold her bowels, so this makes her as cool as Billy. The warm intention that led to the ridiculous one-liner only cements its place as one of the funniest quotes in the movie.

9 “O’Doyle Rules!”

O'Doyle Family

Billy meets a new group of kids in each grade level he visits, but one name that sticks around is O’Doyle. The O’Doyle family had a lot of kids who were bullies, who loved to say, “O’Doyle rules!” which was probably said more than any other line throughout the movie. In one scene, Billy even says, "O'Doyle, I got a feeling your whole family is goin' down," which of course turned out to be the case.

In the family’s final scene, the father slips on a banana peel while driving, which causes the car to swerve off a cliff, the family chanting their catchphrase all the way to their deaths.

The O'Doyle family even returned years later in Click and Hubie Halloween. In Hubie Halloween, the O'Doyle kids chased after Hubie while riding bicycles and throwing flaming bags of poop at his head (which calls back to the bag of poop Billy left for Old Man Clemens in this movie). This is one of many characters that are repeated throughout Adam Sandler's movies.

8 When I Graduated First Grade, All My Father Did Was Tell Me To Get A Job."

Frank

After Billy graduates from his first class, Frank (Norm McDonald) and Billy are munching on cotton candy at Billy's graduation party. A kid who grabs a prize from a smashed piñata is surprised to see that it's a fancy watch, so he thanks Billy. Frank tells Billy, "This is great! When I graduated first grade, all my father did was tell me to get a job."

It quickly paints a dark picture of Frank's relationship with his father. It also establishes Norm Macdonald's Frank as a character viewers should keep an eye on, early in the movie. He has plenty of small one-liners that he throws out that fans might miss out on if they aren't paying attention.

Macdonald died in 2021 but he was a mainstay in Adam Sandler's movies over the years, with Billy Madison as his very first movie role. He went on to make appearances in everything from Funny People and Grown Ups to Jack & Jill and The Ridiculous 6.

7 "Stay Here. Stay As Long As You Can!"

Billy Madison

It’s fair to say that life is much simpler for kids in grade school versus adults. Billy acted like a kid all his life, but he was still aware of the responsibilities attached to adulthood. After Billy goes to high school, he comes back to third grade to visit Veronica and his friends and one of the boys says that he is excited for high school.

Billy then dramatically grabs that boy's face and says, “Don’t you say that. Don’t you ever say that. Stay here. Stay as long as you can. For the love of God! Cherish it!” It's one of the best Billy Madison quotes for being both funny and real. Billy Madison never cared about school or even wanted to attend it.

He also loves his life of just slacking off and doing nothing. But, when he realizes what is expected of him in real life, he gets a new appreciation of school and wants to let anyone who will listen know that once they are out of school, things get a lot harder. It is a good idea never to ignore how good life can be when it only involves going to school and doing school work compared to the life of an adult.

6 “I’ll Turn This D*** Bus Around!”

Bus Driver

One of Sandler’s best friends was fellow comedian and SNL alum Chris Farley, who passed away in 1997, but not before starring in several shows and movies. In Billy Madison, Farley plays the angry bus driver who takes the third-graders on their field trip.

Farley got laughs when he was talking about how attractive Veronica Vaughn was, but his funniest line comes when a kid throws a sandwich at him while he's driving. The driver immediately yells and says, “I’ll turn this d*** bus around. That’ll end your precious little field trip pretty d*** quick, huh.” Amazingly, Farley improvised this part of the scene.

This is also what Farley mostly specialized in when appearing in movies where he wasn't one of the main stars. While he gets to show more personality in his starring vehicles like Tommy Boy and Black Sheep, most fans remember his outbursts from movies like Billy Madison and Wayne's World as his main calling card. Sadly, Farley died two years after making Billy Madison.

5 "Meg Ryan, Or Jack Nicholson?"

Frank

At the local burger joint, Billy tells his friends Frank and Jack that he's in a bad mood. Frank asks, "Hey Billy, who would you rather bone: Meg Ryan or Jack Nicholson?" Billy asks back, "Jack Nicholson now, or 1974?" Frank says, "74," - to which Billy finally answers, "Meg Ryan." Frank's question stands out for fooling the audience into thinking that they're watching a typical homophobic exchange from the '90s. Instead, Billy entertains the notion of having sex with either Meg Ryan or Jack Nicholson equally.

