Movies:
Adaptation

Chris Cooper as John Laroche: "Adaptation's a profound process. It means you figure out how to thrive in the world."

Meryl Streep as Susan Orlean: "Yeah, but it's easier for plants. I mean, they have no memory. Ya know, they just move on to whatever's next. With a person, uh... adapting's almost shameful. It's like running away."

Nicolas Cage as Charlie Kaufman: "There's a journey of evolution – adaptation... the journey we all take... the journey that unites each and every one of us."

Chris Cooper: "You gotta calm down. You're gettin' a little emotional."

Meryl Streep: "What I came to understand is that change is not a choice, not for a species of plant, not for me. It happens, and you are different."

Chris Cooper: "Ya know the thing about computers, the thing I like, is that I'm immersed in 'em, but it's not like a living thing that's gonna leave or die or something."

Nicolas Cage as Donald Kaufman: "If you could have dinner with one historical personage, living or dead, who would it be?"

Meryl Streep: "Oh, God... Oh, you fat piece of s***!!... He's dead."

Nicolas Cage as Charlie: "Shut up!"

Streep: "Loser!"

Cage: "Shut up!"

Streep: "You ruined my life...!"

Cage: "Shut up!"

Streep: "...you fat f***!!"

Cage: "F*** you, lady! You're just a lonely, old, desperate, pathetic drug addict!!"

Streep moans and sobs.

Nicolas Cage as Charlie: "I need you to get me out of this."

Nicolas Cage as Donald: "What's she hiding from him?... Maybe she's a lesbian and doesn't know how to tell him."

Nicolas Cage as Charlie: "Okay, that's not what I'm asking. Listen closely."

Nicolas Cage as Charlie: "I'm losing my hair... I'm fat and repulsive."

Nicolas Cage as Charlie: "I'm hungry. I should get coffee. Coffee would help me think. Coffee and a muffin... maybe banana nut... That's a good muffin."

Nicolas Cage as Charlie: "It's self-indulgent. It's narcissistic. [inaudible] It's pathetic... I'm pathetic. I'm fat and pathetic."

Meryl Streep: "Orchids are the sexiest flowers on Earth. The name orchid derives from the Latin orchus, which means testicle."

Nicolas Cage as Charlie: "Do I have an original thought in my head?... my bald head? Maybe if I were happier my hair wouldn't be falling out. Life is short. I need to make the most of it. Today's the first day of the rest of my life. I'm a walking cliché. I really need to go to the doctor and have my leg checked. There's something wrong – a bump. The dentist called again. I'm way overdue. If I stopped putting things off I would be happier. All I do is sit on my fat ass. If my ass wasn't fat I would be happier. I wouldn't have to wear these shirts with the tails out all the time, like that's fooling anyone. Fat ass. I should start jogging again. Five miles a day. Really do it this time. Maybe rock-climbing. I need to turn my life around. What do I need to do? I need to fall in love. I need to have a girlfriend. I need to read more – improve myself. What if I learned Russian or something? Or took up an instrument? I could speak Chinese. I would be the screenwriter who speaks Chinese and plays the oboe. That would be cool. I should get my hair cut short – stop trying to fool myself and everyone else into thinking I have a full head of hair. How pathetic is that? Just be real, confident. Isn't that what women are attracted to? Men don't have to be attractive. But that's not true, especially these days. Almost as much pressure on men as there is on women these days. Why should I be made to feel I have to apologize for my existence? Maybe it's my brain chemistry. Maybe that's what's wrong with me – bad chemistry. All my problems and anxiety can be reduced to a chemical imbalance or some kind of misfiring synapses. I need to get help for that. But then I'll still be ugly, though. Nothing's gonna change that."

Meryl Streep: "I suppose I do have one unembarrassed passion... I want to know what it feels like to care about something passionately."

Chris Cooper: "Let's not get off the subject. This isn't a pissing contest."

Chris Cooper: "I'm training myself on the Internet. It's fascinating. I'm doing pornography. It's amazing how much these suckers will pay for photographs of chicks. It doesn't matter if they're fat or ugly or what."

Meryl Streep: "Well, that sounds good."

Cooper: "No, it's great is what it is."

Brian Cox as Robert McKee: "It doesn't make any sense, any f***ing sense."

Brian Cox: "Anyone else?... Yes."

Nicolas Cage as Charlie: "Sir, what if the writer is attempting to create a story where nothing much happens, where people don't change. They don't have any epiphanies. They struggle and are frustrated, and nothing is resolved... more a reflection of the real world."

Cox: "The real world?"

Cage: "Yes, sir."

Cox: "The real f***in' world... First of all, you write a screenplay without conflict or crisis, you'll bore your audience to tears. Secondly... nothing happens in the world?... Are you out of your f***ing mind? People are murdered every day. There's genocide, war, corruption. Every f***ing day, somewhere in the world, somebody sacrifices his life to save somebody else. Every f***ing day, someone, somewhere, takes a conscious decision to destroy someone else. People find love. People lose it. For Christ's sake! A child watches her mother beaten to death on the steps of a church. Someone goes hungry. Somebody else betrays his best friend for a woman... If you can't find that stuff in life, then you, my friend, don't know crap about life! And, why the f*** are you wasting my two precious hours with your movie?? I don't have any use for it!! I don't have any bloody use for it!!"

Cage: "... Okay, thanks."

Brian Cox: "God help you if you use voice-over in your work, my friends. God help you. It's flaccid, sloppy writing. Any idiot can write voice-over narration to explain the thoughts of a character."

Nicolas Cage as Donald: "You are what you love, not what loves you... That's what I decided a long time ago."

Meryl Streep: "There are too many ideas and things and people – too many directions to go. I was starting to believe the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size."

Chris Cooper: "Who the f*** are you??"

Nicolas Cage as Charlie: "What am I doing here? Why did I bother to come here today? Nobody even seems to know my name. I've been on this planet for 40 years and I'm no closer to understanding a single thing. Why am I here? How did I get here?"

Nicolas Cage as Donald: "I don't know what that word means."

Brian Cox: "Wow them in the end and you've got a hit. You can have flaws, problems, but wow them in the end... and you've got a hit."

Nicolas Cage as Charlie: "Writing is a journey into the unknown."

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