Matthew McConaughey Monologues

Let me give y'all a little news flash. There ain't nothin' out there can kill fuckin' Ron Woodroof in 30 days.

Oh, I'm the drug dealer? No, you're the fuckin' drug dealer. I mean, goddamn, people are dyin'. And y'all are up there afraid that we're gonna find an alternative without you.

Ice-cold beer, a little riding in. Well, take my woman dancing. You know? I want kids. I mean, I got one... one life, right? Mine. But sh... Fuck, I want somebody else's sometimes. Sometimes I just feel like I'm fighting for a life I just ain't got time to live. I want it to mean something.

Congratulations. Now fuck off and go back to your bed.

Get the fuck out of here, whatever you are, before I kick you in the fucking face.

I swear it, Ray, God sure was dressin' the wrong doll when he blessed you with a set of balls.

Well then, tell him to go back to the FUCKIN' SUNSHINE STATE!

Would you stop starin' at her tits, Rayon, you're startin' to look normal.

What? Hook me up to the morphine drip, let me fade on out? Nah. Sorry, lady, but I prefer to die with my boots on.

Welcome to the Dallas Buyers Club!

These fuckers are coming at me, man, from all angles. I wanna file a restraining order.

Against the government and the fucking FDA, that's who.

Did ya hear Rock Hudson was a cocksucker?

It's called a newspaper. Right there. It's a shame. Ain't it? All that fine Hollywood pussy just all being wasted on a guy who smokes his friends.

He was my father. I loved him even if he had gone crazy.

No. I should've, but I was afraid. I mean, I loved my father but I was terrified of him.

I guess I avoided it because I wanted to.

You know, you never did tell me why it is you just keep that one picture of your mother in your office.

He said he had a vision, a vision from God.

An angel came to him and told him the truth of this world. And revealed God's special purpose for are family.

I didn't know what to say or how to feel.

I was too messed up to understander. End knowledge.

I didn't realize it at that moment, at least not consciously, but my happy and mostly secure world had just flipped over, and there were dark things under there...

Very dark things.

And my little boy's mind just couldn't take it.

Dad told us that there were moments in everyone's life when they could suddenly just disappear without anyone knowing where they went or why. He said those were the moments when God's hands would reach out and take you. According to Dad, nothing, not even a camera could catch us. We were invisible when we were God's hands.

I started digging that goddamn hole, but I did not pray. I would not. I hated God, I despised him. My hatred helped me dig, kept me going. Dad's, or God's, or the Angel's or whoever's plan it was would not work on me. I knew what Dad was doing was wrong, and nothing was gonna change that.

I hated Dad's God, and I would have run away if it weren't for my brother. I just couldn't leave him there.

We lived right behind the Thurman public Rose Garden. In the house where they used to keep the gardeners back in the fifties. Dad had gotten a good deal on it back when him and mom got married.

Adam was three years younger than me. Our mama died giving birth to him, so, I basically took care of him for as long as I can remember.

Our dad worked as a mechanic over in Jupiter. He usually got home around 5:30 and we'd all have dinner together.

God had come to Dad earlier that day and told him that the time had come. After work he drove down to Jacksonville, about forty-five minutes or so southwest of Thurman. He said he had never been there before but he had no trouble finding it, God was leading him.

For those of you who may not know, this is the final resting place for six members of the 1970 Thundering Herd. The plane crash that took their lives was so severe, so absolute, that their bodies were unable to be identified. So they were buried here. Together. Six players. Six teammates. Six Sons of Marshall. This is our past, gentlemen. This is where we have been. This is how we got here. This is who we are. Today, I want to talk about our opponent this afternoon. They're bigger, faster, stronger, more experienced and on paper, they're just better. And they know it too. But I want to tell you something that they don't know. They don't know your heart. I do. I've seen it. You have shown it to me. You have shown this coaching staff, your teammates. You have shown yourselves just exactly who you are in here.

