Walter Garber:
What's her name?
Ryder:
Lavitca, she was Lithuanian... she was an ASS-model.
Walter Garber:
She asked you what?
Ryder:
You heard of hand-models, right? Advertisements?
Walter Garber:
Right.
Ryder:
She was an ass-model... she did jeans and uh you know, magazines and shit. Anyway, it was fashion week in New York and uh... I took her to Iceland.
Walter Garber:
Lavitca, Lithuanian, Ass model, Iceland, you took her to the ice...
Ryder:
So, for five-hundred bucks they'll take you on a dog-sled ride on a glacier.
Walter Garber:
Dog-sled?
Ryder:
Yeah... and you know that whole saying that if you're not the lead dog, the view never changes?
Walter Garber:
Right, otherwise you're always looking at the asshole of the dog in front of you.
Ryder:
That'll be funny in a minute when I get to that part.
Walter Garber:
It's funny now.
Ryder:
[next scene] And it's eight in the morning, we haven't been to bed yet... and we're tooling across this glacier and I got this hangover that's creeping up the back of my neck... and guess what I'm looking at?
Walter Garber:
You're obviously you're staring at... the ass of the dog in front of you.
Ryder:
You got it! So this dog... out of nowhere just lifts his hind-legs up and puts them in the, you know the harness there... and just takes a shit, while he's running on his front paws. So he's dumping and running, all at the same time... now that's multi-fucking-tasking if you ask me.
Walter Garber:
Get outta here, did it hit you?
Ryder:
Shit always hits you man. [next scene]
Ryder:
I didn't know it at the time, but it was profound.
Walter Garber:
Profound?
Ryder:
Yeah.
Walter Garber:
Why? Uh, you lost me.
Ryder:
Well, you know uh... when I went to prison later on, what you called. Uh, I had trouble going to the toilet... you know, a privacy thing. And I... couldn't take a shit. I was scared shitless... literally. So, you know what I thought of?
Walter Garber:
You thought of the dog.
Ryder:
That's right... I thought of that dog. If it could do what it needed to do... so could I. It saved my fucking live.
Walter Garber:
Wow, that is profound.
Philosophy Professor:
The reason why I refuse to take existentialism as just another French fashion or historical curiosity is that I think it has something very important to offer us... I'm afraid were losing the real virtues of living life passionately in the sense of taking responsibility for who you are the ability to make something of yourself and feel good about life. Existentialism is often discussed as if it were a philosophy of despair, but I think the truth is just the opposite. Sartre, once interviewed, said he never felt once minute of despair in his life. One thing that comes out from reading these guys is not a sense of anguish about life so much as a real kind of exuberance, of feeling on top of it, its like your life is yours to create. Ive read the post modernists with some interest, even admiration, but when I read them I always have this awful nagging feeling that something absolutely essential is getting left out. The more you talk about a person as a social construction or as a confluence of forces or as being fragmented of marginalised, what you do is you open up a whole new world of excuses. And when sartre talks about responsibilty, he's not talking about something abstract. He's not taling about the kind of self or souls that theologians would talk about. Hes talking about you and me talking, making descisions, doing things, and taking the consequences. It might be true that there are six billion people in this world, and counting, but nevertheless -what you do makes a difference. It makes a difference, first of all, in material terms, to other people, and it sets an example. In short, I think the message here is that we shouuld never write ourselves off or see eachother as a victim of various forces. It's always our descision who we are.
Delysia:
Do you know what my name is, Guinevere?
Guinevere Pettigrew:
I was under the impression it was Delysia Lafosse.
Delysia:
Sarah Grubb. One of the Pittsburg Grubbs. My father is a steelworker. No one else in the world knows that apart from Michael. And he doesn't judge me.
Guinevere Pettigrew:
No, he wouldn't.
Delysia:
But you do.
Guinevere Pettigrew:
Me? I certainly do not.
Delysia:
Oh, you think you don't, but you do. For all the fancy apartments and fashion shows, do you know how close I am to having nothing? Every day I wake up and I think, if I make the wrong move, I could be out on that street with no clothes, no food, no job, and no friends. Just plain old Sarah Grubb again. Do you know what that's like?
Guinevere Pettigrew:
Yes, I do.
Delysia:
You do?
Guinevere Pettigrew:
In that, at least, we are alike.
