Five Easy Pieces (1970)

Jack Nicholson: Robert Eroica Dupea

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Quotes 

• Bobby : I'd like a plain omelette, no potatoes, tomatoes instead, a cup of coffee and wheat toast.

  Waitress : [points at his menu]  No substitutions.

  Bobby : What do you mean? You don't have any tomatoes?

  Waitress : Only what's on the menu. You can have a number two, a plain omelette, it comes with cottage fries and rolls.

  Bobby : Yeah, I know what it comes with, but it's not what I want.

  Waitress : Well, I'll come back when you make up your mind

  Bobby : Wait a minute, I have made up my mind. I'd like a plain omelette, no potatoes on the plate, a cup of coffee and a side order of wheat toast.

  Waitress : I'm sorry, we don't have any side orders of toast. I'll give you an English muffin or a coffee roll.

  Bobby : What do you mean you don't make side orders of toast? You make sandwiches, don't you?

  Waitress : Would you like to talk to the manager?

  Palm Apodaca : Hey, mac...

  Bobby : Shut up.

  [to the waitress] 

  Bobby : You've got bread and a toaster of some kind?

  Waitress : I don't make the rules.

  Bobby : OK, I'll make it as easy for you as I can. I'd like an omelette, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast, no mayonnaise, no butter, no lettuce, and a cup of coffee.

  Waitress : A number two, a chicken salad sand. Hold the butter, the lettuce, and the mayonnaise, and a cup of coffee. Anything else?

  Bobby : Yeah, now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, give me a cheque for the chicken salad sandwich, and you haven't broken any rules.

  Waitress : You want me to hold the chicken, huh?

  Bobby : I want you to hold it between your knees.

  [Palm Apodaca sniggers] 

  Waitress : [points at a sign behind her]  You see that sign, sir? Yes, you'll all have to leave! I'm not taking any more of your smartness and sarcasm!

  Bobby : You see this sign?

  [he sweeps all the glasses off the table onto the floor] 

• Bobby : [out of his car during a traffic jam, yelling at other motorists]  Ants! Why don't we all line up like a goddamned bunch of ants! Its the most beautiful part of the day!

• Elton : Well, what if she was, Bob? I can't see nothin' so bad in that. Well, what if I were to let you in on a little secret that she is? That's right. She told me. She's all torn up about it, too, which I hate to see. Well hell, isn't it somethin' you just have to face up to? I tell ya, somewhere along the line, you even get to likin' the whole idea. When Stoney first give me the news, I coulda shit!

  [Bobby spits out his food and throws down his food in disgust] 

  Elton : Well isn't that nice?

  Bobby : It's ridiculous. I'm sittin' here listening to some cracker *asshole* lives in a trailer park compare his life to mine. Keep on tellin' me about the good life, Elton, because it makes me puke.

• Bobby : [finally talking with his paralyzed father]  I don't know if you'd be particularly interested in hearing anything about me. My life, I mean... Most of it doesn't add up to much that I could relate as a way of life that you'd approve of... I'd like to be able to tell you why, but I don't really... I mean, I move around a lot because things tend to get bad when I stay. And I'm looking... for auspicious beginnings, I guess... I'm trying to, you know, imagine your half of this conversation... My feeling is, that if you could talk, we probably wouldn't be talking. That's pretty much how it got to be before... I left... Are you all right? I don't know what to say

  [begins sobbing] 

  Bobby : ... Tita suggested that we try to... I don't know. I think that she... seems to feel we've got... some understanding to reach... She totally denies the fact that we were never that comfortable with each other to begin with... The best that I can do, is apologize.

  [regaining his composure] 

  Bobby : We both know that I was never really that good at it, anyway...

  [after a long pause] 

  Bobby : I'm sorry it didn't work out.

• Bobby : What else do you do?

  Catherine : Well, there's fishing, boating, and concerts on the mainland.

  [Laughs] 

  Catherine : I feel funny telling you this. This is really your home. You probably know better than I what there is to do.

  Bobby : Nothing.

  Catherine : Nothing?

  Bobby : Nothing.

  Catherine : Well, it must be very boring for you here.

  Bobby : That's right.

  Catherine : I find that very hard to comprehend. I don't think I've ever been bored. Excuse me.

• Bobby : That's dangerous, you know.

  Catherine : Riding?

  Bobby : Mm-hmm. You play the piano all day and then jump on a horse, you could get cramps.

• Samia Glavia : ...It was just what I was trying to point out...

  Bobby : [interrupting]  Don't sit there pointing at her.

  Samia Glavia : I beg your pardon.

  Bobby : I said don't point at her, you creep.

  Samia Glavia : But I was just telling about...

  Bobby : Where do you get the ass to tell anybody anything about class, or who the hell's got it, or what she typifies? You shouldn't even be in the same room with her, you pompous celibate... You're totally full of shit! You're all full of shit.

• Bobby : Where are *you* goin'?

  Palm Apodaca : Alaska.

  Bobby : Alaska. What are you: on vacation?

  Terry : She wants to live there 'cause it's cleaner.

  Bobby : Cleaner. Cleaner than what?

  Palm Apodaca : You don't have to tell everybody about it. Pretty soon they'll all go there and it won't be so clean.

  Bobby : What makes you think it's cleaner?

  Palm Apodaca : I saw a picture of it. Alaska's very clean. It appeared to look very white to me. Don't you think?

  Bobby : Yep. That was before the big thaw.

  Palm Apodaca : Before the what?

• Catherine : [after hearing Robert play the piano]  That was beautiful, Robert, I'm surprised.

  Bobby : Thank you.

  Catherine : I was really very moved by... What's wrong?

