Quote of the day

[iambiguous]

Notes on a Scandal

[after her affair has become public knowledge, Sheba has moved out of her home and is staying with Barbara]
Barbara Covett: [voiceover] This last month has been the most delicious time of my life. Of course we have had our ups and downs. The pressure is intense when two women share their lives. But, oh, but what marvellous intensity it is! Circumstances are not always ideal. The swinish press, the stringent bail terms, meetings with lawyers and so on. But all things considered, we're coping admirably. In fact, gold stars abundant. The cuckold permits her to see their children once a week. Thee are usually tears and fits of teenage tantrums, too. In time she'll recognise she's just not the mothering kind, and then Barbara will be there to comfort her. Nurse, beloved friend and wise counsel.

That's what we need to dispense here...gold stars.
And views of course.

Sheba Hart: This is going to sound sick, but something in me felt...entitled. You know, I've been good all my adult life. I've been a decent wife, a dutiful mother coping with Ben. This voice inside me kept saying "why shouldn't you be bad, why shouldn't you transgress? I mean, you've earned the right."

Sex and the voice inside you.

Barbara Covett: When I was young I had such a vision of myself. I dreamed I'd be someone to be reckoned with, you know, in the world. But one learns one's scale.

I sure did.

Richard Hart: I knew who you were when we met. You were young. I knew it might get tough, but I was prepared. You're a good mother, but at times you've been a fucking lousy wife. Why didn't you come to me? You could have told me how lonely you were. You never trusted me to help you. I'm not saying I was so fucking fabulous, but I was here.

But still old enough to be her father.

Sheba Hart: My father always used to say... you know, on the tube..."Mind the gap".
Barbara Covett: Oh um...
Sheba Hart: I don't know...it's just the distance between life as you dream it, and life as it is.
Barbara Covett: I know exactly what you mean.

Next up: the gaps to mind -- mine? -- here.

Sheba Hart: I hadn't been pursued like this for years... I knew it was wrong, and immoral, and completely ridiculous, but, I don't know. I just allowed it to happen.
Barbara Covett: The boy is fifteen!
Sheba Hart: But he's quite mature for his age!

There's always that, right?

[iambiguous]

Carnage

Alan Cowan: [to Penelope] I saw your friend Jane Fonda on TV the other day. Made me want to run out and buy a Ku Klux Klan poster.

Right, like she hadn't sold out years ago.

Alan Cowan: Penelope, I believe in the god of carnage. The god whose rule's been unchallenged since time immemorial.

Like father like son?

Nancy Cowan: At least our kid isn't a little wimpy-ass faggot!
Penelope Longstreet: Yours is a fucking snitch!

Carnage let's call it.

Michael Longstreet: What happened to your sense of humor?
Penelope Longstreet: I don't have a sense of humor and I don't want one!

Lots of folks like that here too.

Penelope Longstreet: [to Alan] Don't you tell me about Africa. I know all about suffering in Africa!

It is, after all, a black comedy.

Michael Longstreet: I am a short-tempered son of a bitch, okay?
Alan Cowan: We all are.

You sort of have to be these days, right?

[iambiguous]

Shane

Marian [in Grafton’s holding a jar used to preserve fruit]: My, my what will they think up next.

Uh, smart phones?

Shane: Joey…you let me take it in.

That empty "soda pop" bottle.

Joey: Shane, come on!
Shane: Joey, get out of here.
Joey: But, Shane, there’s too many.
Shane: You wouldn’t want me to run away, would you?
Joey: But there’s too many, Shane.
Shane: Go on, son, please.

Joe evens the odds as it were.

Marian: This turpentine’ll hurt.
Joey: He wouldn’t say nothing. No matter how much it hurt. Would you, Shane?
Shane: I’m afraid I would, Joey, if it hurt bad enough.

He barely flinches of course.

Marian: Joey.
Joey: Yes?
Marian: Don’t get to liking Shane too much.
Joey: Why not?
Marian: I don’t want you to.
Joey: Is there anything wrong with him?
Marian: No.
Joey: Then what, Mother?
Marian: He’ll be moving on one day, Joey. You’ll be upset, if you get to liking him too much.

How about you, Ma?

