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Nicole: I never really came alive for myself; I was only feeding his aliveness.
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Henry: Dad, are you ok?
Charlie: Yeah, I'm just tired
Henry: Dad, did she like us?
Charlie: Yeah, she thought we were great
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Bert Spitz: Getting divorced with a kid is one of the hardest things to do. It's like a death without a body.
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Ted: Criminal lawyers see bad people at their best, divorce lawyers see good people at their worst
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Nora Fanshaw: Where do you want to live now, doll?
Nicole: Well, I'm here now, obviously. I don't know if the show will get picked up. It feels like home. It is home. It's the only home I've ever known without Charlie.
Nora Fanshaw: You want to stay here?
Nicole: Charlie's not going to want that. He hates LA.
Nora Fanshaw: We're interested in what you want to do. What you're doing is an act of hope. You understand that?
Nicole: Yeah.
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Charlie: Will we go to court?
Bert Spitz: No. No, we don't want to go to court. Courts in California are a disaster, and that's just how we have to think about it. I'm not sure these are my glasses. Where are you living while you're out here?
Charlie: In a hotel right now.
Bert Spitz: A hotel doesn't look good.
Charlie: To who?
Bert Spitz: The court.
Charlie: You just said we weren't going to go to court.
Bert Spitz: No, of course. Of course. We have to prepare to go to court hoping we don't go to court.
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Charlie: We didn't have a deal it was something we discussed.
Nora Fanshaw: So it's a deal when it's something you want. And a discussion when Nicole wants it?
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Nicole: Anyway... .Shall we try this?
Charlie: Ok
Charlie: I don't know how to start...
Nicole: Do you understand why I want to stay in LA?
Charlie: No.
Nicole: Well, that's not... Charlie, that's not a useful way for us to start...
Charlie: I don't understand it.
Nicole: You don't remember promising that we could do time out there?
Charlie: We discussed things. We were married, we said things. We talked about moving to Europe, about getting a sideboard or what do you call it, a credenza, to fill that empty space behind the couch. We never did any of it.
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Nicole: [while arguing with Charlie] You're being so much like your father.
Charlie: Do not compare me to my father!
Nicole: I didn't compare you to him. I said you were acting like him.
Charlie: You're exactly like your mother. Everything you were complaining about her, you're doing. You're suffocating Henry.
Nicole: First of all, I love my mother. She was a wonderful mother.
Charlie: I'm just repeating what you told me.
Nicole: Secondly, how dare you compare my mothering to my mother! I may be like my father, but I am not like my mother!
Charlie: You are! And you're like my father! You're also like my mother! You're all the bad things about all of these people! But mostly your mother.
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Nora Fanshaw: People don't accept mothers who drink too much wine and yell at their child and call him an asshole. I get it. I do it too. We can accept an imperfect dad. Let's face it, the idea of a good father was only invented like 30 years ago. Before that, fathers were expected to be silent and absent and unreliable and selfish, and can all say we want them to be different. But on some basic level, we accept them. We love them for their fallibilities, but people absolutely don't accept those same failings in mothers. We don't accept it structurally and we don't accept it spiritually. Because the basis of our Judeo-Christian whatever is Mary, Mother of Jesus, and she's perfect. She's a virgin who gives birth, unwaveringly supports her child and holds his dead body when he's gone. And the dad isn't there. He didn't even do the fucking. God is in heaven. God is the father and God didn't show up. So, you have to be perfect, and Charlie can be a fuck up and it doesn't matter. You will always be held to a different, higher standard. And it's fucked up, but that's the way it is.
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Bert Spitz: You know what this is like? This is like that joke about the woman at the hairdresser, she's going to Rome. You know this?
Charlie: I don't.
Bert Spitz: This woman is at her hairdresser, and she says, "I'm going to Rome on Holiday." And he says, "Oh, really? What airline are you taking?" She says, "Alitalia." He says, "Alitalia? Are you crazy? That's the worst - that's terrible. Don't take that. Where you gonna stay?" She says, "I'm gonna stay at the Hassler." "The Hassler? What, are you kidding? They're renovating the Hassler. You'll hear hammering all night long. You won't sleep. What are you gonna see?" She says, "I think I'm gonna try to go the Vatican." "The Vatican? You'll be standing in line all day long. You'll never get to see anything."
Charlie: I'm sorry, Bert, am I paying for this joke?
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Nicole: You shouldn't have fired Bert.
Charlie: I needed my own asshole.
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Bert Spitz: I want you to know that eventually this will all be over and whatever we win or lose..it will be the two of you having to figure this out together
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Frank: Charlie, what you're going through now is going to be horrible, but it will be over. Fuck as many people as you can right now. Women, men. Take what I said seriously.
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Bert Spitz: And keep in mind, you'll have to pay for her lawyer. It doesn't make sense, does it? I mean, you're doing this because you love your kid. And in doing so, you're draining money from your kid's education.
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Charlie: You shouldn't be upset that I fucked her You should be upset that I had a laugh with her!
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Charlie: [Reading Nicole's letter to Henry] I fell in love with him two seconds after I saw him. And I'll never stop loving him, even though it doesn't make sense anymore.
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Nicole: You're such a dick!
Charlie: Everyday I wake up and I hope you're dead! Dead, like, If I could guarantee Henry would be OK, I'd hope you get an illness and then get hit by a car and die!
[He begins weeping, and then falls to his knees]
Charlie: [Through tears] I'm sorry.
Nicole: [Comforting him] Me too.
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Nicole: You should've considered my happiness too.
Charlie: Come on! You *were* happy. You've just decided that you weren't now.
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Charlie: You don't want a voice, you just wanna fucking complaint about not having a voice.
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Sandra: Even though I am 64 and have a dead gay husband, I manage to get up every day, live my life and feel pretty good about it.
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Charlie: You'll never be happy, in LA or anywhere. You'll think you found some better opposite guy than me, and in a few years you'll rebel against him, because you need to have your voice, but you don't want a voice. You just want to fucking complain about not having a voice !
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Charlie: You want to present yourself as a victim because it's a good legal strategy. Fine, but you and i both know you chose this life ! You wanted it until you didn't. You used me so you could get out of LA.
Nicole: I didn't use you.
Charlie: You did, and then you blamed me for it ! You always made me aware of what i was doing wrong, how i was falling short !
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Jay Marotta: Nora, i like how you refer to Charlie's theater as a ramshackle downtown dump when you're arguing custody, but when you want more money, he's a big, rich, genius Broadway director. You can't have it both ways.
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Jay Marotta: If we start from a place of reasonable and they start from a place of crazy when we settle we'll be somewhere between reasonable and crazy!
Marriage Story Quotes
Extended Reading
