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David Dobel: It's not "In vino veritas," it's "In eros veritas."
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David Dobel: I broke up with this girl, and they put me with a psychiatrist who said, "Why did you get so depressed, and do all those things you did?" I said, "I wanted this girl and she left me." And he said, "Well, we have to look into that." And I said, "There's nothing to look into. I wanted her and she left me." And he said, "Well, why are you feeling so intense?" And I said, "Cause I want the girl." And he said, "What's underneath it?" And I said, "Nothing." He said, "I'll have to give you medication." I said, "I don't want medication. I want the girl." And he said, "We have to work this through." So, at that point, I took a fire extinguisher from the casement and struck him across the back of his neck.
-
Amanda: Don't be mad at me, but I ate.
Jerry Falk: You ate?
Amanda: I couldn't help it. I was starving when I got back from the audition, so I had a little sliver of that Sara Lee cream cheesecake. Then I had another one. You know what I'm like when I get started. Before I knew it, I'd finished the whole cake.
Jerry Falk: You ate the whole Sara Lee cream cheesecake?
Amanda: And then I figured, what the hell. I finished off the cold spaghetti in the refrigerator, and ate that last lobster tail and then I heated up some chicken pot pie.
Jerry Falk: Jesus, is there any furniture left in the house?
-
Amanda: I've had a crush on you since we met. Couldn't you tell, the way I was ignoring you?
Jerry Falk: Well, there was something compelling about your apathy.
-
Psychiatrist: Tell me about your dream. The Cleveland Indians all got jobs at Toys R Us?
Jerry Falk: Yeah. So what can it possibly mean? Look, I can't keep wasting my hour here describing lunatic dreams. I have a date with Amanda. I can't keep running around town on the sly and live like this. Amanda can handle it, but I need help. What do I do? I have to extricate myself from Brooke. It'll break her heart. She wants to marry me.
Psychiatrist: What comes to mind about the Cleveland Indians?
-
Jerry Falk: Do you love me?
Amanda: What a question. Just because I pull away when you touch me?
-
Amanda: Okay. Okay, I slept with Ron Keller. But I didn't do it because I care about him.
Jerry Falk: No? What then? To punish him?
Amanda: No, I did it because I had to find out if there was something wrong with me. Because I can't sleep with you, the person that I love. I had to know if I was some kind of freak, or frigid. I had to know if I could even get aroused anymore and have an orgasm.
Jerry Falk: And can you?
Amanda: Yeah. It's good news. I can.
-
David Dobel: You said it yourself, you're afraid to sleep alone. That's the whole story. You surround yourself with this farrago of babysitters, this loving-disabled little sex kitten who's driving you crazy, the Jew manager, you know? And let me tell you I am of the Hebrew pursuassion, but the guy that handles you is a member of one of the lost tribes of Israel that should have remained lost. You know and you got this shrink who, like God, never speaks, and like God, is dead. You know, while, of course, there's nothing wrong with being afraid. You know, we were all meant to be afraid. That's why you gotta build a survival kit!
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David Dobel: Never trust a guy who fumbles for the check, you know he who wants to get the check, gets it.
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David Dobel: [about the Swarthy guy] He looked at us and said to the other guy "Jews start all wars."
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David Dobel: Let me tell you, Falk. We live in perilous times. You got to keep alert for these things. You don't want your life to wind up as black-and-white newsreel footage scored by a cello in a minor key.
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Jerry Falk: It's exactly as Dobel says, there is truly a paucity of veridical talent in the world.
Amanda: When will I get to meet this polymath?
-
David Dobel: You think quantum physics has the answer? I mean, you know, what purpose does it serve for me that time and space are exactly the same thing? I mean I ask a guy what time it is, he tells me 6 miles? What the hell is that?
-
David Dobel: Last night I was home alone in my apartment and I conjured up a threesome with me, Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren, and it was very very erotic. As a matter of fact if I'm not mistaken, it was the first time those two great actresses ever appeared in anything together.
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Jerry Falk: What are you preparing for? The end of civilization?
-
David Dobel: ...and the next thing I knew they made some crack about my religion which I found in poor taste.
Jerry Falk: Religion? You're an atheist!
David Dobel: Yes, I'm an atheist, but I resented the fact however obliquely that they implied that Auschwitz was basically just a theme park.
