Meg Ryan Monologues

I think I could love you again if you could, for once, say 'I don't know.'

The trouble with al these losers at your meeting is that they are not perfect like some people. They're married to alcoholics who are bouncing off the walls and they don't know what the fuck to do. So you might have to be a little tolerant, give them the benefit of your expertise in problem solving.

Nothing happened, Michael. Nothing has to happen for me to have a bad day. That's the thrilling part of all this. It just comes and hits and runs me over like a goddamn freight train.

Maybe you shouldn't have to, Michael. One of the women at my meetings is going to a half way house, because she is not making it in her home environment and I…

Fuck that! Fuck making it better. It's not getting better! I don't know how to make it better and I swear to God you don't either!

It's horrifying how much you can hate yourself for being low and weak and he couldn't save me from that. So I turned it on him; I tried to empty it onto him. But there was always more, you know. When he tried to help I told him that he made me feel small and worthless. But nobody makes us feel that, we do that for ourselves. I shut him out because I knew if he ever really saw who I was inside, that he wouldn't love me. And we're separated now, he's moved away, and it was so hard not to beg him to stay. And I don't know if I'm going to get a second chance but I have to believe. That I deserve one. Because we all do.

I drink a quart a day. It's vodka so you couldn't smell it.

No Michael, we're supposed to try to be real. And when you feel alone, you are not together, and that is real.

Happy, smile. Sad, frown. Use the corresponding face with the corresponding emotion. But no. You want this mysterious…

You'll become one of those hunchbacked, lonely old men, sitting in the corner of a crowded cafe, mumbling to yourself, "My ass is twitching. You people make my ass twitch."

No, everybody loves their mother. Even people who hate their mothers love their mothers. The question is, one man meant for one woman. That is the question.

I hate Paris in the springtime/I hate Paris in the fall/I hate Paris in the summer when it sizzles/I hate Paris in the winter when it drizzles/I hate Paris, oh why oh why do I hate Paris?/Because my love is there... with his SLUT girlfriend.

Because I love him! And I'm afraid that if he doesn't come back that I'll... it'll hurt so much that I'll just shrivel up and I'll never be able to love anyone ever again.

I've spent most of my adult life trying to protect myself from exactly this situation. And you can't do it ! There's no home safe enough, there's no country nice enough, there's no relationship secure enough; you're just setting yourself up for an even bigger fall and having an incredibly boring time in the process.

The key to French waiters: If you're nice to them, they treat you like shit. Treat them like shit, they love you.

Did you know that there are 452 official government cheeses in this country? Don't you think that's incredible? To come up with 452 ways of classifying what is basically a bacterial process?

I'm saying I *like* the cheese. God! What side of the train did you wake up on?

You know what, Charlie? No matter what I might seem like tonight, it's still the same old me from yesterday you'll wind up with tomorrow. The same old me, who wants the home and the family, who wants to plant some roots and see them grow.

Those French. They hate us, they smoke, they have a whole relationship with dairy products I don't understand.

No matter what I might seem like tonight, it's still the same old me from yesterday you wind up with tomorrow.

Why weren't you the one, Charlie? The one who turned on this big shiny Kate-light that burns so bright?

At a party. I'd just come to Toronto on a teaching exchange. We started talking. I had this feeling about him, same for him. It wasn't exactly a thunderclap or a lightning bolt, it was more like a…

You really, honestly never had that feeling about anybody in your whole entire life, honestly?

Huh… it's incredible how you do that. The words come out - "Welcome back" - but the meaning is completely different. What's the deal, is that a French thing or a concierge thing?

You did it again. Tell me something, because I just... I don't get it. Do you enjoy being that rude? Because when you do that, it just gets underneath my skin, and it makes me... completely... INSANE!

I didn't rush, you were right. But I didn't hide from it, either. I wanted everything to be perfect. I was 18. Jeff the Jock, my basement, Valentine's Day, "Jeopardy!" on in the background. It's a game show on TV.

Jeff said it would last longer with the show on to distract him. Got all the answers wrong except for sports. By Double Jeopardy!, he was done; by Final Jeopardy!, he was on his way home.

I don't know what they taught you in France, but rude and interesting are not the same things

I had this feeling about him, same for him. It wasn't exactly a thunderclap, or a lightning-bolt, it was more like a...

I thought you didn't believe men and women could be friends.

On the ride to New York.

I don't have to take this crap from you.

I see people.

What the hell does that have to do with anything? That will prove I'm over Joe? Because I fuck somebody? Harry, you're gonna have to move back to New Jersey because you've slept with everybody in New York and I don't see that turning Helen into a faint memory for you. Besides, I will make love to somebody when it is making love. Not the way you do it like you're out for revenge or something.

