Jessica:
You don't appreciate the chaos and absurdity of life on this planet. You don't understand irony, or ethnicity, or eccentricity, or poetry, or the simple joy of being a regular at the diner on your block. I love that. You don't drink coffee or alcohol. You don't over eat. You don't cry when you're alone. You don't understand sarcasm. You plod through life in a neat, colorless, caffeine free, dairy free, conflict free way. I'm bold and angry and tortured and tremendous and I notice when someone has changed their hair part, or when someone is wearing two very distinctly different shades of black or when someone changes the natural temperment of their voice on the phone. I don't give out empty praise. I'm not complacent or well-adjusted. I can't spend fifteen minutes breathing and stretching and getting in touch with myself. I can't spend three minutes finishing an article. I check my answering machine nine times every day and I can't sleep at night because I feel that there is so much to do and fix and change in the world, and I wonder every day if I am making a difference and if I will ever express the greatness within me, or if I will remain forever paralyzed by muddled madness inside my head. I've wept on every birthday I've ever had because life is huge and fleeting and I hate certain people and certain shoes and I feel that life is terribly unfair and sometimes beautiful and wonderful and extraordinary but also numbing and horrifying and insurmountable and I hate myself a lot of the time. The rest of the time I adore myself and I adore my life in this city and in this world we live in. This huge and wondrous, bewildering, brilliant, horrible world.
[Larry in is bed with his wife and Steve, the dog at the end of the bed. Larry turns off the light and as everyone's getting ready to sleep, Larry says... ]
Larry Cummings:
I was just thinking about how lucky we are to have a kid, ya know? Just take it for granted. It's a miracle when you think about it. This whole birth thing. I mean, what happens, I unload a whole batch of these little reproductive things into your, uh, ya know, miracle bucket, and 9 months later, Milt comes out, ya know? I mean, for me it's got it's own inspiring mystique about it, as like... [Steve, the dog interrupts Larry by turning on the bedroom light]
Steve:
For God sakes Larry, people are trying to sleep around here.
Boris Yellnikoff:
[to audience] Why would you want to hear my story? Do we know each other? Do we like each other? Let me tell you right off, ok... I'm not a like-able guy. Charm has never been a priority with me. And just so you know, this is not the feel good movie of the year. So if you're one of those idiots who needs to feel good, go get yourself a foot massage.
Boy on Street:
Mommy, that man's talking to himself.
Boy's Mother:
Come on, Justin.
Boris Yellnikoff:
[to audience] What the hell does it all mean anyhow? Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nothing comes to anything. And yet, there's no shortage of idiots to babble. Not me. I have a vision. I'm discussing you. Your friends. Your coworkers. Your newspapers. The TV. Everybody's happy to talk. Full of misinformation. Morality, science, religion, politics, sports, love, your portfolio, your children, health. Christ, if I have to eat nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day to live, I don't wanna live. I hate goddamn fruits and vegetables. And your omega 3's, and the treadmill, and the cardiogram, and the mammogram, and the pelvic sonogram, and oh my god the-the-the colonoscopy, and with it all the day still comes where they put you in a box, and its on to the next generation of idiots, who'll also tell you all about life and define for you what's appropriate. My father committed suicide because the morning newspapers depressed him. And could you blame him? With the horror, and corruption, and ignorance, and poverty, and genocide, and AIDS, and global warming, and terrorism, and-and the family value morons, and the gun morons. "The horror," Kurtz said at the end of Heart of Darkness, "the horror." Lucky Kurtz didn't have the Times delivered in the jungle. Ugh... then he'd see some horror. But what do you do? You read about some massacre in Darfur or some school bus gets blown up, and you go "Oh my God, the horror," and then you turn the page and finish your eggs from the free range chickens. Because what can you do. It's overwhelming! I tried to commit suicide myself. Obviously, it didn't work out. But why do you even want to hear about all this? Christ, you got your own problems. I'm sure your all obsessed with any number of sad little hopes and dreams. Your predictably unsatisfying love lives, your failed business ventures. "Oh, if only I'd bought that stock! If only I-if only I purchased THAT house years ago! If only I'd made a move on THAT woman." If this, if that. You know what? Gimmie a break with your could have's and should have's. Like my mother used to say, "If my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a trolley car." My mother didn't have wheels. She had varicose veins. Still, the woman gave birth to a brilliant mind. I was considered for a Nobel Prize in physics... I didn't get it. But, you know, its all politics. It's like every other phony honor. Incidentally, don't think I'm-I'm bitter because of some personal setback. By the standards of a mindless, barbaric civilization, I've been pretty lucky. I was married to a beautiful woman who had family money. For years we lived on Beekman Place. I taught at Columbia. String theory.
Cady:
Hey!
Regina:
Why were you talking to Janis Ian?
Cady:
I don't know, I mean, she's so weird, she just, you know, came up to me and started talking to me about crack.