-
Jerry Falk: Dobel, you're a madman.
David Dobel: Yeah, that's what they said in Germany. You know there were actually groups in Germany called "Jews for Hitler"? They were deluded, they thought he'd be good for the country. They trusted a naked bus driver, never trust a naked bus driver.
-
Jerry Falk: Just how crazy are you huh? Is there more? Do you hear voices on the radio or worship snakes?
David Dobel: You are a member of one of the most persecuted minorities in history. The rifle's on me.
-
David Dobel: You have to learn to take it apart and put it together blindfolded, you know, cause you may have to do it some day in the dark.
Jerry Falk: You expecting Nazis and a blackout?
-
Amanda: Who do you need protection from?
Jerry Falk: Burglars, rapists, the Gestapo.
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Jerry Falk: [typing on his computer] And he's still not convinced that the slaughter of six million Jews is enough to satisfy the anti-semetic impulses of the majority of the world.
-
Jerry Falk: What's happening here, what's going on?
David Dobel: [trying to pivot the piano] I have it under control... Nothing that can't be done with the help of twelve stevedores and some oxen.
-
Jerry Falk: The doctor had better sex examining her than I've had in six months! She has this wayward appeal. Men go instantly crazy for her. I - what'll I do? I - I'm trapped in a situation here. What'll I do? Say something!
Psychiatrist: Our time is up. Suppose we continue at our next meeting.
-
David Dobel: I promised students of my class I'm gonna take them to the Caravaggio exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum. You know, I try to give them a little culture now and then so they don't beat each other to death with bicycle chains all the time.
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David Dobel: What you don't know, won't hurt you, it'll kill you. Like if they tell you you're going to shower but they turn out not to be showers.
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Jerry Falk: And as he says, the issue is always fascism.
[types on his computer]
Jerry Falk: Dobel says the crimes of the Nazis were so enormous that if the entire human race were to vanish as a penalty it could be argued that it would be justified.
-
David Dobel: The pill makes her crazy? Falk, she *is* crazy. The Pentagon should use her hormones for chemical warfare.
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David Dobel: The thing I'm going to miss the most is the kids. The kids are, are wonderful kids and they're bright, you know. You should see the creative ways they smuggle weapons past the metal detectors, it's amazing.
-
Jerry Falk: Remind me, please, to put him on my Christmas list, if I could figure out how to make a letter bomb.
-
Dobel: I took the liberty a couple weeks ago of ordering you a little present.
Jerry Falk: What?
Dobel: Well, they're having a sale here on surplus Russian Army riffles.
Jerry Falk: What?
Dobel: Well suppose you're home one night, you know, in bed masturbating and some guys try to break in. You need protection.
Jerry Falk: No! I just dial 9-1-1.
Dobel: Have you ever dialed 9-1-1? It's like trying to get a mortgage.
-
David Dobel: You chose psychoanalysis over real life? Are you learning disabled?
-
Jerry Falk: I feel like committing suicide, but I've got so many problems, that wouldn't solve them all.
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Jerry Falk: [after learning his girlfriend cheated on him] OK. Where's the rifle? I need the rifle. I'm going to blow my brains out!
Amanda: Oh, don't be so middle class! I did it as much for you as for me.
-
Amanda: Am I late?
Jerry Falk: Not if we go by Rocky Mountain time.
-
David Dobel: You've been with a shrink for years, and yet you're too guilty to say goodbye to this inept little homunculus who poses as your manager.
-
David Dobel: Since the beginning of time people have been, you know, frightened and, and unhappy, and they're scared of death, and they're scared of getting old, and there's always been priests around, and shamans, and now shrinks, to tell 'em, "Look, I know you're frightened, but I can help you. Of course, it is going to cost you a few bucks..." But they *can't* help you, Falk, because life is what it is.
-
Jerry Falk: She's so sexy. Look at her body language. All verbs!
-
David Dobel: You're a writer, you have a gift. You should have a, a girlfriend, who's, who's, you know, helpful and encouraging. Not some mercurial little jitterbug who'll have you holding up filling stations to keep her in mood elevators.
-
Jerry Falk: It's not here, so where could it be? There's no such thing as a diaphragm repair shop.