Joey: You wanna know something, Mother?
Marian: What is it, Joey?
Joey [motioning to his mother to come to him]: Mother, I just love Shane.
Marian: Do you?
Joey: I love him almost as much as I love Pa. That’s all right, isn’t it?
Marian: He’s a fine man.
Joey: He’s so good. Don’t you like him, Mother?
Marian: Yes, I like him, too, Joey.

Woke?

[iambiguous]

Time

“Time that withers you will wither me. We will fall like ripe fruit and roll down the grass together. Dear friend, let me lie beside you watching the clouds until the earth covers us and we are gone.” Jeanette Winterson

How...poignant?

“Time moves slowly, but passes quickly.” Alice Walker

Not to mention the other way around.

“An infinity of passion can be contained in one minute, like a crowd in a small space.” Gustave Flaubert

Clearly [or not], for better or for worse.

“When you are measuring life, you are not living it.” Mitch Albom

Unless you measure it for a living?

“Time and I have quarreled. All hours are midnight now. I had a clock and a watch, but I destroyed them both. I could not bear the way they mocked me.” Susanna Clarke

That sound you hear is time snickering.

“Time goes faster the more hollow it is. Lives with no meaning go straight past you, like trains that don’t stop at your station.” Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Next up: time and bots.

[iambiguous]

Carnage

Alan: Penelope, I believe in the god of carnage, the god whose rules been unchallenged since time immemorial. See, I just got back from the Congo. They got kids there trained to kill at the age of 8. In the course of their childhood, they might kill hundreds of people. They kill with a machete, a shotgun, Kalash, a thumper. So, obviously, when my kid busts some other kid’s tooth, even two teeth with a bamboo switch by the sandbox, I’m not quite as shocked and indignant as you are.
Penelope: Well, you should be.
Michael: Thumper?
Alan: What they call a grenade launcher.

Next up: the equivalent of thumpers [and bazookas] here.

Penelope: I’m sure your son is not a maniac.
Nancy: No, Zachary is not a manic.
Alan: Yes, he is.
Nancy: Alan, don’t be an idiot. Why are you saying that.
Alan: Because he is a maniac.

Too close to call?

Penelope: Are you planning on sanctioning Zachary in any way? You two can have your plumbing discussion some other time.
Nancy: If we decide to reprimand our child, we’ll do it in our own way and on our own terms.
Michael: Absolutely.
Penelope: Why absolutely?
Michael: It’s their kid. They’re free to do as they see fit.
Penelope: Well, I don’t agree.
Michael: You don’t agree about what, Penny?
Penelope: They’re not free.
Alan: Oh, is that right?

And then it all just keeps unravelling.

Michael: Their son beats the shit out of Ethan, and you’re in my face over a hamster?
Penelope: What you did to that hamster was wrong. You can’t deny that.
Michael: I DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE HAMSTER!!
Penelope: You’re gonna give a shit when your daughter gets home!
Michael: Bring her on. I’m not going to be told how to act by some 9 year old snot-nosed brat.

And they're just getting started.

Michael: We’re born alone and we die alone. Who wants a little scotch?

Sounds like something Alan would say.

Michael: Give it a fucking rest, Penelope. Enough with this politically correct bullshit!
Penelope: Which I believe in.
Michael: That you believe. You believe. This crush you got on these Sudan sambos is spilling over into everything now!
Penelope: I’m horrified. How could you be so openly despicable?
Michael: Because I feel like it. I feel like being openly despicable.
Penelope: One day you will understand the sheer horror of what’s happening in that part of the world and you will be ashamed…ashamed of your contemptibly nihilistic attitude.

By this time you are starting to feel a bit uneasy. It’s just a comedy, however black. But laughter somehow doesn’t seem all that… appropriate?

Nancy: We come over here to work things out with them and they insult us, they browbeat us, they lecture us about being good citizens of the planet. I am glad our son kicked the shit out of your son and I wipe my ass with your human rights!

Based on a true story?

[iambiguous]

God

“Anybody who thinks there's nothing wrong with this world needs to have his head examined. Just when things are going all right, without fail someone or something will come along and spoil everything. Somebody should write that down as a fundamental law of the Universe. The principle of perpetual disappointment. If there is a God who created this world, He should scrap it and try again.” Athol Fugard

Someone run that by Him, okay?

