65 Totally Fetch Mean Girls Quotes That Will Inspire a Rewatch of the Movie
Updated: Feb. 03, 2024
On Wednesdays (and every other day of the week), we crack up to these iconic Mean Girls quotes
Truly iconic Mean Girls quotes
High school can be rough. Sure, homework is hard, but have you ever faced down a clique of populars while wearing last season’s shoes? Or joined a lunch group only to hear “You can’t sit with us”? It’s the stuff of nightmares—and blockbuster movies, it turns out. As anyone with a mental stockpile of Mean Girls quotes will tell you, high school may be hard, but it’s also very funny
When Mean Girls came out in 2004, Tina Fey was the head writer at Saturday Night Live and Lindsay Lohan was hitting the peak of her popularity as a teen idol. It didn’t take long for the film to become a pop-culture phenomenon, its funniest quotes etched in our brains forever. As one of the greatest teen movies of the past 20 years, Mean Girls is a commentary about the female high school experience. But it’s also chock-full of legitimately funny movie quotes—”Stop trying to make fetch happen” might just be the film’s most famous line, and it’s one I hear daily in conversations around my home.
Like so many funny movies, Mean Girls is filled with recurring gags and jokes that play up the fact that high school can be a nightmarish place. But the film also has a deeper message about acceptance and breaking harmful behavior patterns during adolescence. Lindsay Lohan plays Cady Heron, a former homeschool kid and the newest student at North Shore High School. She becomes fast friends with a pair of outcasts who cook up a plot to take down the most exclusive clique in the school, a trio known as the Plastics. But once she’s an official member of the Plastics, the power of popularity goes to her head, and soon the school’s female population devolves into chaos.
There are so many Mean Girls quotes that make the movie a modern classic, and many have entered the cultural lexicon. While they’re hilarious, be warned: They will make you want to sit down for a rewatch ASAP.
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The best Mean Girls quotes
1. “Gretchen, stop trying to make fetch happen. It’s not going to happen!” —Regina George
2. “Raise your hand if you have ever been personally victimized by Regina George.” —Ms. Norbury
3. “You got your freshmen, ROTC guys, preps, JV jocks, Asian nerds, cool Asians, varsity jocks, unfriendly Black hotties, girls who eat their feelings, girls who don’t eat anything, desperate wannabes, burnouts, sexually active band geeks, the greatest people you will ever meet and the worst. Beware of the Plastics.” —Janis Ian
4. “I wish we could all get along like we used to in middle school. I wish I could bake a cake filled with rainbows and smiles, and everyone would eat and be happy.” —Crying Girl
5. “See? That’s the thing with you Plastics. You think everybody is in love with you when actually, everybody hates you.” —Janis Ian
6. “One time, she punched me in the face. It was awesome.” —Bethany Byrd
7. “Evil takes a human form in Regina George. Don’t be fooled because she may seem like your typical selfish, back-stabbing slut-faced ho-bag, but in reality, she’s so much more than that.” —Janis Ian
8. “She doesn’t even go here!” —Damian Leigh
9. “She thinks she’s gonna have a party and not invite me? Who does she think she is? I invented her.” —Regina George
10. “Come quick! They’ve gone wild. The girls have gone wild.” —Joan the Secretary
11. “Glenn Coco? Four for you, Glenn Coco! You go, Glenn Coco.” —Damian Leigh
The best movie and TV quotes are the ones that stay with you forever. And few flicks are as rich in timeless quotes as Mean Girls. The fact that my household still jokingly snips, “Stop trying to make fetch happen!”—nearly two decades after the film first hit theaters—is a testament to its cultural impact.
Mean Girls is jam-packed with funny one-liners that helped solidify the film as one of the all-time funniest movies about high school, in spite of its sometimes serious undertones. There are almost too many great Mean Girls quotes to choose from, so if you don’t see your top pick on the list above, keep scrolling. You’ll likely find a favorite further down.