-
David Dobel: Why are you in analysis? You're afraid to sleep, what else?
Jerry Falk: Fear of death.
David Dobel: That's funny. I have that too. My dog has it. It's very common with living creatures.
-
Paula Chase: Stop calling me Mrs. Chase! It's Paula! I'm not your goddamn schoolteacher!
-
[last lines]
Jerry Falk: I was just saying how strange life is, how it's full of inexplicable mystery.
Cab Driver: Well, you know, it's like anything else.
-
[first lines]
David Dobel: You know, there's great wisdom in jokes, Falk, really. There's an old joke about a prizefighter who's in the ring, and he's getting killed, he's getting his brains beat out; and his mother's in the audience, and she's watching him getting beaten up in the ring, and there's a priest next to her, and she says 'Father, father, pray for him, pray for him!' The priest says 'I will pray for him, but if he could punch it would help!' There's more insight in that joke, into what I call the giant so-what, than most books on philosophy.
-
Amanda: You're the only one I've ever dated who've known exactly what to get me. That's because you have a special vision of me.
[Jerry opens his present]
Jerry Falk: Ah, "No Exit" and "The Flies", Jean-Paul Sartre, that's amazing, thank you so much!
Amanda: It was between that and O'Neill. I couldn't decided whose nihilistic pessimism would make you happier.
Jerry Falk: You know I think it was Tennessee Williams who said that "the opposite of death is desire". And I desired you from the first moment we met.
-
Jerry Falk: The routine is fine, this guy's just in the wrong profession.
Harvey Wexler: That's what I told him. I said, "Look, Danny, you've been around for such a long time. You think there's a reason you never really made it?"
Jerry Falk: [to the camera] No tact. None.
Harvey Wexler: I said to him, I said, "A man buys a suit. He says he's happy with the suit. Then he goes around the corner, he sees another suit. Suddenly he doesn't want the suit he's got, he's not happy with it. He wants a new suit, he's not happy with the old one."
Jerry Falk: ...Right. Yeah, hey listen, I'm actually a little busy right now. Can I give you a ring back please?
Harvey Wexler: Look. I was up to NBC, there is nothing doin' up there. Not right now. Things being equal, they'll change. Right now, they're not equal. Look, I would like to have lunch with you this week. I need a business thing done. We have to talk. I got a little business thing I want to talk to you about.
Jerry Falk: What kind of business? What do you mean "business"? What do you want to talk - -?
Harvey Wexler: It's nothing to get anxious about. It's about the future. Goodbye!
[Harvey abruptly hangs up the phone]
-
Jerry Falk: Hey, what did you do? I wanted to grab the check.
David Dobel: No you didn't.
Jerry Falk: [stammering] What do you mean, no I didn't? Yes I did. I was grabbing the check, I wanted to take care of it.
David Dobel: Never trust a guy who fumbled for a check. You know, he who wants to get the check gets it. As you go through life when you really want to get the check you will find a way to get it.
-
David Dobel: You know, Falk, if a guy comes out onstage at Carnegie Hall and throws up, you can always find some people who will call it art.
-
Paula Chase: [after Dobel drops and breaks a lamp] Jesus, what a butterfingers!
-
Amanda: Jerry, don't be mad. Don't be mad. And don't be mad at Ron, he was just trying to help.
Jerry Falk: Of course he was. Ron? How could I be upset at Ron? In fact, remind me please to put him on my Christmas list if I can figure out how to make a letterbomb.
-
Harvey Wexler: I ran into Dick Mallory. He's working with a comic who needs material. I naturally told him your price. I said, you know, I told him what you get. The kid works dirty. A lot of bathroom jokes. I said, 'Look. Jerry Falk is a professional! If what you need is bathroom jokes, he can do them.'
Jerry Falk: Harvey?
Harvey Wexler: What's the matter with your voice?
-
Amanda: That's wonderful. You'll really knock 'em dead out there. Idiots who are total losers in New York, go to L.A. and become millionaires.
-
David Dobel: As you go through life, Falk, there will be no shortage of people who will tell you how to live. They'll have all the answers for you, what you should do, what you shouldn't do. Don't argue with them. You know, say "Yes, that's a brilliant, brilliant idea," and then do what you want. And whenever you're right, strive for originality. But if you have to steal, steal from the best. Oh, oh, and if you take very good care of your styptic pencil and dry it after every shave, it will last longer than most relationships that you're in.