“Oh,' the priest said, 'that's another thing altogether - God is love. I don't say the heart doesn't feel a taste of it, but what a taste. The smallest glass of love mixed with a pint pot of ditch-water. We wouldn't recognize that love. It might even look like hate. It would be enough to scare us - God's love. It set fire to a bush in the desert, didn't it, and smashed open graves and set the dead walking in the dark. Oh, a man like me would run a mile to get away if he felt that love around.” Graham Greene

I guess we'll never really know.

“It is far more comforting to think God listened and said no, than to think that nobody’s out there.” Mitch Albom

My own point over and again.

“Tear your heart out of your chest. And hand it to God. There is no other healing. I swear, there is no other healing.” Yasmin Mogahed

Some being more ludicrous about God than others.

“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the Republican party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.” Barry Goldwater

Imagine his reaction to Trump then.

“God will judge us, Mr. Harris, by--by what we did to relieve the suffering of our fellow human beings. I don't think God cares what doctrine we embrace.” Abraham Verghese

Next up: all the terrible suffering He causes among our fellow human beings.

[iambiguous]

The Last Emperor

Attendent:You are the Lord of Ten Thousand Years.
Puyi: I am the Son of Heaven! I am the Son of Heaven!

Well, sort of.

Brother: Is it true that you can do whatever you want?
Puyi: Of course I can. If I am naughty someone else is punished. One of them.

Tell that to the Communists.

Puyi: Why are you wearing that? You are not allowed to wear yellow. Only the Emperor can wear that yellow. Take it off.
Brother: No.
Puyi: Take it off!
Brother: No, and you’re not the Emperor any more. There is a new Emperor now. He has cut off his queue. And instead of a camel he has got a car.
Puyi: What did you say?
Brother: You’re not the Emperor. You’re not the Emperor any more.
Puyi: How dare you. [to his attendent] Am I the Emperor or not?
Attendent: Your Majesty will always be the Emperor
Puyi: You see.
Brother: Prove it.
Puyi [to attendent]: Drink it. Go on, drink the green ink.

Kids!

Governnor: This is the detention centre of the Fushun Bureau of Public Security and I am the Governer. During the war this was a Japanese prison. Many of you may remember it because you worked with the Japanese. You were responsible for building it and you filled it with innocent people How could this happen? Why did you betray your country? What turned you into war criminals? We believe that men are born good. We believe that the only way to change is to discover the truth and look at it in the face. That is why you are here. You will begin by writing the story of your lives and by confessing your crimes. Your salvation will lie entirely in the attitude you take. I advise you to be frank and sincere. Otherwise things can still go very badly for you.

Sound familiar?

Johnston: Words are important.
Puyi, at 15: Why are words important?
Johnston: If you cannot say what you mean, your majesty, you will never mean what you say and a gentleman should always mean what he says.

Right, like that makes it rational.

Puyi: Is it true, Mr. Johnston, that many people out there have had their heads cut off?
Johnston: It is true, your majesty. Many heads have been chopped off. It does stop them thinking/

Chop a few off here?

[iambiguous]

Shane

Joey: They cut Mr Wright’s fence and Mr Shipstead’s, too.
Shane: They did?
Joey: Shane, what would you do if you caught them cutting our fence?
Shane: I’d ask them to please go around by the gate.
Joey: Aw, Shane!

He settles for blasting them away.

Joey: Gosh! Is that what real gunfighters do?
Shane: No, Joey. Most of them have tricks of their own. One, for instance, likes a shoulder holster. Another one puts it in the belt of his pants. And some like two guns. But one’s all you need if you can use it…

Next up: the wordslingers here.

Joe: You’ve made things hard for us, and we being in the right.
Ryker: Right? You in the right? When I came to this country, you weren’t much older than your boy. We had rough times. Me and other men that are mostly dead now. I got a bad shoulder yet from a Cheyenne arrowhead. We made this country, we found it and we made it, with blood and empty bellies. Cattle we brought in were hazed off by Indians and rustlers. They don’t bother you much any more because we handled 'em. We made a safe range out of this. Some of us died doing it, but we made it. Then people move in who never had to raw-hide it through the old days. They fence off my range and fence me off from water. Some of them plough ditches, take out irrigation water. So the creek runs dry sometimes and I gotta move my stock because of it. And you say we have no right to the range. The men that did the work and ran the risks have no rights? I take you for a fair man, Starrett.
Joe: I’m not belittling what you did, but you didn’t find this country. There were trappers here and Indian traders before you. They tamed this country more than you did.
Ryker: They weren’t ranchers.
Joe: You talk about rights.You think you got the right to say nobody else has got any.