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This type of left-field, dry humor is actually a trademark of the legendary stand-up comedian Norm Macdonald, who played Frank in Billy Madison. This is the humor that Macdonald made famous, starting with his sketches on "Weekend Update" during his time on Saturday Night Live and then eventually his own talk show, Norm Macdonald Live. While he was never a leading man on TV or in the movies, he was always a perfect side character, with his one-liners perfect in small doses.

4 “Hey Kids, It’s Me! I Bet You Thought That I Was Dead! But When I Fell Over I Just Broke My Leg And Got A Hemorrhage In My Head!”

The Clown

There is a musical segment of the movie when Veronica and the third-graders (and the Clown) encourage Billy as he plans to return to school. After Billy and Veronica set the tone by dramatically singing their lines to each other, the Clown - who fell in an earlier scene - suddenly regains consciousness, gets up, and starts singing along.

The tinge of horror, the expression on the Clown's face, and him singing about having a hemorrhage is hilariously jarring. Earlier in the movie, it seemed the clown had died. The fact that he was still alive, and well enough to join in on a song that was already going, was delivered at exactly the right moment in the wholesome musical number.

This clown had a traumatic experience, and that makes these Billy Madison quotes mocking him for it such a perfectly placed addition to the movie. This is something that could only happen in an Adam Sandler movie.

3 "Now, Now. Maybe It's Somebody Else."

Frank

Desperate to stop Billy from graduating, Eric blackmails the school principal to say that Billy bribed him to get passing grades. As Billy, his friends, and his father Brian watch the TV, they come upon a startling story. "Next on News 9: a shocking story of power and corruption involving a hotel tycoon: how his 27-year-old millionaire son cheated his way through elementary school." Brian says, "What the hell?" This ends with Norm Macdonald's Frank saying: "Now, now. Maybe it's somebody else."

The perfectly dry delivery really hammers home just how childish Billy and his friends really are. It is also a perfect description to show how Billy is not the only person who wants to protect his friends. Frank knows good and well this is about Billy, but he tries to at least let Billy know there might be a mistake to cheer his friend up. However, what really makes it work is that Norm Macdonald sounds sarcastic no matter what he is saying, so it also has a sting to his words that makes Billy know things are as bad as they seem.

2 "If You're Gonna Stay Home Today, You Can Help Me Shave My Armpits."

Juanita

At home, Billy pretends to be sick to avoid going to school. However, Billy's nanny Juanita knows exactly how to get Billy moving. Juanita tells Billy, "If you’re gonna stay home today, you can help me shave my armpits," and then heartily laughs at her own line. Immediately, Billy relents, "Oh my God. I’ll go to school."

It's a short and sweet moment that shows how close Billy and Juanita actually are, and how she is one of the only people who knows what it takes to get Billy to do what he is supposed to. Though it was just brief, screen veteran Theresa Merritt's role as Juanita remains memorable for long-time fans of Adam Sandler's earliest '90s comedy.

Sadly, this was the only movie that Merritt was able to share the screen with Adam Sandler. She died just three years later, with her final movie role, Home Fries, hitting theaters after her passing. In some fun trivia, Merritt starred in the stage play version of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, which later became a movie starring Viola Davis.

1 "May God Have Mercy On Your Soul."

The Principal

In the final phase of the academic decathlon, Billy answers a question about the Industrial Revolution with a long, drawn-out, and ultimately senseless rant. Disappointed, the principal utters the most memorable Billy Madison quote of the entire movie:

“Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.” Billy's reply seals the punchline: “Okay, a simple 'wrong' would’ve done just fine.”

This quote really shows how ridiculous Billy Madison is when he gets going, especially when he has no idea what he is talking about. This is an instantly quotable moment, and has been used in social media memes for years to mock people who say inane and dumb things. The best part about this is that Eric is unable to follow up and win the contest, which allows Billy to win the competition, control of his dad's company, and even get the girl in the end.