-
Amanda: I told you, shrinks don't work for me, I know how to fool them.
-
Jerry Falk: Okay, alright, I want out of this relationship.
Amanda: Jerry, Jerry don't say that. Don't say that, you know I need you.
Jerry Falk: Need me? How can you need me when all of these positive feelings happen with everybody but me?
-
Jerry Falk: She's very supportive of my goals.
David Dobel: What goals? What are these goals?
Jerry Falk: I want to write a novel, Dobel. A novel about man's fate in the empty universe. No god. No hope. Just human suffering and loneliness.
David Dobel: Yeah, I would stick with the jokes, if I were you. That's where the money is.
-
David Dobel: That's funny, I was once in a cab, this was years ago, and I was pouring my heart out to the cab driver about all the stuff you were prattling on about a minute ago: life, death, the empty universe, the meaning of existence, human suffering, and the cab driver said to me, "You know, it's like anything else." Think about that.
-
Jerry Falk: You ate?
Amanda: I couldn't help it. I was starving when I got back from the audition. So, I had a little sliver of that Sara Lee cream cheese cake and then I had another one and you know what I'm like when I get started. Before I knew it, I had finished the whole cake.
Jerry Falk: You ate the whole Sara Lee cream cheese cake?
Amanda: And then I figured, what the hell, so I finished off the cold spaghetti in the refrigerator and I ate that last lobster tail and then I heated up some chicken pot pie.
Jerry Falk: Jesus, is there any furniture left in the house?
Amanda: I'm so fat. It's disgusting.
Jerry Falk: How could you eat right before dinner?
Amanda: I'm sorry. I was, I'm so angry at myself for screwing up. I couldn't help it.
Jerry Falk: You know, I reserved a corner booth.
Amanda: It's okay. You can order and I'll just get a club soda. I'm dieting anyway.
-
Amanda: What I love about Bogart is that he's so intensely urban. You know, the cigarette, the five o'clock shadow, always in some seedy nightclub.
Jerry Falk: Didn't I say that exact same thing, about, Frank Sinatra, actually. Urban! I even used the term.
-
Bob Stiles: In addition to acting, she's also a very good singer.
Amanda: I try to sing. But, then I hear someone like Billie Holiday and - forget about it.
Brooke: She's your favorite.
Jerry Falk: Favorite!
Amanda: But, you can't listen to the CDs right? They sterilize the sound.
Jerry Falk: Didn't I say that? It's exact - I absolutely agree with you. It totally sterilizes it. That's so funny.
-
Amanda: "My candle burns at both ends, It will not last the night."
Jerry Falk: Millay! Edna Millay! She's my favorite poet.
-
Brooke: Amanda's pretty, isn't she?
Jerry Falk: You know, she's okay, I suppose.
Brooke: Ah, you're drunk! I was looking at her face under that candlelight and she has this off-beat, sexual quality.
Jerry Falk: Yeah, I guess, if, if, you know, if you find that - that crippling sense of passionate heat behind those big eyes - sexy.
-
Jerry Falk: I'd love to hear you sing sometime.
Amanda: Oh, I can't sing publicly. I'm too fat.
Jerry Falk: Fat? Sorry, did you say fat?
Amanda: But, I have these new diet pills. They take away your appetite; but, they increase your sexual drive.
-
Jerry Falk: Oh, look at this record. Cole Porter. This is a fantastic - really pretty songs on here. Let me get you this as a little present. Can I do that? You know, I was actually listening to this last night and I thought of you.
Amanda: You were listening to Cole Porter and you thought of me? You must really have a crush on me.
Jerry Falk: I do.
Amanda: I'd say it's fatal.
[kiss]
-
Brooke: Where were you? It's ten o'clock.
Jerry Falk: Where? Well, eh, I - I - I had a meeting to go to.
Brooke: You smell from alcohol!
Jerry Falk: I do?
Brooke: My God, your tongue is black!
Jerry Falk: It's is? Well, eh, that's because I - I - I had some wine.
Brooke: Wine? Why, it's not passover?
-
Brooke: I don't believe you. Those marks on your back are bite marks. You think I believe you fell on your comb?
