Ethan Hawke Monologues

I'm not exactly sure what country we're in. Could be Belgium, Luxembourg, France, or even Germany. I don't know what day it is. I have no watch, so I don't know what time it is. I'm not even sure of my name. The next thing you know, they'll be making me a general.

Griffin was a mortician in civilian life, and he seemed to be spending most of his military life producing work for his army counterparts.

It's thanks to Griffin and his military mortuary skills that I've made my recent headlong leap to three stripes. We lost half our squad, attempting one of his map-inspired, ill-conceived recon patrols. When I say 'lost', I mean 'killed'. Nobody in the army ever admits that someone on our side is killed. They're either lost, like Christopher Robin… hit, as in a batter hit by a pitched ball… or they get 'it' like in hide-and-go-seek. Or maybe they 'get it', as with an ambiguous joke.

You want to know how I did it? This is how I did it, Anton: I never saved anything for the swim back.

For someone who was never meant for this world, I must confess I'm suddenly having a hard time leaving it. Of course, they say every atom in our bodies was once part of a star. Maybe I'm not leaving... maybe I'm going home.

They used to say that a child conceived in love has a greater chance of happiness. They don't say that anymore.

My name is Vincent, all right? Vincent Anton Freeman, and I'm a "faith birth" or a "de-gene-erate", whatever you want to call it; but I am NOT a murderer!

You're a "God-child"?

But we do have one thing in common, only I don't have twenty or thirty years left in mine. Mine is already ten thousand beats overdue.

You are the authority on what is not possible, aren't you Irene? They've got you looking for any flaw, that after a while that's all you see. For what it's worth, I'm here to tell you that it is possible. It is possible.

I was never more certain of how far away I was from my goal than when I was standing right beside it.

It's funny, you work so hard, you do everything you can to get away from a place, and when you finally get your chance to leave, you find a reason to stay.

I belonged to a new underclass, no longer determined by social status or the color of your skin. No, we now have discrimination down to a science.

I'll never understand what possessed my mother to put her faith in God's hands, rather than her local geneticist.

Umm, I don't know. All I know is I have to catch an Austrian Airlines flight tomorrow morning at 9:30 and I don't really have enough money for a hotel, so I was just going to walk around, and it would be a lot more fun if you came with me. And if I turn out to be some kind of psycho, you know, you just get on the next train.

Alright, alright. Think of it like this: jump ahead, ten, twenty years, okay, and you're married. Only your marriage doesn't have that same energy that it used to have, y'know. You start to blame your husband. You start to think about all those guys you've met in your life and what might have happened if you'd picked up with one of them, right? Well, I'm one of those guys. That's me y'know, so think of this as time travel, from then, to now, to find out what you're missing out on. See, what this really could be is a gigantic favor to both you and your future husband to find out that you're not missing out on anything. I'm just as big a loser as he is, totally unmotivated, totally boring, and, uh, you made the right choice, and you're really happy.

You know what's the worst thing about somebody breaking up with you? It's when you remember how little you thought about the people you broke up with and you realize that is how little they're thinking of you. You know, you'd like to think you're both in all this pain but they're just like "Hey, I'm glad you're gone".

I kind of see this all love as this, escape for two people who don't know how to be alone. People always talk about how love is this totally unselfish, giving thing, but if you think about it, there's nothing more selfish.

I don't know, I think that if I could just accept the fact that my life is supposed to be difficult. You know, that's what to be expected, then I might not get so pissed-off about it and I'll just be glad when something nice happens.

OK, well this was my thought: 50,000 years ago, there are not even a million people on the planet. 10,000 years ago, there's, like, two million people on the planet. Now there's between five and six billion people on the planet, right? Now, if we all have our own, like, individual, unique soul, right, where do they all come from? You know, are modern souls only a fraction of the original souls? 'Cause if they are, that represents a 5,000 to 1 split of each soul in the last 50,000 years, which is, like, a blip in the Earth's time. You know, so at best we're like these tiny fractions of people, you know, walking… I mean, is that why we're so scattered? You know, is that why we're all so specialized?

Yeah, hang on, hang on. It's a, it's a totally scattered thought. It… which is kind of why it makes sense.

Listen, if somebody gave me the choice right now, of to never see you again or to marry you, alright, I would marry you, alright. And maybe that's a lot of romantic bullshit, but people have gotten married for a lot less.

Sometimes I dream about being a good father and a good husband. And sometimes it feels really close. But then other times it seems silly like it would ruin my whole life. And it's not just a fear of commitment or that I'm incapable of caring or loving because... I can. It's just that, if I'm totally honest with myself I think I'd rather die knowing that I was really good at something. That I had excelled in some way than that I'd just been in a nice, caring relationship.