When you take that field today, you've got to lay that heart on the line, men. From the souls of your feet, with every ounce of blood you've got in your body, lay it on the line until the final whistle blows. And if you do that, if you do that, we cannot lose. We may be behind on the scoreboard at the end of the game but if you play like that we cannot be defeated. Now we came here today to remember six young men and sixty-nine others who will not be on the field with you today, but they will be watching. You can bet your ass that they'll be gritting their teeth with every snap of that football. You understand me? How you play today, from this moment on is how you will be remembered. This is your opportunity to rise from these ashes and grab glory. We are...

We are.

We are!

The funerals end today!

One day, not today, not tomorrow, not this season, probably not next season either but one day, you and I are gonna wake up and suddenly we're gonna be like every other team in every other sport where winning is everything and nothing else matters. And when that day comes, well thats, thats when we'll honor them.

When I heard about what had happened, your situation, the only thing I could think about was the four of them. I thought about how much they mean to me, about how bad it would hurt if... well if I was to lose them. Then I thought about a team, and a school, and a town thats gotta be hurtin' real bad. And I thought, hell, maybe I could help.

That's why you're gonna get them to make an exception.

... Explain it to them. We would like to field a team. We don't have enough players to do that. They can help us get more players, faster. Simple as that.

It's the only way we'll be even halfway competitive in recruiting.

My youngest crapped his pants yesterday.

He's four. Sandy was out so I had to clean him up. When she got home, I told her what happened, she couldn't believe it. I said "I know, the kid's four, he shouldn't be doing that anymore.", She said "No, not that, I can't believe after all these years you finally changed a diaper."

There's a first time for everything, Don.

To His Excellency John Quincy Adams, Massachusetts member, House of Representatives. I have understood from Mr. Joadson that you are acquainted with the plight of the Amistad Africans. If that is true, then you are aware that we have been at every step successful in our presentation of their case. Yet despite this and despite the unlikelihood of President Van Buren's re-election, he has appealed our most recent favorable decision to the highest court in the land. As I'm sure you are well aware, seven of nine of these Supreme Court justices are themselves Southern slave owners. Sir, we need you. If ever there was a time for a man to cast aside his daily trappings and array himself for battle, that time has come. Cicero once said, appealing to Claudius in defense of the Republic, that the whole result of this entire war depends on the life of one most brave and excellent man. In our time, in this instance, I believe it depends on two. A courageous man at present in irons in New Haven, named Cinque... and you sir. Sincerely Robert S. Baldwin, attorney-at-law.

Yet the abduction of freemen from the British Protectorate of Sierra Leone and their illegal transportation to the New World, as described by Cinque, is not unheard of, is it?

On the other hand, let's say they aren't slaves. If they aren't slaves, in which case they were illegally acquired, weren't they? Forget mutiny, forget piracy, forget murder and all the rest. Those are subsequent irrelevant occurrences. Ignore everything but the pre-eminent issue at hand. The wrongful transfer of stolen goods. Either way, we win.

My clients' journey did not begin in Havana, as they claim and keep claiming more and more emphatically. No, my clients' journey began much, much further away.

I said this before the judge, this is almost how it works here, almost.

Yes. I deal with property. Sometimes I get people's property back, other times I get it taken away, as in this case. Every one of the claims speaks to the issue of ownership.

Baldwin, Roger S, attorney-at-law.

Yes. Well... intending no disrespect, Mr. Tappan, but if that were the way to go, well, then... Well, I wouldn't have bothered coming down here. Goodbye. I bid you gentlemen a good afternoon.

And this here, Cinque, is for me. More death threats. Some of them signed. By my own clients, no less. I should say former clients, shouldn't I? There is one more consequence to having no clientele to speak of. I am now free to sit here as long as it takes for you to acknowledge me.

