3.1
The tradition of the toast hearkens back to 17th century England, when the health or success of a new venture was christened by a drink of wine with a piece of toast submerged in it. Over time, we've dispensed with the actual toasted bread, but the intent remains the same.
"Presbyopia is not
uncommon in someone in their early 30s."
"I'm not in my 30s.
I'm nowhere near 30! I'm 29!"
- Joel and Ed discuss Chris's "condition"
It's more than sex. I want to go on a walk with her. I want to feed her. I want to read Sendak to her.
- Chris, on unrequited affection
"The rejection has been devastating. It's like an emotional tsunami. I'm in this excruciating pain. I feel like I'm losing my mind. It's great! Thanks for the experience."
- Chris, to Irene
"Fleischman, you don't understand anything that's not in a book. Not makeup. Not men. Not me. You haven't a clue."
"You're walking into
those woods?! You don't know what's out there."
"I have a gun."
"They don't know that.
They see us walking around out there, they think we're with the Sierra
Club and THAT's a stick."
"Who's they?"
"I don't know. Wild
animals, white supremists, attack bugs."
He's disoriented, and confused, and he's dressed like a loan shark!
Once again, a little P.B.S. proves a dangerous thing.
"The Fleischman *I* know is arrogant, egotistical, self-centered, and a walking smirk!"
- Joel to Elaine, discussing their post breakup tryst
3.8
Dr. Joel Fleischman, spokesman for majestic animals of the wilderness is going to commit Bambicide?
"Look. This would be so easy for me. I mean, physically you're like my perfect fantasy. Clearly, the sex would be fabulous. I mean, you're strong, you've got a perfect back; I can just feel my arms and legs wrapped around you. We'd be all over the room and we'd go on for hours and hours...and the kids; oh yeah, I can see that the kids would be incredibly beautiful. But even with all this, it's just not enough. I'm sorry. I want to be happy. That's what I want. I want to be happy."
First of all, Fleischman, my clumsiness is not part of a subconscious agenda.
"Holling, it says here
you haven't paid your taxes since 1959."
"Correct."
"1959?"
"Statehood, I voted
against it."
"And you've been withholding
taxes as a form of political protest?"
"Not exactly. I figured
they would let me know if they really needed it."
"I'm not a vanishing
breed."
"Well, you're Jewish.
That's pretty rare."
"You realize that by
flinging this cow, you're going to break every bone in it's body?"
"Yeah."
"And the purpose of
this is?"
"Create a pure moment."
Ed, try to figure out which one is least likely to become an unprincipled sleaze bucket.
As Bill used to say: "You don't get cold in the bush. You're either warm or you're dead."
"Face it Fleischman, you've made it very clear from the beginning that you were just passing through. You've done everything you can to keep people at arm's length. You know that calendar of yours - I've seen it. You mark off each day with a big black X. You haven't even unpacked. If a rock hit you tomorrow, we would shake our heads, toast your memory, but then Maurice would just buy another doctor.
"Sometimes, men, to
mask the anxiety they have over their mates' pregnancy, will displace the
feelings with physical manifestations of pregnancy itself." "Yeah, or they
relieve their anxiety by tearing out the throats of two-bit quacks expounding
psychobabble just to hear themselves talk!"
"Hey, it's just a
hunch."
"You asked me when
I was playing Game Boy?"
"You said 'yes'."
"I was playing Game
Boy. I wasn't listening. I would have said 'yes' to anything ... to gum
surgery."
"You said 'yes'."
Some people look at this box, they see a box. You know what I see? The spice route to India. The gateway to the Nile. I see the dark side of the moon. Terra incognito. I see Alaska, people. So, what do you say? Let's be a little human!
"It's a fact, Marilyn,
that within a very small range of error you can predict a M.D.'s entire
personality based upon his or her field of specialization. Orthopedists
are butchers, hammer and nail guys. Radiologists, country clubbers.
Gas passers tend not to speak English, but female pediatricians
fall somewhere between
Jane Fonda and candy stripers in heat."
- Joel
"For the next three
days, I'm going to be surrounded by colleagues. Physicians like myself.
Many of whom, if demographics hold, will be under 35 and female and single.
It will be like shooting ducks in a barrel, bees to honey, moths to a flame."
- Joel to Marilyn, about his trip to Juneau
"You know, I'm in such
a good mood, O'Connell, that not even you can spoil it."
- Joel
"Are you delirious?
This is my weekend, mine OK? This is my chance to get away from Cicely
and meet some other people. Some girls. To have sex with strangers."
- Joel to Maggie
"Well, you're in luck.
The manager has agreed to put you and Mrs. Fleischman in our suite."
"Whoa! I am NOT Mrs.
Fleischman."
"Ah well, we don't
pry into the affairs of our guests."
"What she means is
that we're not together. I mean not in the together sense of together.
We might have come here together, but we're not an item. I mean we're barely
even friends."
- Hotel clerk, Maggie, Joel in Juneau
"I didn't fly all the
way to Juneau to be stuck in a hotel room with you."
- Joel to Maggie
"Don't worry Fleischman,
I have no intention of cramping your alleged style."
- Maggie
"Excuse me John, I'm
trying to get laid."
- Joel, with no time for small talk with male colleagues
"O'Connell, the only
interest I may have in what you do between the sheets is strictly clinical."
"Clinical?"
"Yes, naturally as
your physician, I'm concerned that you take proper precautions to avoid
sexually transmitted diseases, which I assume you did." "Nice try, Fleischman,
but you're not going to use the public service announcement to find out
if I scored last night."
