Jeff Bridges Monologues

... When I was a boy, I used to, uh... I used to read all about Edison, and the Wright brothers... Mr. Ford, they were, they were my heroes... 'rags to riches' that's not just the name of a book; that's, what this country was all about!... We invented the free enterprise system, where anybody, no matter who he was, where he came from, what class he belonged to... If he came up with a better idea, about ANYTHING, there's no limit to how far he could go... I grew up a generation too late I guess because now the way the system works... The loner; the dreamer; the CRACKPOT, who, comes up with some CRAZY IDEA that everybody LAUGHS at, that LATER, turns out to REVOLUTIONIZE THE WORLD... HE'S SQUASHED, FROM ABOVE, BEFORE HE EVEN GETS HIS HEAD OUT OF THE WATER, BECAUSE THE BUREAUCRATS, THEY'D RATHER KILL A NEW IDEA THAN LET IT ROCK THE BOAT!... IF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WERE ALIVE TODAY, HE'D BE THROWN IN JAIL FOR SAILING A KITE WITHOUT A LICENSE!

... It's true!... We're all puffed up with ourselves now because we invented *the bomb*... Dropped the... Beat the daylights out of the Japanese; the Nazis... But if 'big business' closes the door on THE LITTLE GUY WITH A NEW IDEA, WE'RE NOT ONLY CLOSING THE DOOR ON PROGRESS, BUT WE'RE SABOTAGING EVERYTHING THAT WE FOUGHT FOR!... EVERYTHING THAT THE COUNTRY STANDS FOR! And one day, we're gonna find ourselves at the bottom of the heap, instead of king of the hill, having no idea how we got there; buying our radios and our cars from our former enemies!... I don't believe that's gonna happen; I *can't* believe it, cuz... if I ever, stop believing in plain old common horse-sense of the American people... there's no way I could get out of bed in the morning... Thank you.

The car of tomorrow… today.

Aw, what's the difference - fifty or fifty million. That's only machinery!… It's the idea that counts, Abe… The dream…

"Big ships fine," Confucius say. "Rowboats long in tooth, make big noise, go nowhere."

Does that look like a car to you? THAT, is a gold mine I'm handing you on a silver platter.

Now how can you say that? You haven't even heard my ideas yet.

You can't ask government to be infallible, but you can ask it to be accountable.

You know, when Leah died, all I wanted was someone to tell me, "We made a mistake." You know? "We made a mistake. Your wife suffered for it, and we'd take it back a hundred times if we could." But they don't say that. She would've.

What are you doing? How many people are you going to kill?

They asked you what you stand for. You tell them, you stand for blowing up families. For orphan sons. Your father really killed himself you son of a bitch? Or is that just where you got your start?

Call it off.

It's not for me, call it off!

Call off the bomb! Call off the fuckin' bomb!

I was right… I…

Where's my son? Where's Grant? Where is he?

I saved your son's life!

I said I saved your son's life!

But… what about Brooke? Did you…

No! The government's not who you're killing!

You're killing children! Children die!

Listen to me, princess. We fucked twice. That's it. Once the sweat dries, you still don't know shit about me. Got it?

I didn't know whores were so philosophical.

You let that guy turn us into clowns tonight. We were always small time, but we were never clowns.

Frank, if somebody requested "Chopsticks," you'd ask for the sheet music.

Who I fuck and who I don't fuck is none of your fucking business!

What's happened to you? Have you been kissing ass so long, you're starting to like it?

Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to a very special lady with a very special way of singing a song. Miss Susie Diamond!

What do you want from me? You want me to tell you to stay, hmm? Is that what you're looking for? You want me to get down on my knees and beg you to save the Baker Boys from doom? Forget it, sweetheart. We survived for 15 years before you strutted onto the scene. Fifteen years. Two seconds, you're bawling like a baby. You shouldn't be wearing a dress; you should be wearing a diaper.

Knock it off with that fucking thing... driving me nuts! Jack you want eggs, Jack you want coffee. You're not my housekeeper, I'm not your fucking father. I can't babysit you every time your mama gets an itch!

I am struck that LaBoeuf is shot, trampled, and nearly severs his tongue, and not only does not cease to talk, but spills the banks of English!

The chinaman is running them cheap shells on me again.

I mean to kill you in one minute, Ned. Or see you hanged in Fort Smith at Judge Parker's convenience. Which will you have?

The ground's too hard. If they wanted a decent funeral, they should have got themselves killed in summer.

