1900: Winter comes, you wish it was summer. Summer comes, you live in dread of winter. That's why we never tire of travel.
1900: Take piano: keys begin, keys end. You know there are 88 of them. Nobody can tell you any different. They are not infinite. You're infinite... And on those keys, the music that you can make... is infinite. I like that. That I can live by...
Max: What is wrong with you? 1900: I can't help it. Music makes me cry.
1900: And fuck jazz, too.
1900: It wasn't what I saw that stopped me Max... it was what I didn't see.
1900: Land? Land is a ship too big for me, it's a woman too beautiful, it's a voyage too long, perfume too strong...
The Young 1900 II: Fuck the regulations!
Italian Immigrant: The voice of the sea, it is like a shout, a shout big a strong, screaming and screaming. And the thing it was screaming was, yoooou... with shit instead of brains... life is immense... can you understand that? Italian Immigrant: Im...
Jelly Roll Morton: [Jelly Roll Morton enters the hall for the duel, meeting 1900 for the first time] I believe you're sitting in my seat. 1900: [stands, good-naturedly] You're the one that invented jazz, right? Jelly Roll Morton: That's what they say...
Max: What the hell do you think about when you're playing? Where does your mind go when you hit the keys? 1900: Last night I was in a beautiful country. Women had perfume in their hair, everything glowed. It was full of tides. Max: He traveled. And e...
Jelly Roll Morton: [before starting his last piece for the duel-to 1900] You can stick this up your ass. 1900: [before starting his last piece of the duel-to Jelly Roll Morton] You asked for it, asshole.
Max: You're never really done for, as long as you've got a good story and someone to tell it to.
Max: Sometimes that is the way you have to do it: you go right back to the beginning.
1900: You rolled out in front of me a keyboard of millions of keys, millions and billions of keys that never end. And that's the truth Max, that they never end. That keyboard is infinite... and if that keyboard is infinite, then on that keyboard ther...
Max: [on deck of ship] It happened every time. Someone would look up, and see her. It's difficult to understand. There'd be more than a thousand of us on that ship, traveling rich folks, immigrants, and strange people, and us; yet there was always *o...
Lemon - age 4: [being put to bed] Danny, what's an orphanage? Danny Boodmann: Well, orphanage is like a great big prison where they locked up folks that ain't got no kids. Lemon - age 4: So if I wasn't with you, they would put - you in an orphanage? ...
1900: You're the one who invented jazz, right? Jelly Roll Morton: That's what they say. And you're the one who can't play, unless you have the ocean under your ass, 1900: That's what they say.
1900: It's like a big scream, telling you that life is immense. Once you've finally heard it, then you really know what you have to do to go on living. I can't stay here forever. The ocean would never tell me a thing. But if I get off, live on land f...