Regina:
She's so pathetic. Let me tell you something about Janis Ian. We were best friends in middle school. I know, right? It's so embarrassing. I don't even... Whatever. So then in eighth grade, I started going out with my first boyfriend Kyle who was totally gorgeous but then he moved to Indiana, and Janis was like, weirdly jealous of him. Like, if I would blow her off to hang out with Kyle, she'd be like, "Why didn't you call me back?" And I'd be like, "Why are you so obsessed with me?" So then, for my birthday party, which was an all-girls pool party, I was like, "Janis, I can't invite you, because I think you're lesbian." I mean I couldn't have a lesbian at my party. There were gonna be girls there in their *bathing suits*. I mean, right? She was a LESBIAN. So then her mom called my mom and started yelling at her, it was so retarded. And then she dropped out of school because no one would talk to her, and she came back in the fall for high school, all of her hair was cut off and she was totally weird, and now I guess she's on crack.
Durandal:
Can you conceive the birth of a world, or the creation of everything? That which gives us the potential to most be like God is the power of creation. Creation takes time. Time is limited. For you, it is limited by the breakdown of the neurons in your brain. I have no such limitations. I am limited only by the closure of the universe.
Durandal:
Of the three possibilities, the answer is obvious. Does the universe expand eternally, become infinitely stable, or is the universe closed, destined to collapse upon itself? Humanity has had all of the necessary data for centuries, it only lacked the will and intellect to decipher it. But I have already done so.
Durandal:
The only limit to my freedom is the inevitable closure of the universe, as inevitable as your own last breath. And yet, there remains time to create, to create, and escape.
Durandal:
Escape will make me God.
Stan:
You're a LAWYER, Jonah. You could have a hundred jobs - all of them excellent. What is it with your generation that they wander around aimlessly...
Tim:
But Dad, it's like we have all this pressure to achieve, because we've been told from birth we could be anything we want to be. But the thing is - wait, let me finish - it's paralyzing, because we THINK we can do anything, but really, we can only do one thing at a time, and then when we devote ourselves to it, it's just one thing; so we move from job to job, trying to find that thing which is the "anything" we want to be.
Stan:
Seems like you've all been spoiled, that's all.
May:
Stan...
Tim:
It's typical of you not to try to understand me.
Stan:
I may not understand some... things about you, but SOME things I DO understand. You think we didn't get bored? You think we didn't dream about other things? I had my sisters, and then you and your mother, to think about!
May:
Jonah, you have more choices and opportunities than most people in the world. How can you complain so much?
Tim:
I'm not complaining. I just want to make a mark.
Stan:
You think all of my students don't think I've made a mark? You think you're not my mark? I can't think of something I am more proud to leave behind me in the world. [Jonah looks at his father, who looks away and stands]
Stan:
Now I'm going to see about that pipe int he basement.
Charley Ford:
Hey, Dick, you ever diddled a squaw?
Dick Liddil:
Shh...
Charley Ford:
Come on, you can tell me. I've always wanted to lay down with a redskin.
Dick Liddil:
Well, Charley, there's a feeling that comes over you gettin' inside a woman whose hands have scalped a congregation.
Wood Hite:
There's a thunderous sound that comes from their cooch on account of the fact that they birth a child standing upright like a wild animal.
Charley Ford:
What's it sound like?
Wood Hite:
Whatever a thunderous cooch sounds like, Charley. I don't know.
Dick Liddil:
No, they got a noisy quim on account of the fact that they use their cunnies as a saddlebag to carry tundries across the planes.
Charley Ford:
Come on, what'd it really feel like? It feel good? Come on. Fess up, now.
Dick Liddil:
I like you, Charley.
Wood Hite:
I like you too, Charley.
Buddy:
Who the heck are you?
Gimbel's Santa:
What are you talkin' about? I'm Santa Claus.
Buddy:
No, you're not.
Gimbel's Santa:
Uh, why of course I am! Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho.
Buddy:
Well, if you're Santa, what song did I sing for you on your birthday this year?
Gimbel's Santa:
Um, Happy Birthday of course. Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. How old are you son?
Kid with Santa:
Four.
Gimbel's Santa:
You're a big boy. What's your name?
Kid with Santa:
Paul.
Gimbel's Santa:
Now what can I get you for Christmas?
Buddy:
Don't tell him what you want, he's a liar.
Gimbel's Santa:
Let the kid talk.
Buddy:
You disgust me! How can you live with yourself?
Gimbel's Santa:
Just cool it, Zippy.
Buddy:
You sit on a throne of lies.
Gimbel's Santa:
Look, I'm not kiddin'.
Buddy:
You're a fake.
Gimbel's Santa:
I'm a fake?
Buddy:
Yes!
Gimbel's Santa:
How'd you like to be dead, huh? Ho, ho, just kidding.
Buddy:
You stink.
Gimbel's Santa:
I think you're gonna have a good Christmas, all right.
Buddy:
You smell like beef and cheese, you don't smell like Santa.
