Bullets Over Broadway (1994)

John Cusack: David Shayne

Photos 

Quotes 

• Helen Sinclair : Two martinis please, very dry.

  David Shayne : How'd you know what I drank?

  Helen Sinclair : Oh, you want one too? Three.

• Helen Sinclair : No, no, don't speak. Don't speak. Please don't speak. Please don't speak. No. No. No. Go. Go, gentle Scorpio, go. Your Pisces wishes you every happy return.

  David Shayne : Just one...

  Helen Sinclair : Don't speak.

• Olive : [reading her lines]  Why do you have to be so masso... masso...

  David Shayne : Masochistic.

  Olive : Masochistic? What the does that mean?

  David Shayne : It means someone who enjoys pain.

  Olive : Enjoys pain? What is she, *retarded*?

• Sheldon Flender : You, you, you're all missing the point, the point is I can give pleasure many times a day!

  Rita : Oh, now, really Flender, what does quantity got to do with it?

  Sheldon Flender : Quantity, quantity affects quality!

  David Shayne : Says who?

  Sheldon Flender : Karl Marx!

  Rita : Oh, so now we're talking economics.

  Sheldon Flender : Sex is economics!

• Sheldon Flender : [bragging]  I have never had a play produced. That's right. And I've written one play a year for the past twenty years.

  David Shayne : Yes, but that's because you're a genius. And the proof is that both common people and intellectuals find your work completely incoherent. Means you're a genius.

• David Shayne : I studied playwrighting with every teacher, I read every book...

  Cheech : Let me tell you somethin' about teachers. I hate teachers. Those blue-haired bitches used to whack us with rulers. Forget teachers.

• Nick : Sorry you guys had to hear that. Some problems with the firm.

  David Shayne : Really? What type of firm is it, Nick?

  Nick : It's a "don't stick your nose in other people's business and it won't get broken" type of firm.

• David Shayne : Maybe Olive's got stage fright. Maybe she won't show.

  Julian Marx : Not Olive. That dame doesn't have a nerve in her body. I don't think her spinal cord touches her brain.

• David Shayne : Your taste is exquisite.

  Helen Sinclair : [correcting]  My taste is superb. My eyes are exquisite.

• David Shayne : You're gonna write it?

  Cheech : What am I? A fuckin' idiot? They taught me how to read and write in school before I burned it down.

  David Shayne : You burned down your school?

  Cheech : Yeah, it was Lincoln's birthday. There was nobody there.

• David Shayne : You thought my first draft was c-cerebral and tepid?

  Helen Sinclair : Only the plot and the dialogue. But this...

  David Shayne : Was-was-was there nothing in the original draft that you feel was worth saving?

  Helen Sinclair : The stage directions were lucid. Best I've ever seen... and the color of the binder. Good choice.

  David Shayne : Thank you. I've always had a flair for stage directions.

• Helen Sinclair : Make love to me.

  David Shayne : Here? Now?

  Helen Sinclair : I see no reason to wait.

  David Shayne : Jerome Kern is on the other side of the door.

  Helen Sinclair : Yes, he's a wonderful composer. You'll have to meet him. Now hang up your pants.

• David Shayne : I've become involved with Helen Sinclair, and I feel terrible. But I can't help myself. She's so charismatic, and she's brilliant and beautiful. I mean, a real artist, and, and we speak the same language.

  Sheldon Flender : You're wracked with guilt.

  David Shayne : I'm wracked with guilt.

  Sheldon Flender : You're wracked with guilt. You are wracked with guilt.

  David Shayne : I don't know whether... I can't sleep.

  Sheldon Flender : Guilt is petit-bourgeois crap. An artist creates his own moral universe.

  David Shayne : I know that. I know...

  Sheldon Flender : Well? What is the problem then? I'm gonna give you some advice. The same advice that was given to me many years ago when I had a very similar dilemma.

  David Shayne : Similar to mine. To...

  Sheldon Flender : Yes. Yes.

  David Shayne : What did you do? What?

  Sheldon Flender : You gotta do what you gotta do.

• [at their first, harrowing meeting] 

  Nick : Who wants a drink?

  David Shayne : I'll have a double anything.

• Sheldon Flender : You are racked with guilt.

  David Shayne : I can't sleep.

  Sheldon Flender : Guilt is petty bourgeois crap. An artist creates his own moral universe.

• David Shayne : Suddenly I'm taking suggestions from some strong-arm man with an IQ of minus 50.

• Lord Chafee : My tongue is hanging out to present it on the London stage.

  David Shayne : London.

  Lord Chafee : Look at his face, Helen. You're going to be the toast of Broadway. Why not the West End, hmm?

• Ellen : He's been after me a long time. You never seem to want to get married, so, one night we went out, we had a few drinks... started discussing art and literature and Freud and Nietzsche. And in order to illustrate a point on Greek etymology, I noticed he'd unbuttoned his fly...

  David Shayne : No, no, no, no! Please, please! I don't need to hear any more.

  Ellen : But he's a major talent. You've said so yourself a million times. With an intellect that big, you tend to create your own moral universe.