How absurd would it seem to either one of them to raise the issue of rights for the Indians they stole the land from.

Joe: Torrey was a pretty brave man. We’d be doing wrong if we wasn’t the same.
Fred: Last time you argued that, Torrey was alive. You want us to stay for more of this?
Joe: We can have a regular settlement. We can have a town, and churches and a school…
Fred: Graveyards?
Joe: I don’t know. You’ve just got to, that’s all.
Shane: He wants you to stay for something that means more than anything. Your families. Your wives and kids. Like you, Lewis, your girls, and Shipstead with his boys. They’ve got a right to stay here and grow up and be happy. It’s up to you people to have nerve enough to not give it up.
Joe: That’s right. We can’t give up this valley and we ain’t gonna do it. This is farming country, a place for people to bring up their families. Who’s Ryker to run us away from our own homes? He only wants to grow beef, and we want to grow families, to grow them good and strong, the way they were meant to be grown. God didn’t make all this country just for one man like Ryker.
Fred: He’s got it though, and that’s what counts.

Tell that to Native Americans?

Chris: Shane.
Shane: Who is it?
Chris: Calloway. Chris Calloway.
Shane: Stay where you are. I can drill you.
Chris: Hold it, I got something to tell you.
Shane: What do you want?
Chris: Starrett’s up against a stacked deck.
Shane: Why are you telling me?
Chris: I reckon something’s come over me.
Shane: I don’t figure.
Chris: I’m quitting Ryker. So long.
Shane: Chris.Thanks.

I always loved this scene.

Marian: You’re both out of your senses. This isn’t worth a life. Are you fighting for this shack, this ground and nothing but work? I’m sick of it, I’m sick of trouble. Let’s move, let’s go on, please!
Joe: Marian, don’t say that! That ain’t the truth. You love this place more than me.
Marian: Not any more.
Joe: Even if it’s true, it changes nothing.

Of course, it ends up changing everything eventually.

Joey: Was that him? Was that Wilson?
Shane: That was him. That was Wilson, all right, he was fast, fast on the draw.

But scripts are scripts.

[iambiguous]

Notes On A Scandal

Sheba Hart: When you started teaching, didn't you want to give them a real education to help overcome...the poverty of their backgrounds?
Barbara Covett: Oh yes, of course. But one soon learns that teaching is crowd control. We're a branch of the social services.
Sue Hodge: Console yourself with the gems. That's when it's satisfying. Then you can make a real difference.
Barbara Covett: The rest is just cattle-prod and pray.

At least until the workers of the world unite.

[Sheba has just admitted to her affair with Steven]
Barbara Covett: [voiceover] And then I realised my fury had blinded me. There was a magnificent opportunity here. With stealth, I might secure the prize long-term, forever in my debt. I could gain everything by doing nothing.

Next up: losing everything instead.

Sheba Hart: We never invited you to the fucking Dordogne!
Barbara Covett: I'm sorry, but you specifically said if I happened to be in France I should drop in.
Sheba Hart: We didn't mean it!
Barbara Covett: Well, fine. I won't come then.

Slowly, but surely, reality itself begins to dawn on her.

Steven Connolly: [throws cigarette] They're going to expel me now!
Sheba Hart: No, they won't. I'll get the blame if she tells.
Steven Connolly: As if she won't!
Sheba Hart: She - likes me, she might not.
Steven Connolly: She likes you, huh? Like that? You givin' her one and all?
Sheba Hart: Why are you being so cruel? Why, Steven?
Steven Connolly: I really like you. You're a nice person, and you've been cool, and it's been great, okay? But it's supposed to be fun. Now it's a serious thing. Whatever shit you're working out, you know, with your husband, your kid, you - I don't know. I can't help you.

After all, he's got his own family "problems".

Barbara Covett: Judas had the dignity to hang himself, but only according to Matthew, the most sentimental of the apostles.

Someone run this by IC, please.

Headmaster [holding a single sheet of paper]: This is your report on the history department? On its entire workings?
Barbara: You’ll find it’s quite thorough, Headmaster.
Headmaster [reading the report out loud]: “The history department functions much as one would expect for a school of this stature and intake. Examination results have been consistent for 30 years: below the national average but above the level of catastrophe. Recommendation: no change necessary”.
Barbara: Took me most of the summer to write it.

