Cosmopolis Quotes

[repeated line]

Eric Packer: My prostate is asymmetrical.

Didi Fancher: I read about it of course, in the papers. Or did I see it on TV?

Eric Packer: What?

Didi Fancher: What? The wedding! What! Strange you didn't tell me.

Eric Packer: It's not so strange.

Didi Fancher: Not so strange... Two great fortunes, like one of those great arranged marriages.

Eric Packer: Except I'm a world citizen with a New York set of balls.

Eric Packer: For someone your age and your gifts, there's only one thing in the world worth pursuing both professionally and intellectually.

Michael Chin: What is it, Michael?

Eric Packer: The interaction between technology and capital, the inseparability.

Michael Chin: High school was the last true challenge.

Eric Packer: There's a poem I read in which a rat becomes the unit of currency.

Michael Chin: Yes, that would be interesting.

Eric Packer: Yeah, that would impact the world economy.

Michael Chin: The name alone, better than the dong or the kwacha.

Eric Packer: The name says everything.

Michael Chin: Yes. The rat.

Eric Packer: Yes, the rat close lower today against the euro.

Michael Chin: Yes, there's going concern that the Russian rat will be devalued.

Eric Packer: White rats, think about that.

Michael Chin: Yes, pregnant rats.

Eric Packer: Major sell-offs of pregnant Russian rats.

Michael Chin: Britain converts the rat.

Eric Packer: Joins trend to universal currency.

Michael Chin: Yes, US is establishing the rat standard.

Eric Packer: Is every US dollar redeemable for rat?

Michael Chin: Dead rats!

Eric Packer: Yes, stockpiling of dead rats called global health menace.

Eric Packer: I like your mother. You have your mother's breasts.

Elise Shifrin: Her breasts?

Eric Packer: Great, standup tits.

Elise Shifrin: Where were you going?

Eric Packer: To get a haircut.

Elise Shifrin: Do you need a haircut?

Eric Packer: I need anything you can give me.

Eric Packer: Richard.

Benno Levin: [shouting] I wanna be known as Benno!

[last lines]

Benno Levin: I want you to heal me, save me. I wanted you to save me.

[first lines]

Torval: Where?

Eric Packer: I wanna a haircut.

Torval: The president's in town.

Eric Packer: We don't care. We need a haircut. We need to go crosstown.

Torval: You will hit traffic that speaks in quarter inches.

Eric Packer: Just so I know. Which president are we talking about?

Torval: United States. Barriers will be set up. Entire streets deleted from the map.

Eric Packer: Show me my car.

Eric Packer: Holes are interesting. There are books about holes.

Benno Levin: There are books about... shit.

Eric Packer: Right! Why am I here?

Benno Levin: You have to tell me. Some kind of unexpected failure. Shocked with self esteem.

Eric Packer: What's the code?

Torval: Nancy Babitch.

[the gun unloads and Eric shoots him]

Vija Kinsky: [on the protests] It's unoriginal.

Eric Packer: What's original?

Elise Shifrin: I like taxis. I was never good at geography, and I learn things by asking the drivers where they come from.

Eric Packer: They come from horror and despair.

Elise Shifrin: Yes, exactly. One learns about the countries where unrest is occurring by riding the taxis here.

Eric Packer: You eat breakfast yet?

Elise Shifrin: No.

Eric Packer: Good, I'm hungry for something thick and chewy.

Eric Packer: [while undergoing a prostate exam] Oh, that whole sad business of Judeo-Christian jogging. You were not born to run. Look at you, I know what you are. You're slouch-bodied, smelly and wet. A woman who was born to sit strapped in a chair, while a man tells her how much she excites him.

Jane Melman: [breathlessly] How come we've never spent this kind of time together?

Dr. Ingram: [finishing up] Your prostate is asymmetrical.

Vija Kinsky: What is the flaw of human rationality?

Eric Packer: What?

Vija Kinsky: It pretends not to see the horror and death at the end of the schemes it builds. This is a protest against the future. They won't hold off the future. They want to normalize it, keep it from overwhelming the present. The future is always a wholeness, a sameness, we're all tall and happy there. This is why the future fails. It can never be the cool and happy place we want to make it.