  Bobby : Nothing. It's just... I picked the easiest piece that I could think of. I first played it when I was 8-years-old, and I played it better then.

• Palm Apodaca : Fantastic that you could figure that all out and lie that down on her so you could come up with a way to get your toast. Fantastic!

  Bobby : Yeah, well, I didn't get it, did I?

  Palm Apodaca : No, but it was very clever. I would have just punched her out.

• Rayette : I'm not.

  Bobby : You're just gonna sit here?

  Rayette : Yes.

  Bobby : Okay. I hope no one hits on you.

  Rayette : I hope they do.

• Bobby : I move around a lot, not because I'm looking for anything really, but 'cause I'm getting away from things that get bad if I stay.

• Bobby : What are you doing screwing around with all this crap?

  Catherine : I do not find your language very charming.

  Bobby : It isn't. It's direct.

  Catherine : I'd like you to leave so that I can take a bath. Is that direct?

• Rayette : That was real good, wasn't it? I finally did it!

  Bobby : Great. You throw the big Z's for 19 frames, and then you throw a strike on the last ball of a losing game. Wonderful. Just wonderful.

  [Turns around to bowlers at next lane] 

  Bobby : Isn't that wonderful, ladies?

  Twinky : Are you talking to us?

  Bobby : Wonderful.

• Betty : That's a wig you wear, isn't it?

  Bobby : Me?

  Betty : Yeah, I told her it was you but that you were wearin' a wig because on the TV you're mostly all, uh -

  [pats him on the head] 

  Betty : bald up there!

  [laughs] 

  Bobby : [laughs]  Your, your little friend's real, real sharp. Uh, I don't, uh, I don't wear the wig on TV because if you're gonna be out there in front of two and a half million people, you've got to be sincere. I mean, I like to wear it when I'm in bowling alleys and slipping around, stuff like that. I think it gives me a little class. What do you think?

• Bobby : You keep on talking about the good life, Elton, 'cause it makes me puke.

• Catherine : It's useless.

  Bobby : Look, give me a chance.

  Catherine : I'm trying to be delicate with you, but you just won't understand. I couldn't go with you. Not just because of Carl and my music, but because of you.

  Catherine : You're a strange person, Robert. I mean, what would it come to? If a person has no love for himself, no respect for himself, no love of his friends, family, work, something... How can he ask for love in return? I mean, why should he ask for it?

  Bobby : Living here in this rest home/asylum - that's what you want?

  Catherine : Yes.

  Bobby : That will make you happy?

  Catherine : I hope it will. Yes.

  Catherine : I'm sorry.

• Palm Apodaca : I had to leave this place because I got depressed seeing all the crap. And the thing is, they're making more crap, you know? They got so many stores and stuff and junk full of crap I can't believe it.

  Bobby : Who?

  Palm Apodaca : Who? Man, that's who. Pretty soon there won't be any room for man. They're selling more crap that people go and buy than you can imagine. Crap.

• Rayette : You love me, Bobby?

  Bobby : What do you think?

  [they kiss] 

• [first lines] 

  Rayette : I'm gonna play it again.

  Bobby : You play that thing one more time, I'm gonna melt it down into hairspray.

  Rayette : Let me play the other side then.

  Bobby : No, Rayette, it's not a question of sides. It's a question of musical integrity.

• Catherine : One thing I find very difficult to imagine is how one could have this incredible background in music and then just walk away from it without giving it a second thought at all.

  Bobby : I gave it a second thought.

• Bobby : Auspicious beginnings, you know what I mean.

• Bobby : No one would want to hit on you. You look too pathetic.

• Bobby : Dipesto, why don't you take that sign off your tit and why don't you and me go out and have us a real good time?

• Elton : I still ain't figured out how you got me workin' back out here.

  Bobby : I got you to come and work out here? I ain't figured out how you let me get you to come out here and work on these rigs. I've never worked on these damn things before, Elton. You've worked on 'em before. I can't figure out how you let me get *us* out here.

  Elton : Somebody had to look out for you.

• Betty : My name's Shirley, but they call me Betty. And her name's Twinky.

  Bobby : Twinky?

  Betty : Yeah, 'cause she's so twinky!

• Rayette : You depressed about your daddy, hon?

  Bobby : No.

  Rayette : I imagine it's me then, isn't it?

  Bobby : Is what you?

  Rayette : Are you depressed I come along?

  Bobby : Who says I'm depressed?

  Rayette : Is that a happy face I see?

• Bobby : What's goin' on, Elton?

  Elton : I got accused of robbing a filling station down in the Indian Nation. Didn't I tell ya? I just got wild and jumped my bail.

• Bobby , Elton , Betty , Twinky : [singing in their underwear]  Ride a cockhorse to Banbury Cross, To Banbury Cross we go.

  Betty : Tra-la.

  Twinky : La-la!

• Bobby : Up till now, all I've been getting from you is meaningful looks at the dinner table and a lot of vague suggestions about the day after tomorrow.

  Catherine : I am not conscious of having given you any particular looks. And as for the day after tomorrow, this is the day after tomorrow. And I am, unfortunately, seeing you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to take a bath.

• [last lines] 

  Bobby : That's okay. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine.

• Bobby : Serious? Is that what's important to you? Serious?

  Catherine : Yes, that's what's important to me.

  Bobby : Okay, let's be serious.

• Bobby : What does it have to be with you? Grim and serious?

  Catherine : Look, you played, I honestly responded - and you made me feel embarrassed for having responded to you. It wasn't necessary.

  Bobby : Yeah, it was. I faked a little Chopin, you faked a big response.

• Bobby : You know, if you wouldn't open your mouth, everything would be just fine.