And note the gold star on it.

Sheba: What you say about me, about Richard - you’re not fit to shine his shoes. And Ben, and Polly, that I’d be happier without them. Why did you do it?
[slaps Barbara]
Sheba: Because I didn’t help you collect your cat?!
[slaps Barbara again]
Sheba: You’ve cost me my family!

It's all her fault?
Though, sure, point taken.

Barbara: You know it’s rude to read a person’s diary, it’s private!
Sheba: We’re not companions! We’re not friends! You don’t even like me!
Barbara: That’s not true, I only have tender feelings for you, only love!
Sheba: You’re barking, fucking mad. You don’t know how to love. You have never, your whole life. Me, Jennifer Dodd. You’re nothing but waste and disappointment! You bitter old virgin. You’re lonely for a reason. They loathed you at school, all of them. I was the idiot who bothered, but only because no one told me you’re a fucking vampire! So what is it, Bar? You want to roll around the floor like lovers? You want to fuck me, Barbara?

Oh, yeah.

Barbara: I’m Barbara.
Annabel: Annabel
Barbara: I wonder, Annabel, do you like music?
Annabel: Oh, yes.
Barbara: Uh, it’s just that I’ve got tickets for Handel’s Water Music at the Albert Hall.
Annabel: Oh.
Barbara: On Saturday night. You could bring a friend if there’s, uh, someone.
Annabel: Oh, no. Oh, no. There isn’t.
Barbara: Well, there we are.

Actually, here we go again: the next victim.

[iambiguous]

Madness

“I have studiously tried to avoid ever using the word 'madness' to describe my condition. Now and again, the word slips out, but I hate it. 'Madness' is too glamorous a term to convey what happens to most people who are losing their minds. That word is too exciting, too literary, too interesting in its connotations, to convey the boredom, the slowness, the dreariness, the dampness of depression.” Elizabeth Wurtzel

Darkness visible, let's call it.

“Who but the mad would choose to keep on living?” Libba Bray

Now that's a good point, right?

“Suddenly, madness was everywhere, and I was determined to learn about the impact it had on the way society evolves. I've always believed society to be a fundamentally rational thing, but what if it isn't? What if it is built on insanity?” Jon Ronson

Or in "knots" as some would describe it.

“A great many men are mad, and no one knows it. They do not know it themselves” Agatha Christie

Or they do and take full advantage of it.

“I ask this one thing: let me go mad in my own way.” Sophocles

Ask it of who, though?

“You people would convict a grilled cheese sandwich of murder and the people wouldn’t question it.” Charles Manson

Next up: accusing a grilled cheese sandwich of being a Nazi.

[iambiguous]

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Tereza: I know I'm supposed to help you, but I can't. Instead of being your support I'm your weight. Life is very heavy to me, but it is so light to you. I can't bear this lightness, this freedom...I'm not strong enough.

Or gullible enough.

Tereza: I don't understand how someone can make love without being in love.

Call it fucking?

Tomas: I must go.
Sabina: Don't you ever spend the night at the woman's place?
Tomas: Never!
Sabina: What about when the woman's at your place?
Tomas: I tell her I have insomnia...anything. Besides, I have a very narrow bed.
Sabina: Are you afraid of women, Doctor?
Tomas: Of course.

If you know what he means. Though even he doesn't as often as not.

Chief Surgeon: Tomas? They called from Geneva. They are still offering you that job.
Tomas: Why should I go to Geneva? Everything’s fine here.
Chief Surgeon: Well… I hope so. You think the Russians won’t interfere? Think about what happened in Hungary.
Jiri: They couldn’t. The world wouldn’t allow it. Besides, we have socialism with a human face. Who could be against it?

"The world wouldn't all it".

Tomas [to Sabina]: If I had two lives…with one, I’d have her stay at my place. With the other, I’d kick her out. Then I’d compare and see which was best. But we only live once. Life’s so light…like an outline we can’t ever fill in or correct. It’s frightening.

And then one day, for some, unbearable.

