Screenwriters From The United States

"I tell ya, my wife's a lousy cook. After dinner, I don't brush my teeth. I count them."

"What a childhood I had. My mother never breast-fed me. She said she liked me as a friend."

"The killers are wanted in all 50 states."

"My old man never liked me. He gave me my allowance in traveler's checks."

"I live in a tough neighborhood. They got a children's zoo. Last week, four kids escaped."

"I like to date schoolteachers. If you do something wrong, they make you do it over again."

"A homeless guy came up to me on the street, said he hadn't eaten in four days. I told him, "Man, I wish I had your willpower.""

"I was so ugly... When I was born, the doctor slapped my mother!"

"I tell ya, I grew up in a tough neighborhood. The other night a guy pulled a knife on me. I could see it wasn't a real professional job. There was butter on it."

"If all goes well, about a week. If not, about an hour and a half."

"I was an ugly kid. When I was born, after the doctor cut the cord, he hung himself."

"There goes the neighborhood."

"In my life I've been through plenty. when I was three years old, my parents got a dog. I was jealous of the dog, so they got rid of me."

"I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous, everyone hasn't met me yet."

"What a childhood I had. Once on my birthday my ol' man gave me a bat. The first day I played with it, it flew away."

"I told my doctor I broke my arm in two places. He told me to keep out of those places."

"When I was a kid, I never went to Disneyland. My ol' man told me Mickey Mouse died in a cancer experiment."

"When I was a kid I got no respect. When my parents got divorced there was a custody fight over me... and no one showed up."

"I am not on trial here, Mr. Chairman. This committee is on trial here before the American people. Let us get that straight."

"You believe in freedom of speech for communists because what they say is true. You do not believe in freedom of speech for fascists because what they say is a lie."

"Inside me I'm screaming, nobody pays any attention. If I had arms, I could kill myself. If I had legs, I could run away. If I had a voice, I could talk and be some kind of company for myself. I could yell for help, but nobody would help me."

"There's a game out there, and the stakes are high. And the guy who runs it figures the averages all day long and all night long. Once in a while he lets you steal a pot. But if you stay in the game long enough, you've got to lose. And once you've lost there's no way back, no way at all."

"Just say "mister I'm sorry, I got no time to die, I'm too busy" and then turn and run like hell. If they say coward why don't pay any attention because it's your job to live not to die. If they talk about dying for principles that are bigger than life, you say "mister you're a liar. Nothing is bigger than life". There's nothing noble in death. What's noble about lying in the ground and rotting? What's noble about never seeing the sunshine again? What's noble about having your legs and arms blown off? What's noble about being an idiot? What's noble about being blind and deaf and dumb? What's noble about being dead? Because when you're dead, mister, it's all over. It's the end. You're less than a dog, less than a rat, less than a bee or an ant, less than a white maggot crawling around on a dungheap. You're dead, mister, and you died for nothing."

"Remember this well you people who plan for war. Remember this you patriots, you fierce ones, you spawners of hate, you inventors of slogans. Remember this as you have never remembered anything else in your lives. We are men of peace, we are men who work and we want no quarrel. But if you destroy our peace, if you take away our work, if you try to range us one against the other, we will know what to do. If you tell us to make the world safe for democracy we will take you seriously and by god and by Christ we will make it so. We will use the guns you force upon us, we will use them to defend our very lives, and the menace to our lives does not lie on the other side of a nomansland that was set apart without our consent it lies within our own boundaries here and now we have seen it and we know it."

"No sir, anybody who went out and got into the front line trenches to fight for liberty was a goddamn fool and the guy who got him there was a liar. Next time anybody came gabbling to him about liberty — what did he mean next time? There wasn't going to be any next time for him. But the hell with that. If there could be a next time and somebody said "let's fight for liberty", he would say mister my life is important. I'm not a fool and when I swap my life for liberty I've got to know in advance what liberty is, and whose idea of liberty we're talking about and just how much of that liberty we're going to have. And what's more mister — are you as much interested in liberty as you want me to be? And maybe too much liberty will be as bad as too little liberty and I think you're a goddamn fourflusher talking through your hat, and I've already decided that I like the liberty I've got right here. The liberty to walk and see and hear and talk and eat and sleep with my girl. I think I like that liberty better than fighting for a lot of things we won't get and ending up without any liberty at all. Ending up dead and rotting before my life is even begun good or ending up like a side of beef. Thank you mister. You fight for liberty. Me, I don't care for some."

"There's nothing noble about dying. Not even if you die for honor. Not even if you die the greatest hero the world ever saw. Not even if you're so great your name will never be forgotten and who's that great? The most important thing is your life, little guys. You're worth nothing dead except for speeches. Don't let them kid you any more. Pay no attention when they tap you on the shoulder and say come along we've got to fight for liberty, or whatever their word is. There's always a word."