The funniest Mean Girls quotes
12. “I’m not like a regular mom. I’m a cool mom.” —Mrs. George
13. “That’s why her hair is so big. It’s full of secrets.” —Damian Leigh
14. “Oh, I love seeing teachers outside of school. It’s like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs.” —Janis Ian
15. “Hell, no. I did not leave the South Side for this!” —Principal Duvall
16. “You smell like a baby prostitute.” —Janis Ian
17. “At your age, you’re going to have a lot of urges. You’re going to want to take off your clothes and touch each other. But if you do touch each other, you will get chlamydia and die.” —Coach Carr
18. “My nana takes her wig off when she’s drunk.” —Damian Leigh
“Your nana and I have that in common.” —Ms. Norbury
19. “Can I get you guys anything? Some snacks? A condom? Let me know! Oh, God love ya.” —Mrs. George
20. “Somebody wrote in that book that I’m lying about being a virgin, ’cause I use super-jumbo tampons, but I can’t help it if I’ve got a heavy flow and a wide-set vagina!” —Bethany Byrd
21. “It’s been a month, and all we’ve done is make Regina’s face smell like a foot.” —Janis Ian
22. “Oh my God, Danny DeVito! I love your work!” —Damian Leigh
23. “I am so sorry, Regina. Really, I don’t know why I did this. I guess it’s probably because I’ve got a big lesbian crush on you!” —Janis Ian
24. “Nice wig, Janis, what’s it made of?” —Student
“Your mom’s chest hair!” —Janis Ian
All the memorable movie quotes from Mean Girls were written by Tina Fey, and while many of them are hilarious, snarky or downright mean, most of them illustrate or exaggerate the struggles of the teenage experience.
The dialogue on the page is made even more hilarious thanks to brilliant comedic performances from Fey and her SNL co-stars, including Amy Poehler as Regina’s trying-too-hard-to-be-cool mom and Tim Meadows as the school’s principal, plus unforgettable turns from Lizzy Caplan (Janice), Daniel Franzese (Damian) and the actresses portraying the trio of Plastics.
Regina George quotes
25. “Get in, loser. We’re going shopping.”
26. “I gave him everything! I was half a virgin when I met him.”
27. “But you’re, like, really pretty. So you agree? You think you’re really pretty?”
28. “I can’t go to Taco Bell. I’m on an all-carb diet. God, Karen, you are so stupid!”
29. “Boo, you whore.”
30. “This is your room?” —Cady Heron
“It was my parents’ room, but I made them trade me.” —Regina George
31. “That is the ugliest effing skirt I’ve ever seen.”
32. “Stop making this about you. I’m the one that got hit by the bus.”
33. “Is butter a carb?”
34. “So you’ve actually never been to a real school before? Shut up! Shut up!”
Regina George’s “nice” is other people’s meanest. As the most popular girl in school, she has the power to start trends and wage wars with her words. It’s impossible to watch the film without rooting for her downfall, and that’s thanks to a star-making performance from Rachel McAdams. The role helped propel McAdams into stardom (along with her other 2004 blockbuster, the romantic movie The Notebook). And while her most famous Mean Girls quotes are usually backhanded compliments and insults at her friends’ expense, she deserves a smidgen of sympathy. As she’d tell you: She’s the one who got hit by the bus.
Cady Heron quotes
35. “Calling somebody else fat won’t make you any skinnier. Calling someone stupid doesn’t make you any smarter. And ruining Regina George’s life definitely didn’t make me any happier. All you can do in life is try to solve the problem in front of you.”
36. “I know I may look like I’d become a bitch, but that’s only because I was acting like a bitch.”
37. “Grool. I meant to say cool, but then I started to say great.”
38. “In the real world, Halloween is when kids dress up and beg for candy. But in girl world, Halloween is the one time of year a girl can dress like a total slut, and no other girl can say anything about it.”
39. “The limit does not exist.”