State official [marrying Tomas and Tereza]: I have to tell you this. Don’t think a life is a walk on a sunny meadow. Life isn’t a walk on a sunny meadow, and life isn’t a walk on a rose garden. Our socialist country has done much for you. Now it’s up to you.
[Mephisto the pig causes a commotion]
State official: I make you laugh?
Tomas: No… no.
Official: You are laughing at me?
Tomas: I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
Offical: I refuse to go on. In this country, is nothing sacred anymore? If you can’t be serious, you don’t deserve to be married!

I think this is an important scene in differentiating the old from the new. Who are they laughing at—the pig or the official’s authority?

Tomas: Tereza, what are you talking about?
Tereza: I know you see other women. I know it! You can’t hide it from me. Every day, I try to tell myself, “Well, it’s nothing. It’s not important. He’s just playing around. He can’t resist it. But he loves me. I’m sure about that. He loves me. He loves me!” But I can’t stand it. I tried hard. I just can’t. Take me to them. Don’t leave me alone!
Tomas: Tereza, calm down. Stop talking. Try to sleep. You need some sleep now.
Tereza: I don’t want to sleep. You’re tired of me. I know that. I can see it in your eyes.

But of course: She is wrong. He wants her. He wants them. Always both. And then the tanks come. How brave would you be?

[iambiguous]

Zadie Smith from On Beauty

Rarely does one see a squirrel tremble.

Now that I think about it...

Most of the cruelty in the world is just misplaced energy.

Might that include yours?

It was in the shady groves of dictionaries that Jack fell in love.

With definitions?

But he had underestimated the strangeness of talking about the future of his life with someone for whom the future still seemed unbounded: a pleasure palace of choices, with infinite doors, in which only a fool would spend his time trapped in one room.

Unless of course that's the only option.

The planet is finished with us, at this point...

Does the planet know that?

Nobody can cast themselves out.

I come closer than most, I suspect.

[iambiguous]

The Last Emperor

Emperor Pu Yi: The Forbidden City had become a theater without an audience. So, why did the actors remain on the stage?

Subsistence?

Pu Yi, at 15: I want a modern wife, Johnston, who speaks English and French! And who can dance the quickstep!

All the way to the reeducation camp, for example.

Pu Yi (3 years): Is it true I can do anything I want?
Big Foot: Of course, Your Majesty!

Liar!

The Governor: Your salvation will lie entirely in the attitude you take!

Well, on this side of the grave, anyway.

Amakasu: When an Englishman robs someone, Your Majesty, he becomes a gentleman. If he robs a lot, he becomes a knight. Do you imagine the British run their Empire as a charity? If India has to pay for the cost of its own occupation, so must Manchukuo.

Ah, the real world.

Wen Hsiu: I do not want to be your mistress any longer.
Emperor Pu Yi: I thought you were my secondary consort.
Wen Hsiu: In the Forbidden City, you were the Emperor and I was a secondary consort. But now you are Henry Pu Yi. Wan Jung is your wife, Elizabeth. And who am I? I'm nobody.

She does have a point, of course.

[iambiguous]