"Put the guns into our hands and we will use them. Give us the slogans and we will turn them into realities. Sing the battle hymns and we will take them up where you left off. Not one, not ten, not ten thousand, not a million, not ten millions, not a hundred millions but a billion, two billions of us all — the people of the world. We will have the slogans and we will have the hymns and we will have the guns and we will use them and we will live. Make no mistake of it, we will live. We will be alive and we will walk and talk and eat and sing and laugh and feel and love and bear our children in tranquillity, in security, in decency, in peace. You plan the wars, you masters of men — plan the wars and point the way and we will point the gun."

"Regan: Smell him. He reeks of sex, like fish and mushroom and sweat, doesn't he? Pocket: Aye, your honor, I'm sure I have an odor about me. I must confess, I was sans trou today in the kitchen, while awaiting my laundry. Bubble had left a casserole out on the floor to cool, and it did trip me and I fell prick-deep in gravy and goo- but I was on my way to chapel at the time. King Lear: [To Pocket] You put your dick in my lunch? King Lear: [to the bailiff] The fool put his dick in my lunch? Regan: No, in your beloved daughter. King Lear: Quiet, girl! Captain Curran, send a guard to watch the bread and the cheese before the fool has his way with it."

"Pocket: Do you know that there's no fool piece on the chessboard, Kent? Kent: Methinks the fool is the player, the mind above the moves. Pocket: Well, that's a scratchy spot of cat wank. But bloody well said."

"King Lear: How hath my fool offended? Regan: He hath shagged me roughly, against my will, and finished too soon. King Lear: By force- Pocket? He isn't eight-stone on a feast day- he couldn't shag a cat by force. Pocket: That's not true, sire. If the cat is distracted with a trout, then - well, uh, never mind."

"Democracy means that people can say what they want to. All the people. It means that they can vote as they wish. All the people. It means that they can worship God in any way they feel right, and that includes Christians and Jews and voodoo doctors as well."

"Cordelia: You honor us, Fool. Did you hear rumors of small animals to hurt or were you hoping to accidentally surprise me in my bath again? Pocket: I was lost, Milady. Cordelia: A dozen times?"

"The Ghost: I'm sorry to haunt you while you're rogering the help. Pocket: The rogering has not commenced, wisp. I have barely bridled the horse for a moist and bawdy ride. Now, go away!"

"King Lear: What is your name? Kent / Caius: Caius. King Lear: And whence do you hale? Kent / Caius: From Bonking, Sire. King Lear: Well, yes, lad as do we all."

"Never again to wiggle your toes. What a hell of a thing, what a wonderful, beautiful thing, to wiggle your toes."

"I fink I gots deaf on me willie."

"And so that is the story of how St. Rufus of Pipewrench was licked to death by marmots."

"I shagged a ghost!"

"Fancy a spot of stony bonking before vespers?"

"Did anybody ever come back from the dead, any single one of the millions who got killed, did any one of them ever come back and say by god I’m glad I’m dead because death is always better than dishonor? Did they say I’m glad i died to make the world safe for democracy? Did they say i like death better than losing liberty? Did any of them ever say it’s good to think i got my guts blown out for the honor of my country? Did any of them ever say look at me i’m dead but i died for decency and that’s better than being alive? Did any of them ever say here i am, i’ve been rotting for two years in a foreign grave but it’s wonderful to die for your native land? Did any of them say hurray I died for womanhood and I’m happy, see how I sing even though my mouth is choked with worms?"

"She's a bloody vision of loveliness."

"Mary: You can read? Pocket: I was raised in a nunnery, wench. I'm a walking library of learning bound in comely leather, suitable for stroking at your service, should you fancy a bit of culture to go with your lack of breeding...or vice verse of course."

"Tension among a bunch of neurotics is just more interesting for a story than is a description of dedicated professionals doing their work and getting along, which is the case in reality. When in doubt, assume I made it up."

"Heinous fuckery most foul!"

"Regardless of its purpose, the humpback-whale song is the most complex piece of nonhuman composition on earth. Whether it's art, prayer, or booty call, the humpback song is an amazing thing to experience firsthand, and I suspect that even once the science of it is put to bed, it will remain, as long as they sing, magic."

"Fuckstockings!"

"Oh to be young and in love (with 8 Chinese concubines)."

"This book you've read is just a story. I made it up. It is not designed to change anyone's beliefs or worldview, unless after reading it you've decided to be kinder to your fellow humans (which is okay), or you decide you really would like to teach yoga to an elephant, in which case, please get videotape."

"The Science you don't know looks like magic."

"Said I, in perfect fucking French."