I’ve had librarians say to me, “People in my school don’t agree with homosexuality, so it’s difficult to have your book on the shelves.” Here’s the thing: Being gay is not an issue, it is an identity. It is not something that you can agre...
[Jürgen Habermas' obituary to friend and philosopher, Richard Rorty] One small autobiographical piece by Rorty bears the title 'Wild Orchids and Trotsky.' In it, Rorty describes how as a youth he ambled around the blooming hillside in north-west New...
Grissom: That you, sugar bumps? [turns around to see a man] Grissom: Who the hell are you? Joker: It's me, Sugar bumps. Grissom: Jack? Oh, oh, thank God you're alive! I heard you'd been... Joker: Fried? Is that what you heard? You set me up over a wo...
Clark: Hey! If any of you are looking for any last-minute gift ideas for me, I have one. I'd like Frank Shirley, my boss, right here tonight. I want him brought from his happy holiday slumber over there on Melody Lane with all the other rich people a...
[Pommeroy is reading to the class from the 1954 short story "The Destructors" by Graham Greene] Karen Pommeroy: "There would be headlines in the papers. Even the grown-up gangs who ran the betting at the all-in wrestling and the Barrow Boys would hea...
The Killer: [Scorpio has jacked and the unaware kids are singing with him] Row, row, row your boat/gently down the stream/merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily... Bus Kid: Where are we going? The Killer: What? What did you say? Bus Kid: Where are we goi...
Henry Barthes: How are you to imagine anything if the images are always provided for you? Henry Barthes: Doublethink. To deliberately believe in lies, while knowing they're false. Henry Barthes: Examples of this in everyday life: "Oh, I need to be pr...
[longer introduction to "Night On Bald Mountain" and "Ave Maria"] Narrator: The last number in our Fantasia program is a combination of two pieces of music so utterly different in construction and mood that they set each other off perfectly. The firs...
Raoul Duke: We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled that 60's. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "consciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat...
[first lines] Patrick Kenzie: I always believed it was the things you don't choose that makes you who you are. Your city, your neighborhood, your family. People here take pride in these things, like it was something they'd accomplished. The bodies ar...
Dr. Peter Venkman: Egon, what do you think? Dr. Egon Spengler: [looking up and blinding Peter with his headlamp] She's telling the truth. At least, she thinks she is. Dana Barrett: Well, of course I'm telling the truth! Who would make up a story like...
[first lines] Title Card: Robert Gould Shaw, the son of wealthy Boston abolitionists, was 23 years old when he enlisted to fight in the War Between the States. He wrote home regularly, telling his parents of life in the gathering Army of the Potomac....
Benjamin: Oh my God! Mrs. Robinson: Pardon? Benjamin: Oh no, Mrs. Robinson. Oh no. Mrs. Robinson: What's wrong? Benjamin: Mrs. Robinson, you didn't... I mean, you didn't expect... Mrs. Robinson: What? Benjamin: I mean, you didn't really think I'd do ...
Kevin McCallister: Everyone in this family *hates* me! Kate McCallister: Then maybe you should ask Santa for a new family. Kevin McCallister: I don't want another family. I don't want any family. Families suck! Kate McCallister: Just stay up there. I...
George Bailey: Mary Hatch, why in the world did you ever marry a guy like me? Mary: To keep from being an old maid! George Bailey: You could have married Sam Wainright, or anybody else in town... Mary: I didn't want to marry anybody else in town. I w...
[first lines] Galadriel: The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it. It began with the forging of the Great Rings. Three were given to the...
Sulley: Mike, that's not her door. Mike: What are you talking about? Of course it's her door. It's her door. Sulley: No. Her door was white and it had flowers on it. Mike: No. It must've dark last night because this is its door. [opens the door. A br...
Humphrey: Now, sex. Sex, sex, sex. Where were we? [pupils can't remember] Humphrey: Well, had I got as far as the penis entering the vagina? Pupils: Uh, no, sir. No, sir. Humphrey: Well, had I done foreplay? Pupils: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Humphrey: Ah. ...
Christian Szell: The gun had blanks, the knife, a retractable blade. Hardly original, but effective enough. I think you'll agree. I'm told you are a graduate student. Brilliant, yes? You are an historian, and I am part of history. I should have thoug...
[In 1931, Max picks up a just-released Noodles in a hearse] Max: We got a rush job. Here. Come here, look at this. Come here. [gestures to the back of the hearse] Max: Sudden death. Fucking tragedy, huh? 26 years old. Noodles: 26? What a shame! Max: ...
Charles Bushman: There was a young man by the name of John Leggit Hunter who ran a filling station business, a good filling station business and he's one of these young men we all come across in life, I'm sure you've come across 'em, who did not dese...