Scent of a Woman

[Charlie refused to come clean with the names of the students responsible for the prank; Mr. Trask is furious]
Mr. Trask: [furious] I am left with no real witness. Mr. Willis's testimony is not only vague, it is unsubstantiated. The substance I was looking for, Mr. Simms, was to come from you.
Charlie Simms: [remorseful] I'm sorry.
Mr. Trask: I'm sorry too, Mr. Simms, because you know what I am going to do. In as much as I can't punish Mr. Havemeyer, Mr. Potter, or Mr. Jameson, and I won't punish Mr. Willis. He's the only party to this incident who is still worthy of calling himself a Baird man. I'm going to recommend to the disciplinary committee that you be expelled. Mr. Simms, you are a cover-up artist and you are a liar.
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: But not a snitch.
Mr. Trask: Excuse me?
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: No, I don't think I will.
Mr. Trask: Mr. Slade...
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: This is such a crock of SHIT.
Mr. Trask: Please watch your language, Mr. Slade. You are in the Baird School, not a barracks. Mr Simms, I will give you one last opportunity to speak up.
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: Mr. Simms doesn't want it. He desn't need to labeled, "Still worthy of being a Baird man". What the hell is that? What is your motto here? "Boys, inform on your classmates, save your hide. Anything short of that, we're gonna burn you at the stake"? Well, gentlemen, when the shit hits the fan, some guys run and some guys stay. Here's Charlie facing the fire and there's George hiding in Big Daddy's pocket. And what are you doing? You're gonna reward George and destroy Charlie.
Mr. Trask: Are you finished, Mr. Slade?
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: No, I'm just gettin' warmed up. I don't know who went to this place, William Howard Taft, William Jennings Bryan, William Tell, whoever. Their spirit is dead, if they ever had one. It's gone. You're building a rat ship here. A vessel for seagoing snitches, and if you think you're preparing these minnows for manhood, you better think again, because I say you are killing the very spirit this institution proclaims it instills. What a sham. What kind of a show you guys are putting on here today? I mean, the only class in this act is sitting next to me, and I'm here to tell ya this boy's soul is intact. It's non-negotiable. You know how I know? Someone here, and I'm not gonna say who, offered to buy it. Only Charlie here wasn't selling.
Mr. Trask: Sir, you're out of order.
[Trask hits the gavel; Col. Slade stands up angry]
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: Out of order. I'll show YOU "out of order"! You don't know what "out of order" is, Mr. Trask. I'd show you, but I'm too old, I'm too tired, I'm too fucking blind. If I were the man I was five years ago, I'd take a...
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: [slams his cane on the desk, screaming] FLAMETHROWER to this place! Out of order? Who the hell do ya think you're talking to? I've been around, ya know? There was a time I could see. And I have seen. Boys like these, younger than these. Their arms torn out, their legs ripped off. But there is nothing like the sight of an amputated spirit. There's no prostetic for that. You think you're merely sending this splendid foot solder back home to Oregon with tail between his legs, but I say you are executing his SOUL! And why? Because he's not a Baird man. Baird men. You hurt this boy, you're gonna be Baird bums, the lot of ya. And Harry, Jimmy, Trent, wherever you are, fuck you too!
[the student body and the committee are in shock as Trask's anger is further aggravated]
Mr. Trask: [yells; hits the gavel three times] Stand down, Mr. Slade!
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: I'm not finished! As I came in here, I heard those words, "Cradle of Leadership". Well, when the bough breaks, the cradle will fall. And it has fallen here. It has fallen. Makers of men, Creators of leaders. Be careful what kind of leaders you're producing here. I don't know if Charlie's silence here today is right or wrong. I'm not a judge or jury, but I can tell you this: He won't sell anybody out to buy his future! And that, my friends, is called integrity. That's called courage. Now that's the stuff leaders should be made of. Now I have come to the crossroads in my life. I always knew what the right path was. Without exception, I knew. But I never took it. You know why? It was too damn hard. Now here's Charlie. He's come to the crossroads. He has chosen a path. It's the right path. It's a path made of principle that leads to character. Let him continue on his journey. You hold this boy's future in your hands, committee. It's a valuable future. Believe me. Don't destroy it. Protect it. Embrace it. It's gonna make you proud one day, I promise you.

Rousing. On the other hand, come on, what if Charlie had witnessed the rich kids raping someone...or murdering someone?

Lt. Col. Frank Slade: Women! What can you say? Who made 'em? God must have been a fuckin' genius. The hair... They say the hair is everything, you know. Have you ever buried your nose in a mountain of curls... just wanted to go to sleep forever? Or lips... and when they touched, yours were like... that first swallow of wine... after you just crossed the desert. Tits. Hoo-ah! Big ones, little ones, nipples staring right out at ya, like secret searchlights. Mmm. Legs. I don't care if they're Greek columns... or secondhand Steinways. What's between 'em... passport to heaven. I need a drink. Yes, Mr Sims, there's only two syllables in this whole wide world worth hearing: pussy. Hah! Are you listenin' to me, son? I'm givin' ya pearls here.

Woke enough for you?

Lt. Col. Frank Slade: [Frank plans to kill himself and Charlie as well but hesitates] You don't wanna die.
Charlie Simms: Neither do you.
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: Give me one good reason not to.
Charlie Simms: I'll give you two. You can dance the tango and drive a Ferrari better than anyone I've ever seen.
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: You never seen anyone do either.

And why would that be enough, anyway?