"Hard as this is to
believe, O'Connell, I don't spend my nights wondering whether you've improved
your personal batting average or not. What you do behind closed doors is
your own business."
- Joel and Maggie
"Hey Fleischman! You're
a boxer man! I always had you pictured as the jockey type!"
- Maggie
"O'Connell, is this
the effects of 36 hours of sleep deprivation?"
"Do you care?"
"No, do you?"
"Wait, stop. We better
figure this out."
"Why?"
"Because. Are you
sure about this?"
"Fleischman, we're
both over 21, single, free, H.I.V. negative...aren't we?" "Yeah, but..."
"Then shut up, Fleischman.
For once in your life, just shut up."
- Joel and Maggie
"Hold that thought."
"All right."
"We'll meet back where?"
"In the middle. Fine.
In the middle of whose room? Your room? My room?"
"In the bed."
"The middle of the
bed."
"Fine. Whose bed?"
"Just find me, Fleischman."
- Maggie and Joel
"So!"
"So!"
"Yeah, last night."
"What about last night?"
"Yeah, well, uh, well,
it was interesting."
"Unbelievable is more
like it."
- Maggie and Joel
"What thing?"
"You don't remember?
You're telling me you don't remember?"
"No, I remember."
"Well, I hope so."
"I remember.
I just, uh, I just, well, I think I'm going to go pack."
- Maggie and Joel
"I just couldn't face
anybody if that got out... I confess there are times when I've actually
had certain thoughts about you..."
- Maggie to Joel
"In dreams begin responsibilities,
so wrote the poet. So it is perhaps. Could it be we take our
dreams too lightly, those images from places unknown? Could they
in fact be angels in flight, our souls aloft? You know, recent experiences
have made yours truly take another pass through the metaphysical
thickets. As
unlikely as it may sound in this rational age, I emerged on the side of
those that cannot help but put their faith in that which cannot be easily
explained. Be open to your dreams people. Embrace that distant
shore. Cause our mortal journey is over all too soon."
- Chris
3.22
"I'm a man, Fleischman.
We are born with an image of woman imprinted on our psyches. We spend our
whole lives searching for the embodiment of that female archetype. And
there she sits! In the flesh! You tell me what man could resist the fantasy
of having her as his wife?"
- Adam about Eve
"A lot of strange things
about women... They give you every indication that they want you to do
one thing when in fact, they want you to do just the opposite. And
the topper is, that they get mad if you don't know that."
"Women have a very
difficult time understanding that men are simpler creatures."
"Simpler. Simpler,
because we're not wildly irrational?"
- Joel and Maurice
"You're a man."
"And what? That means
I'm immediately guilty of something?"
"Yes."
- Marilyn and Joel
"I could just kill
you Fleischman. How could you not sleep with me! I was lying there in bed
prostrate... willing...
"You were asleep!"
"And you couldn't wake me up? ...The first excuse you had you just turned
tail and ran!"
- Maggie and Joel, after their incident in Juneau
"We didn't do anything!"
"Yes we did. We did
the most important part, the 'want' part. I wanted you to want me and you
did..."
"...What about the
consummation part?"
- Maggie changes her mind about sex, midway into the act
"Maggie, there are
two parts to guilty pleasure. If she's going to suffer the guilt, then
she should at least enjoy the pleasure."
- Ruth Anne
"Don't start with me
O'Connell. I surrender, I throw in the towel. You win... Whatever it is
we've been doing to one other you are clearly the undisputed champion...
Face it O'Connell, we're never gonna have a romantic relationship. We're
never even gonna have a superficial sexual relationship. You know why?
Because neither one of us have the slightest clue what the other one is
about. Personally, I can't begin to fathom what goes on in your head. Nothing
you do conforms in any way to what I recognise as rational, logical behaviour...
Let's just put aside our fantasies. We'll draw a line in the sand. Me on
one side, you on the other. It doesn't mean we have to throw stones...
What?"
"I dunno... I just...
You're a great kisser."
"I am?"
"Mmm."
- Joel, despairing of Maggie
"Crowds... Piece of
advice, my friend. In a room like this, you keep your back to the wall,
your eyes on the door."
- Adam to Ed, at his bachelor party
What are man and woman
if not members of two very different and warring tribes? Yet decade after
decade, century after century, they attempt in marriage to reconcile and
forge a union. Why? I don't know. Biological imperative? Divine law? Or
just a desire to connect to that mysterious other? In any case, it's always
struck me as a hopeful thing.
- Bernard, on the radio
Marriage. It's a hard
term to define. Especially for me--I've ducked it like root canal. Still
there's no denying the fact that marriage ranks right up there with birth
and death as one of the three biggies in the human safari. It's the only
one though that we'll celebrate with a conscious awareness. Very few of
you remember your arrival and even fewer of you will attend your own funeral.
You pick a society, any society, Zuni, Nudembo, Pennsylvania Dutch. What's
the one thing they all have in common?
Marriage. It's like
a cultural hand-rail. It links folks to the past and guides them to the
future. That's not all though. Marriage is the union of disparate elements.
Male and female. Yin and yang. Proton and electron. What are we talking
about here? Nothing less than the very tension that binds the universe.
You see, when we look at marriage, people, we're are looking at creation
itself. "I am the sky," says the Hindu bridegroom to the bride. "You are
the earth. We are sky and earth united.... You are my husband. You are
my wife. My feet shall run because of you. My feet shall dance because
of you. My heart shall beat because of you. My eyes see because of you.
My mind think because of you and I shall love because of you."
Now are you guys cool
with that?
- Chris marries Adam and Eve
3.23
One person can have a profound effect on another. And two people...well, two people can work miracles. They can change a whole town. They can change the world.