I’m absolutely gutted that my favorite television program is ending, so to ease the pain, I’ve collected a handful of my absolute favorite Adventure Time quotes. I make no argument that these are objectively the most profound, or that the order I’ve put them in is correct, but I feel they show the show’s emotional and philosophical depth.
Runner-Up. “—And we care about him, you dingus!” – Marceline, “Islands Pt. I: The invitation”
This quote isn’t that profound from a philosophical point of view, but it does illustrate one of my favorite parts of the show: the deep, familial love the main characters have developed for one another as the seasons have worn on. It’s quite telling that Marceline is the one assuring Finn and Jake that she and Bubblegum care for them, as she started out as a minor antagonist who kicked our heroic duo out of their home and very nearly killed them in the resulting fight. But by the time that Islands rolls around, it is obvious that she thinks of them almost like her younger brothers—and they think of her like an older sister.
10. “Are you just a two-headed pile of meat on a crash course with the cosmic dump? Or do you contain the sole memory of a million dead stars?” – The Sun, “Something Big”
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It’s a testament to the show’s wackiness that one of the quotes on my list is courtesy of the Sun (yes, that Sun). This quote is perhaps one of the show’s most existential: are we just meat and bones doomed to die? Or are we all walking miracles—sentient start-dust people who can think and dream and create? I lean towards the latter interpretation. As an aside, this quote reminds me of another I often see shared on social media: “You’re a ghost driving a meat coated skeleton made from stardust. What do you have to be afraid of?” Existentialism can be scary, but sometimes, quotes like these make you take pause and consider how truly astonishing existence is.
9. “Everything repeats over and over again. No one learns anything, because no one lives long enough to see the pattern.” – Marceline, “Stakes Pt. VII: Checkmate”
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Stakes—a delightful miniseries heavily indebted to the existential philosophy of Nietzsche—sees Marceline agonize over the freedom of the Unknown or the certainty of Fate. In the seventh episode, Marceline bemoans the fact that everything in this world repeats over and over again, and as an immortal being, she is doomed to watch the world fail to learn from its mistakes. It’s true: there is nothing new under the sun. But by the end of the miniseries, our heroine has learned a very important lesson—while history might repeat itself over and over again, that does not mean we should resign ourselves to defeat. We should learn from the lessons of the past and make tomorrow better, even if it might seem like an impossible task.
8. “Something weird might just be something familiar viewed from a different angle” – Marceline’s mom, “Stakes Pt. II: Everything Stays”
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Humans are wired to instinctively be leery about things that are weird or unfamiliar. it’s a big reason we have so much trouble with racism and xenophobia. But Marceline’s mom is absolutely right: sometimes, those things that seems the weirdest or scariest might not be that different from ‘normal’ things that we’re used to. Often, we just have to get familiar with the ‘weirdness’, and that fear will quickly dissipate.
7. “Let’s always be stupid, forever!” – Finn, “My Two Favorite People”
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There’s no reason to be so serious all the time. Sometimes you just gotta embrace the silliness in life.
6. “Your eyeballs think the sky is blue, but that’s just sun rays farting apart in the barf of our atmosphere. The sky is black.” – BMO, “Islands, Pt. IV: Imaginary Resources”
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While BMO’s quote is somewhat nihilistic in the context of the episode, the ideas that it expresses—namely, that the qualitative experiences that sentient creatures experience do not represent actual reality—is quite an interesting one. Is there an objective reality that we can access? It seems that we’re always blinded (if you will) to the Real by the mediation that our senses require. And hey, it’s not everyday that you get to hear someone say “sun rays farting apart”.
5. “Homies help homies. Always.” – Finn, “Her Parents”
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This is one of the simplest morals that Adventure Time has ever impressed upon its viewers. If your pal really needs help, you should be there for them—otherwise, you’re just a fair-weather friend. Sometimes helping out is not going to be easy… in fact, sometimes, it is going to be downright unpleasant. But if they are your homie, and they really need a hand, you gotta show them that you care for them.
4. “Dude, suckin’ at somethin’ is the first step towards bein’ sorta good at somethin’.” – Jake the Dog, “His Hero”
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This is perhaps one of the most-quoted lines from the show, and it’s not hard to see why. Many are under the impression that people who are good at things (e.g. art, writing) were born that way. This is very rarely the case; most people who have a talent have honed their skills over years of hard work, and you can bet that almost all of them started at the very, very bottom. If we only pursue those things that we are instantly good at, we will a) never really grow as a person, b) probably not be very good at very much. All things with practice.
3. “When bad things happen, I know you want to believe they are a joke, but sometimes life is scary and dark. That is why we must find the light.” – BMO, “The Creeps”
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The sad reality is that life can be bleak and downright horrifying. Between war, famine, disease, poverty, oppressive political systems, etc., life can get pretty sucky. But if we stick together and collectively try to find the light, we can make existence just a little bit more pleasant. For many people Adventure Time was that light, which allowed us to momentarily escape the horrors of this world and escape into a place where small little elephants make apple pies and talking robots can marry bubbles. That light will be missed!
2. “People get built different. We don’t need to figure it out, we just need to respect it.” – Bubblegum, “Bonnie & Neddy”
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Not everyone functions the same way. Neddy, for instance, has social anxiety issues and the only place he feels safe is in the bottom of the castle, nibbling on the Candy Kingdom’s central tree. Princess Bubblegum loves her brother and wants the best for him, so she accommodates his needs. This is a very important lesson, especially in today’s interconnected and highly intersectional world. We’re all humans, but we’re not all the same. We have different needs and wants. Different beliefs. We think different. We act different. We don’t need to hom*ogenize these differences—we just need to note and respect them. If we can all do that, it’ll make everything a lot nicer.
1. “JAAAAAAAMES BAXTER!” – James Baxter, “James Baxter the Horse”
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It just makes everyone happy!