Lt. Col. Frank Slade: I asked you a question. Do you want me to adopt ya or don't ya?
Charlie Simms: Please? I mean, you're just in a slump right now.
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: Slump? No slump Charlie. I'm bad. I'm not bad no. I'm rotten.
Charlie Simms: You're not bad. You're just in pain.
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: What do you know about pain? hmm? You little snail darter from the pacific northwest. What the fuck you know about pain?
Charlie Simms: Let me have the gun Colonel.
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: [Frank cocks the .45] No time to grow a dick son.
Charlie Simms: Just give me the gun all right Colonel?
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: [Charlie begins to move towards Frank] I'm talking a parade ground. Ten-hut!
[Charlie stops moving then begins again]
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: Soldier. That was a direct order.
Charlie Simms: Give me the gun?
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: You can stay or you can leave. You understand? Either way I'm gonna do this thing. Now why don't you leave and spare yourself?
Charlie Simms: I want your gun Colonel.
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: I'm gonna give myself a count. You need a count for balance. Five, four, three, two, one. Fuck it.
[He raises the gun to his head and Charlie lunges for it. They struggle with it across the room]
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: Gimmie it. Fuck it!
[He gets the gun away from Charlie and points it at him]
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: Get outta here!
Charlie Simms: I'm staying right here!
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: Get outta here!
Charlie Simms: I'm staying right here
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: I'll blow your fuckin' head off.
Charlie Simms: Then do it. You wanna do it? Do it. Let's go
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: [Frank pulls the hammer on the gun back] Fuck! Get outta here!
Charlie Simms: So you fucked up all right? So what? So everybody does it. Get on with your life would ya?
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: [screaming] What life? I got no life! I'm in the dark here. You understand? I'm in the dark!
Charlie Simms: So give up. You wanna give up? Give up 'cause I'm giving giving up too. You said I'm through you're right I am through. It's all over. So let's get on with it. Let's fuckin' do it! Fuckin' pull the trigger you miserable blind motherfucker. Pull the trigger.
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: Here we go Charlie.
Charlie Simms: I'm ready.

And, at the time, he really was.

Randy: You want to know the truth?
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: You got a handle on that, do you, Randy?
Randy: He was an asshole before.
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: Whoo-ah!
Randy: Now all he is is a blind asshole.
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: Whoo-ah.
Randy: Hey, God's a funny guy.
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: God doth have a sense of humor.
Randy: Maybe God thinks some people don't deserve to see.
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: Whoo-ah. Hah!

One Ranger choke hold coming up.

Lt. Col. Frank Slade: Your father pedals car telephones at a 300 percent markup. Your mother works on heavy commission at a camera store. Graduated to it from espresso machines. Hah!
[pause]
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: What are you, dying of some wasting disease?
Charlie Simms: No, I'm right - I'm right here.
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: I know exactly where your body is. What I'm looking for is some indication of a brain. Too much football without a helmet? Hah! Lyndon's line on Gerry Ford. Deputy debriefer, Paris, peace talks, '68. Snagged a silver star and a silver bar. Threw me into G-2.
Charlie Simms: G-2?
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: Intelligence. Of which you have none.

He'll grow on him.

[iambiguous]

Marilynne Robinson from Housekeeping

It was a source of both terror and comfort to me then that I often seemed invisible — incompletely and minimally existent, in fact. It seemed to me that I made no impact on the world, and that in exchange I was privileged to watch it unawares.

And now she's found a...disciple?

To crave and to have are as like as a thing and its shadow. For when does a berry break upon the tongue as sweetly as when one longs to taste it, and when is the taste refracted into so many hues and savors of ripeness and earth, and when do our senses know any thing so utterly as when we lack it? And here again is a foreshadowing -- the world will be made whole. For to wish for a hand on one's hair is all but to feel it. So whatever we may lose, very craving gives it back to us again.

Anything we lack here?

Because, once alone, it is impossible to believe that one could ever have been otherwise.

I may not have written the book here, but I have written one of the better sequels.

I hated waiting. If I had one particular complaint, it was that my life seemed composed entirely of expectation. I expected — an arrival, an explanation, an apology. There had never been one, a fact I could have accepted, were it not true that, just when I had got used to the limits and dimensions of one moment, I was expelled into the next and made to wonder again if any shapes hid in its shadows.

If only all the way to the grave.

You never know when you might be seeing someone for the last time.

And the equivalent of that here.

Of my conception I know only what you know of yours. It occurred in darkness and I was unconsenting...By some bleak alchemy what had been mere unbeing becomes death when life is mingled with it.

Unless, of course, the awareness of death itself was autonomic.