You know what drives me crazy? It's all these people talking about how great technology is, and how it saves all this time. But, what good is saved time, if nobody uses it? If it just turns into more busy work. You never hear somebody say, "With the time I've saved by using my word processor, I'm gonna go to a Zen monastery and hang out". I mean, you never hear that.

Everybody's parents fucked them up. Rich kids parents gave them too much. Poor kids, not enough. You know, too much attention, not enough attention. They either left them or they stuck around and taught them the wrong things.

Why is it, that a dog, sleeping in the sun, is so beautiful, y'know, it is, it's beautiful, but a guy, standing at a bank machine, trying to take some money out, looks like a complete moron?

I wish I'd meet you earlier. I really like talking to you.

This friend of mine had a kid, and it was a home birth, so he was there helping out and everything. And he said at that profound moment of birth, he was watching this child, experiencing life for the first time, I mean, trying to take its first breath... all he could think about was that he was looking at something that was gonna die someday. He just couldn't get it out of his head. And I think that's so true, I mean, all - everything is so finite. But don't you think that that's what, makes our time, at specific moments, so important?

I know what you mean about wishing somebody wasn't there, though. It's just usually it's myself that I wish I could get away from. Seriously, think about this. I have never been anywhere that I haven't been. I've never had a kiss when I wasn't one of the kissers. Y'know, I've never, um, gone to the movies, when I wasn't there in the audience. I've never been out bowling, if I wasn't there, y'know making some stupid joke. I think that's why so many people hate themselves. Seriously, it's just they are sick to death of being around themselves.

Let's say that you and I were together all the time, then you'd start to hate a lot of my mannerisms. The way every time we would have people over, uh, I'd be insecure, and I'd get a little too drunk. Or, uh, the way I'd tell the same stupid pseudo-intellectual story again, and again. Y'see, I've heard all those stories. So of course I'm sick of myself. But being with you, uh, it's made me feel like I'm somebody else.

I'm having kind of an odd situation here, which is that… is… you see that girl over there? Yeah, well, this is our only night together. Here's the problem: The problem is that she wants a bottle of red wine, and I don't have any money. I was thinking that you might want to, um, give me the address of this bar, no, I know… and I would promise to send you the money, and you would make our night complete

I can never get very excited about other people ambitions for my life.

I mean, just once, I'd love to see, some little old lady save up all her money, to go to the fortune teller, and she'd get there, all excited about hearing her future, and the woman would say, "Um-humm. Tomorrow, and all your remaining days will be exactly like today. A tedious collection of hours. And you will have no new passions, and no new thoughts and no new travels, and when you die, you'll be completely forgotten.

Well, I was driving around with this buddy of mine, he was a big atheist, and we came to a stop, next to this homeless guy. And my buddy takes out a 100 dollar bill, and leans out the window, and he says, "Do you believe in God?". And the guy looks at my friend, and he looks at the money, he says, uh, "Yes, I do". My friend says, "Wrong answer", and we drove away.

There's these breeds of monkeys, right, and all they do is have sex, all the time, you know? And they turn out to be the least violent, the most peaceful, the most happy, you know? So maybe fooling around isn't so bad.

Yeah, right. Well, most people, you know, a lot of people talk about past lives and things like that, you know? And even if they don't believe it in some specific way, you know, people have some kind of notion of an eternal soul, right?

Honey, all you have to be by the time you're 23 is yourself.

I do. And we all love her. I love her. She breaks my heart again and again, but I love her.

There's no point to any of this. It's all just a... a random lottery of meaningless tragedy and a series of near escapes. So I take pleasure in the details. You know... a Quarter-Pounder with cheese, those are good, the sky about ten minutes before it starts to rain, the moment where your laughter become a cackle... and I, I sit back and I smoke my Camel Straights and I ride my own melt.

At the beep, please leave your name, number, and a brief justification for the ontological necessity of modern man's existential dilemma, and we'll get back to you

It's when the actual meaning is the complete opposite from the literal meaning.

There's no secret handshake. There's an IQ prerequisite, but there's no secret handshake.

Hello, you've reached the winter of our discontent.

I am not under any orders to make the world a better place.

Well, 'cause Mr. Brady died of AIDS. Things don't turn out like that.

You can't navigate me. I may do mean things, and I may hurt you, and I may run away without your permission, and you may hate me forever, and I know that scares the living shit outta you 'cause you know I'm the only real thing you got.

I've wanted you like this for all these years.

Well fuck me for being nice!

He's the reason Cliffs Notes were invented.

I'm picking up some very strange vibes. They're of the I-just-got-laid variety.

Did he dazzle you with his extensive knowledge of mineral water, or was it his in-depth analysis of, uh, uh, Marky Mark that finally reeled you in?

I'm bursting with fruit flavor.

I was told there'd be no math on this exam.

This girl is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.