If he is not in a shallow grave somewhere between here and Fort Smith he is gone. Long gone! Thanks to Mr. LaBeouf, we have missed our shot. He barked and the birds have flown. Gone. Gone. Gone! Lucky Ned and his cohort gone. Your fifty dollars gone. Gone the whiskey - seized in evidence. The trail is cold, if there ever was one. I'm a foolish old man who's been drawn into a wild goose chase by a harpy in trouser and a nincompoop. Mr. LaBeouf, he can wonder the Choctaw Nation for as long as he likes. Perhaps the local In'jins will take him in and honor his jibberings by making him chief. You, sister, may go where you like. Our engagement is terminated. I bow out.

At The Green Frog, had a billiard table. Served ladies and men both, mostly men. Tried running it myself for a while, but couldn't keep good help. And I never did learn how to buy meat. Is it him?

That's when I went out to the staked plains of Texas. Shoot buffalo with Vernon Shaftoe and a Flathead Indian named Olly. Well, the Mormons, well they run Shaftoe out of Great Salt Lake City, don't ask me what for. Call it a misunderstanding and leave it go at that. Well, big shaggies, about all gone now. Damned shame. Give three dollars right now for a pickled buffalo tongue.

Ground's too hard. If them men wanted a decent burial, they should have gotten themselves kilt in summer.

You go for a man hard enough and fast enough, he don't have time to think about how many's with him; he thinks about himself, and how he might get clear of that wrath that's about to set down on him

I'm a foolish old man who's been drawn into a wild goose chase by a harpie in trousers and a nincompoop.

That was "Johnny in the Low Ground." There are very few fiddle tunes I have not heard. Once heard they are locked in my mind forever. It is a sadness to me that I have sausage fingers that cannot crowd onto a fretboard... Little fat girls at a cotillion. "Soldier's Joy"!

It astonishes me that Mr. LaBoeuf has been shot, trampled, and nearly bitten his tongue off, and yet not only does he continue to talk but he spills the banks of English.

I'm not a sharper. I am an old man sleeping on a rope bed in a room behind the Chinese grocery. I have nothing.

I don't have to buy that, I confiscate it. I am an officer of the court. Ah, thank you. $100, that's the rate.

That rug really tied the room together.

Let me explain something to you. Um, I am not "Mr. Lebowski". You're Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. You know, that or, uh, His Dudeness, or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing.

Walter, I love you, but sooner or later, you're going to have to face the fact you're a goddamn moron.

Rug pee-ers did not do this. Look at it: a young trophy wife, marries this guy for his money, she figures he hasn't given her enough, you know, she owes money all over town.

God damn you Walter! You fuckin' asshole! Everything's a fuckin' travesty with you, man! And what was all that shit about Vietnam? What the FUCK, has anything got to do with Vietnam? What the fuck are you talking about?

I dropped off the money exactly as per... look, man, I've got certain information, all right? Certain things have come to light. And, you know, has it ever occurred to you, that, instead of, uh, you know, running around, uh, uh, blaming me, you know, given the nature of all this new shit, you know, I-I-I-I... this could be a-a-a-a lot more, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, complex, I mean, it's not just, it might not be just such a simple... uh, you know?

I'll tell you what I'm blathering about... I've got information man! New shit has come to light! And shit... man, she kidnapped herself. Well sure, man. Look at it... a young trophy wife, in the parlance of our times, you know, and she, uh, uh, owes money all over town, including to known pornographers, and that's cool... that's, that's cool, I'm, I'm saying, she needs money, man. And of course they're going to say that they didn't get it, because... she wants more, man! She's got to feed the monkey, I mean uh... hasn't that ever occurred to you, man? Sir?

You thought that Bunny had been kidnapped and you were fuckin' glad, man. You could use it as an excuse to make some money disappear. All you needed was a sap to pin it on! You'd just met me! You human... paraquat! You figured 'Oh, here's a loser', you know? A deadbeat, someone the square community won't give a shit about.

I mean we totally fucked it up man, we fucked up this payoff, we got the kidnappers all mad at us, and Lebowski, ya know, he yelled at me a lot but he didn't do anything, huh?

No, I'm saying, if he knows I'm a fuck-up, why does he leave me in charge of getting his wife back? Because he doesn't fucking want her back! He no longer digs her, it's all a show! Ok, so then why doesn't he give a shit about his million bucks? I mean, he knows we never handed off the briefcase, but he never asked for it back. The million bucks was never in the briefcase! The asshole was hoping that they would kill her! You threw out a ringer for a ringer!