40. “I knew how this would be settled in the animal world, but this was girl world. And in girl world, all the fighting had to be sneaky.”
41. “Half the people in this room are mad at me, and the other half only like me because they think I pushed somebody in front of a bus, so that’s not good.”
42. “The weird thing about hanging out with Regina was that I could hate her and, at the same time, I still wanted her to like me.”
43. “Regina’s like the Barbie doll I never had. I’d never seen anybody so glamorous.”
44. “I used to think there was just fat and skinny. Apparently, there’s a lot of things that can be wrong on your body.”
45. “It’s not my fault you’re like, in love with me, or something!”
Lindsay Lohan’s portrayal of Cady Heron is one of her best performances. Through the character, the audience watches as sheltered but kind Cady is sucker-punched by the worries facing American teens—think: bullying, crushes, cliques and body issues—and struggles to stay true to herself. Of all the Plastics, Cady delivers the most insightful Meal Girls quotes. In particular, the self-love quotes from the end of the movie go beyond the humor to the heart of the film.
Gretchen Weiners quotes
46. “You can’t sit with us!”
47. “I’m sorry that people are so jealous of me. But I can’t help it that I’m popular.”
48. “Irregardless, ex-boyfriends are off-limits to friends. That’s just, like, the rules of feminism.”
49. “Why should Caesar get to stomp around like a giant while the rest of us try not to get smushed under his big feet? What’s so great about Caesar? Hm? Brutus is just as cute as Caesar. Brutus is just as smart as Caesar. People totally like Brutus just as much as they like Caesar. And when did it become OK for one person to be the boss of everybody, huh? Because that’s not what Rome is about. We should totally just stab Caesar!”
50. “I don’t think my father, the inventor of Toaster Strudel, would be too pleased to hear about this.”
51. “Regina, you’re wearing sweatpants. It’s Monday.”
52. “That was so fetch.”
53. “You can only wear your hair in a ponytail once a week, so I guess you chose today.”
54. “Oh my God, Karen! You can’t just ask people why they’re white.”
55. “Make sure you check out her mom’s boob job. They’re hard as rocks.”
There are two defining traits of Gretchen Weiners: First, her father invented Toaster Strudel, so she’s really wealthy. Second, she’s the school’s biggest busybody, which means she knows everything about everyone. Lacey Chabert, who got her start on the great teen TV show Party of Five, is perfectly cast as the earnest but clueless gossip who is responsible for trying (and failing) to make fetch happen. Once Gretchen starts to fear that Regina doesn’t like her, the floodgates open, and she reveals all Regina’s secrets to Cady, who uses them to take down the Plastics.
Karen Smith quotes
56. “It’s like I have ESPN or something. My breasts can always tell when it’s going to rain.”
57. “On Wednesdays, we wear pink.”
58. “If you’re from Africa, why are you white?”
59. “Gretchen, I’m sorry I laughed at you that time you got diarrhea at Barnes & Noble. And I’m sorry for telling everyone about it. And I’m sorry for repeating it now.”
60. “My nail beds suck.”
61. “I can’t go out tonight. [Fake coughs] I’m sick.”
62. “I can put my whole fist in my mouth! Wanna see?”
63. “I’m a mouse. Duh.”
64. “So, you have your cousins, and then you have your first cousins, and then you have your second cousins.”
65. “Hi, this is Karen Smith. It’s 68 degrees, and there’s a 30% chance that it’s already raining!”
Karen Smith was a breakout role for Amanda Seyfried, who would eventually go on to star in films like Mamma Mia! and Mank, and who won an Emmy for her role as Elizabeth Holmes in the miniseries The Dropout, one of the best TV shows on Hulu. Even though Karen and Gretchen were just Regina’s lackeys, they have some of the most memorable lines in the film. And even if you’ve never seen the movie, you’ve no doubt heard Karen’s iconic Mean Girls quote “On Wednesdays, we wear pink.”
Originally Published: November 23, 2023