Vija Kinsky: People will not die. Isn't this the creed of the new culture? People will be absorbed in streams of information. I know nothing about this. Computers will die. They're dying in their present form. They're just about dead as distinct units. A box, a screen, a keyboard, are melting into the texture of everyday life. Is this not true?

Eric Packer: Even the word "computer"...

Vija Kinsky: Even the word "computer" sounds backward and dumb.

Eric Packer: You smoke since when?

Elise Shifrin: I took it up when I was 15. It's one of those things a girl picks up - tells her she's more than a skinny body that no one looks at. There's a certain drama in her life.

Eric Packer: She notices herself, then other people notice her, and she marries one of them, and they go to dinner.

Eric Packer: How old are you? I'm interested.

Benno Levin: Do you think people like me can't happen?

Eric Packer: How old?

Benno Levin: We happen... 41.

Eric Packer: A prime number.

Benno Levin: But not an interesting one.

Benno Levin: You try to predict movements by drawing on patterns in nature. Yes, of course, the mathematical properties of tree rings, sunflower seeds, the limbs of galactic spirals. I learned this. I loved the cross harmonies between nature and data. You taught me this. You made this form of analysis horribly and sadistically precise. But you forgot something along the way.

Eric Packer: What?

Benno Levin: The importance of the lopsided. The thing that's skewed a little. You were looking for balance - beautiful balance, equals parts, equal sides, I know this. I know you.

Elise Shifrin: You were just in Singapore.

Eric Packer: What makes you say that?

Elise Shifrin: I can smell it. Every country in the world has its own distinct odor and yours is of Singapore.

Eric Packer: Then would you kindly relate to me just what Singapore is supposed to smell like?

Elise Shifrin: Fish mostly, and sickeningly sweet air-freshener.

Eric Packer: I was at a fish-market, the one located on 48th street, sandwiched between the used tissue dealership and the asbestos teddy-bear factory.

Elise Shifrin: No, you weren't; you smell specifically of Singaporean fish. I know singaporean fish when I smell them... Dinosaurs.

Eric Packer: They have blueberry pie in Singapore. A uniquely American dish. There's cream in blueberry pie, but it's more often referred to as slurry. Slurry is what cream is called when it's being harbored in pie-crust. I generally prefer to simply refer to it as pie-filling as I find words like slurry to be most unappetizing.

Elise Shifrin: I need a haircut.

Eric Packer: Rats have been used as currency ever since the extinction of the hamster. This is the only explanation for how Jerry Lewis became so well respected in France.

Elise Shifrin: France smells of shower currents.

Eric Packer: I didn't ask you what France smelled like.

Elise Shifrin: Whether or not asked the question is irrelevant as I have already informed you of the answer. There is no way to reverse this. Your best hope for survival is to eliminate the future for only when the future has been eradicated we can ever hope to reincarnate the past as a means of elongating the present. Then, and only then can mankind have the ideal place in which to store his pet rock collection.

Eric Packer: I used to love brown rice.

Elise Shifrin: You have just reminded me; I've yet to start writing the speech I promised Sara Palin.

Eric Packer: Since when were you ever a speech writer?

Elise Shifrin: It started when I was a bluejay still attending kindergarten at Harvard. I tiptoed through the tulips exactly the way Tiny Tim instructed. Latter it would be my misfortune to find out that he never actually write those lyrics. The betrayal is too much to bear and yet I remain emotionless - Haircuts.

Eric Packer: Fuck haircuts! It's the mighty pomegranate that contains much needed antioxidants... Potatoes!

Didi Fancher: [while having sex] Oh, fuck! Was I expecing you?

Eric Packer: I was just passing by.

Didi Fancher: Thought you'd drop in, did you? That's nice. I'm glad. I missed that thick cock of yours.

Eric Packer: God! Didi, slow down! You're gonna make me finish early!

Didi Fancher: I guess you can say you couldn't handle this pussy.

Eric Packer: You know I can't.

Didi Fancher: [He climaxes] I actually read about it. The wedding, you know. Or did I saw it on TV? Strange you didn't tell me. But, nevermind.