I want to tell you a story. I'm going to ask you all to close your eyes while I tell you the story. I want you to listen to me. I want you to listen to yourselves. Go ahead. Close your eyes, please. This is a story about a little girl walking home from the grocery store one sunny afternoon. I want you to picture this little girl. Suddenly a truck races up. Two men jump out and grab her. They drag her into a nearby field and they tie her up and they rip her clothes from her body. Now they climb on. First one, then the other, raping her, shattering everything innocent and pure with a vicious thrust in a fog of drunken breath and sweat. And when they're done, after they've killed her tiny womb, murdered any chance for her to have children, to have life beyond her own, they decide to use her for target practice. They start throwing full beer cans at her. They throw them so hard that it tears the flesh all the way to her bones. Then they urinate on her. Now comes the hanging. They have a rope. They tie a noose. Imagine the noose going tight around her neck and with a sudden blinding jerk she's pulled into the air and her feet and legs go kicking. They don't find the ground. The hanging branch isn't strong enough. It snaps and she falls back to the earth. So they pick her up, throw her in the back of the truck and drive out to Foggy Creek Bridge. Pitch her over the edge. And she drops some thirty feet down to the creek bottom below. Can you see her? Her raped, beaten, broken body soaked in their urine, soaked in their semen, soaked in her blood, left to die. Can you see her? I want you to picture that little girl. Now imagine she's white.

We're going to lose this case, Carl Lee. There are no more points of law to argue here. I want to cope a plea, maybe Buckley will cop us a second degree murder and we can get you just life in prison.

It's not me, we're not the same, Carl Lee. The jury has to identify with the defendant. They see you, they see a yardworker; they see me, they see an attorney. I live in town, you live in the hill.

And until we can see each other as equals, justice is never going to be even-handed. It will remain nothing more than a reflection of our own prejudices.

That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age.

Man, it's the same bullshit they tried to pull in my day. If it ain't that piece of paper, there's some other choice they're gonna try and make for you. You gotta do what Randall Pink Floyd wants to do man. Let me tell you this, the older you do get the more rules they're gonna try to get you to follow. You just gotta keep livin' man, L-I-V-I-N.

I love those redheads!

Let me tell you what Melba Toast is packin' right here, all right. We got 4:11 Positrac outback, 750 double pumper, Edelbrock intake, bored over 30, 11 to 1 pop-up pistons, turbo-jet 390 horsepower. We're talkin' some fuckin' muscle.

Yeah, well, listen. You ought to ditch the two geeks you're in the car with now and get in with us. But that's all right, we'll worry about that later. I will see you there. All right?

We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars. Now we just look down, and worry about our place in the dirt.

Mankind was born on Earth. It was never meant to die here.

We've always defined ourselves by the ability to overcome the impossible. And we count these moments. These moments when we dare to aim higher, to break barriers, to reach for the stars, to make the unknown known. We count these moments as our proudest achievements. But we lost all that. Or perhaps we've just forgotten that we are still pioneers. And we've barely begun. And that our greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us, that our destiny lies above us.

You know, one of those useless machines they used to make was called an MRI, and if we had any of those left the doctors would have been able to find the cyst in my wife's brain, before she died instead of after, and then she would've been the one sitting here, listening to this instead of me, which would've been a good thing because she was always the… calmer one.

After you kids came along, your mom, she said something to me I never quite understood. She said, "Now, we're just here to be memories for our kids." I think now I understand what she meant. Once you're a parent, you're the ghost of your children's future.

Don't you get it yet, TARS? I brought myself here! We're here to communicate with the three-dimensional world! We're the bridge! I thought they chose me. But they didn't choose me, they chose her!

To save the world! All of this, is one little girl's bedroom, every moment! It's infinitely complex! They have access, to infinite time and space, but they're not *bound* by anything! They can't find a specific place *in* time, they can't communicate. That's why I'm here. I'm gonna find a way to tell Murph, just like I found this moment.

No. When you become a parent, one thing becomes really clear. And that's that you want to make sure your children feel safe. And that rules out telling a 10-year old that the world's ending.