-
Amanda: What are you thinking about?
Jerry Falk: Everything. When we first met. When, when Brooke found out. Do you remember that? Remember when, eh, when we checked into that hotel as S. and Z. Fitzgerald. Or, how we, how we made love *everywhere*. God, everywhere. You know, when I think of all the - the risky places that lust overcame the two of us, it blows my mind.
Amanda: You know Fireside Memorial Chapel is a McDonalds now?
-
Jerry Falk: What do you mean you can't? It's not natural, Amanda. We never sleep with each other.
Amanda: Well, I told you. I'm going through a rough patch.
Jerry Falk: Yeah, I'll say. It's been six months!
Amanda: I said you could sleep with other women.
Jerry Falk: I - I don't love other women. I - I don't want to sleep with other women. I - I love you. What did I do - what did I do to turn you off? I don't - I don't get it.
Amanda: Nothing! You did nothing. God, why is it always about you? You have such an ego!
Jerry Falk: Ego?
Amanda: Well, what do you want me to do? Just, you know, grit my teeth, close my eyes, hold myself stiff and let you do it to me?
Jerry Falk: Well, you know, it's - it's getting to the point where I - I may settle for that.
Amanda: I mean, sometimes I think it's because you remind me of my father.
Jerry Falk: You know, you - you once told me that, eh, you thought your father was sexually attractive.
Amanda: Well, that's not the part of him that you remind me of.
-
Jerry Falk: She encourages me to sleep with other women.
David Dobel: Well, do it! For God's sake, you know, there must be a million women out there that would find it exciting to get into bed with you. You know, maybe not a million; but, I'm sure you could find one if you got her drunk enough.
-
Pip's Comic: Oh boy, I - I had a rough day. I got up and I put on a shirt and the button came off. And then I went to my car and opened the door and the handle came off. Now, I'm afraid to go to the bathroom!
-
David Dobel: Years ago, Falk, a very wonderful comedy writer wrote a very funny book, with a deep, a really deep and meaningful title. It was called, "Never Trust a Naked Bus Driver." Now, you would be amazed how many people do exactly that - and worse.
-
Dr. Phil Reed: So, if I push on your chest, here, do you feel any pain?
Amanda: Well, you know, it's right under the breast that I get a shooting kind of pain.
Dr. Phil Reed: You're left breast?
Amanda: Yes. Yes.
Dr. Phil Reed: Okay.
[continues with his hands-on examination]
-
David Dobel: They're all charlatans, Falk! My God! You know, since the beginning of time, people have been, you know, frightened and unhappy and they're scared of death and they're scared of getting old and there's always been priests around and shamans and now shrinks to tell them, "Look, I know you're frightened, but I can help you. Of course, it is going to cost you a few bucks." But, they can't help you, Falk; because, life is what it is.
-
Jerry Falk: You know, that road company James Dean was looking at you like you were a freshly baked cannoli.
-
Jerry Falk: If life is meaningless, then why chose to live? Dobel says we don't chose, our blood chooses for us. What does it all add up to if I die? Freud says sex and work. Dobel says work gives the illusion of meaning and sex gives the illusion on continuity.
-
Amanda: It is a maddening problem. Oh, we had to try *every* kind of foreplay!
-
Amanda: I'm back. But if you don't want me, I understand.
Jerry Falk: You're back?
Amanda: I couldn't be without you. I tried but I just couldn't.
Jerry Falk: You know, you didn't move in with your girlfriend April, like you said you did. I found out you went to Naples with Tony Hankin.
Amanda: Well, you can understand. He wanted me to go with him to Naples and Rome. It sounded so romantic. Those are all places that I've dreamed of and I thought that's what I wanted. But - I missed you too much.
Jerry Falk: But, of course, you made love with him.
Amanda: Yes. But, I thought of you. You were really the person I was making love to in Naples and in Florence, in Venice, on the airplane 40,000 feet in the air...
Jerry Falk: Okay, enough.
Amanda: Oh, yeah, and at the Vatican, all I could think about, while we were doing it, was how much you would love that ceiling! So, I'm back. I'm home.
-
Jerry Falk: We made love that night. It was wonderful. If only certain moments in life could last. Just stay frozen, like some old vase.
Anything Else Quotes
Extended Reading
