High Fidelity (film)

"It's brilliant, being depressed; you can behave as badly as you like."

"We have one of those conversations where everything clicks, meshes, corresponds, locks, where even our pauses, even our punctuation marks, seem to be nodding in agreement."

"I agreed that what really matters is what you like, not what you are like... Books, records, films—these things matter. Call me shallow but it's the fuckin' truth, and by this measure I was having one of the best dates of my life."

"What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"

"Should I bolt every time I get that feeling in my gut when I meet someone new? Well, I've been listening to my gut since I was 14 years old, and frankly speaking, I've come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains."

"I can see now I never really committed to Laura. I always had one foot out the door, and that prevented me from doing a lot of things, like thinking about my future and... I guess it made more sense to commit to nothing, keep my options open. And that's suicide. By tiny, tiny increments."

"I could've wound up having sex back there. And what better way to exorcise rejection demons than to screw the person who rejected you, right? But you wouldn't be sleeping with a person, you'd be sleeping with the whole sad, single-person culture. It'd be like sleeping with Talia Shire in Rocky if you weren't Rocky."

"It made sense to pool our collective loathing for the opposite sex, and while we were doing that, share a bed with someone at the same time. Only people of a certain disposition are sure they're going to be alone for the rest of their lives at age 26, and we were of that disposition."

"Then I lost it. Kinda lost it all, you know. Faith, dignity, about fifteen pounds."

"I can't fire them. I hired these guys for three days a week and they just started showing up, every day. That was four years ago."

"Jesus. I'm glad I know nothing about psychotherapy, about Jung and Freud and that lot. If I did, I'd probably be extremely frightened by now: the woman who wants to have sex in the place where she used to go for walks with her dead dad is probably very dangerous indeed."

"Read any women's magazine and you'll find the same complaint over and over again: men are not interested in foreplay and they are hopeless in bed. They are selfish, greedy, clumsy, and unsophisticated. These complaints I can't help feeling are kind of ironic 'cause back then, all we wanted was foreplay and girls weren't interested. We were told not to even think about it. Foreplay changes from being something that boys want to do and girls don't, to something that women want and men can't be bothered with. The perfect couple, if you ask me, is the Cosmo woman and the fourteen-year old b-b-b-boy."

"People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands—literally thousands—of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss. The unhappiest people I know, romantically speaking, are the ones who like pop music the most; and I don't know whether pop music has caused this unhappiness, but I do know that they've been listening to the sad songs longer than they've been living the unhappy lives."

"It would be nice to think that since I was 14 times have changed, relationships have become more sophisticated, females less cruel, skins thicker, instincts more developed, but there seems to be an element of that afternoon in everything that's happened to me since. All my romantic stories are a scrambled version of that first one."

"Sometimes I got so bored of trying to touch her breasts that I would try to touch between her legs instead. It was like trying to borrow a dollar, getting turned down, and asking for fifty grand instead."

"My desert island, all-time, top-five most memorable breakups, in chronological order, are as follows: Alison Ashmore; Penny Hardwick; Jackie Alden; Charlie Nicholson; and Sarah Kendrew. Those were the ones that really hurt. [Yelling to Laura out the window] Can you see your name on that list, Laura? Maybe you'd sneak into the top ten. But there's just no room for you in the top five, sorry. Those places are reserved for the kind of humiliation and heartbreak you're just not capable of delivering."

"Top five things I miss about Laura. One; sense of humor. Very dry, but it can also be warm and forgiving. And she's got one of the best all time laughs in the history of all time laughs, she laughs with her entire body. Two; she's got character. Or at least she had character before the Ian nightmare. She's loyal and honest, and she doesn't even take it out on people when she's having a bad day. That's character. Three; I miss her smell, and the way she tastes. It's a mystery of human chemistry and I don't understand it, some people, as far as their senses are concerned, just feel like home. [lipsyncs four, while holding up four fingers] I really dig how she walks around. It's like she doesn't care how she looks or what she projects and it's not that she doesn't care it's just, she's not affected I guess, and that gives her grace. And five; she does this thing in bed when she can't get to sleep, she kinda half moans and then rubs her feet together an equal number of times... it just kills me. Believe me, I mean, I could do a top five things about her that drive me crazy but it's just your garden variety women you know, schizo stuff and that's the kind of thing that got me here."

"Now, the making of a good compilation tape is a very subtle art. Many do's and don'ts. First of all, you 're using someone else's poetry to express how you feel. This is a delicate thing."

"The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up is hard to do. It takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick it off with a killer to grab attention. Then you gotta take it up a notch. But you don't want to blow your wad. So then you gotta cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules. Anyway, I've started to make a tape, in my head, for Laura. Full of stuff she'd like. Full of stuff that'd make her happy. For the first time I can sorta see how that's done."

"Some people never got over 'Nam, or the night their band opened for Nirvana. I guess I never really got over Charlie. But, the thing I learned from the whole Charlie debacle? You gotta punch your weight. See, Charlie? She was out of my class. She was too pretty. Too smart, too witty, too much."

"Rob, I'm telling you this for your own good, that's the worst fuckin' sweater I've ever seen, it's a Cosby sweater. A Cooooosssssssby sweataahhhh."

"Rob. Top 5 musical crimes perpetrated by Stevie Wonder in the 80s and 90s go... Sub-question: is it in fact unfair to criticize a formerly great artist for his latter day sins... is it better to burn out or fade awaaay?"

"Ah man, that's great. That's the fun thing about workin' in a record store - you get to play crappy pop you don't even wanna listen to."

"John Cusack - Rob Gordon"

"Iben Hjejle - Laura"

"Jack Black - Barry Judd"

"Todd Louiso - Dick"

"Catherine Zeta-Jones - Charlie Nicholson"

"Lisa Bonet - Marie DeSalle"

"Sara Gilbert - Annaugh Moss"

"Lili Taylor - Sarah Kendrew"

"Joan Cusack - Liz"

"Tim Robbins - Ian "Ray" Raymond"

"Joelle Carter - Penny Hardwick"