When Joe and I started seeing each other, we wanted exactly the same thing. We wanted to live together, but we didn't want to get married because every time anyone we knew got married, it ruined their relationship. They practically never had sex again. It's true, it's one of the secrets that no one ever tells you. I would sit around with my girlfriends who have kids - and, actually, my one girlfriend who has kids, Alice - and she would complain about how she and Gary never did it anymore. She didn't even complain about it, now that I think about it. She just said it matter-of-factly. She said they were up all night, they were both exhausted all the time, the kids just took every sexual impulse they had out of them. And Joe and I used to talk about it, and we'd say we were so lucky we have this wonderful relationship, we can have sex on the kitchen floor and not worry about the kids walking in. We can fly off to Rome on a moment's notice. And then one day I was taking Alice's little girl for the afternoon because I'd promised to take her to the circus, and we were in the cab playing "I Spy" - I spy a mailbox, I spy a lamp-post - and she looked out the window and she saw this man and this woman with these two little kids. And the man had one of the little kids on his shoulders, and she said, "I spy a family." And I started to cry. You know, I just started crying. And I went home, and I said, "The thing is, Joe, we never do fly off to Rome on a moment's notice."

Well, if you must know, it was because he was very jealous, and I had these days of the week underpants.

Yes. They had the days of the week on them, and I thought they were sort of funny. And then one day Sheldon says to me, "You never wear Sunday." It was all suspicious. Where was Sunday? Where had I left Sunday? And I told him, and he didn't believe me.

I'd like the chef's salad please with the oil and vinegar on the side and the apple pie a la mode.

But I'd like the pie heated, and I don't want the ice cream on top, I want it on the side, and I'd like strawberry instead of vanilla if you have it. If not, then no ice cream, just whipped cream but only if it's real. If it's out of a can, then nothing.

No, just the pie, but then not heated.

You see? That is just like you, Harry. You say things like that and you make it impossible for me to hate you. And I hate you, Harry. I really hate you. I hate you.

I am not your consolation prize, Harry.

Harry, you're going to have to try and find a way of not expressing every feeling that you have, every moment that you have them.

You know, I'm so glad I never got involved with you. I just would have ended up being some woman you had to get up out of bed and leave at 3:00 in the morning and go clean your andirons, and you don't even have a fireplace, not that I would know this.

All this time I've been saying that he didn't want to get married. But the truth is he didn't want to marry me. He didn't love me.

The first date back is always the toughest, Harry.

How much worse can it get than finishing dinner, having him reach over, pull a hair out of my head and start flossing with it at the table?

Yes it is. You are a human affront to all women and I am a woman.

Well, maybe it just means that… we should remember that we forgot them, or something. Anyway, it's about old friends.

The odd thing about this form of communication is that you're more likely to talk about nothing than something. But I just want to say that all this nothing has meant more to me than so many somethings.

Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life - well, valuable, but small - and sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it or because I haven't been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around? I don't really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So good night, dear void.

What will NY152 say today, I wonder. I turn on my computer. I wait impatiently as it connects. I go online, and my breath catches in my chest until I hear three little words: You've got mail. I hear nothing. Not even a sound on the streets of New York, just the beating of my own heart. I have mail. From you.

People are always telling you that change is a good thing. But all they're really saying is that something you didn't want to happen at all… has happened. My store is closing this week. I own a store, did I ever tell you that? It's a lovely store, and in a week it will be something really depressing, like a Baby Gap. Soon, it'll just be a memory. In fact, someone, some foolish person, will probably think it's a tribute to this city, the way it keeps changing on you, the way you can never count on it, or something. I know because that's the sort of thing I'm always saying. But the truth is… I'm heartbroken. I feel as if a part of me has died, and my mother has died all over again, and no one can ever make it right.

Well… if he's not here, he has a reason, because there is not a cruel or careless bone in his body. But I wouldn't expect you to understand anybody like that. You with your theme park, multi-level, homogenize-the-world mochaccino land. You've deluded yourself into thinking that you're some sort of benefactor, bringing books to the masses. But no one will ever remember you, Joe Fox. And maybe no one will remember me, either, but plenty of people remember my mother, and they think she was fine, and they think her store was something special. You are nothing but a suit!

No, I know what you mean, and I'm completely jealous! What happens to me when I'm provoked is that I get tongue-tied and my mind goes blank. Then I spend all night tossing and turning trying to figure out what I should have said. What should I have said, for example, to a bottom dweller who recently belittled my existence?

I've been thinking about you. Last night I went to meet you, and you weren't there. I wish I knew why. I felt so foolish. And as I waited, someone else showed up: a man who has made my professional life a misery. And an amazing thing happened. I was able, for the first time in my life to say the exact thing I wanted to say at the exact moment I wanted to say it. And, of course, afterwards, I felt terrible, just as you said I would. I was cruel, and I'm never cruel. And even though I can hardly believe what I said mattered to this man - to him, I am just a bug to be crushed - but what if it did? No matter what he's done to me, there is no excuse for my behavior. Anyway, I so wanted to talk to you. I hope you have a good reason for not being there last night. You don't seem like the kind of person that would do something like that. The odd thing about this form of communication is you're more likely to talk about nothing than something. But I just want to say that all this nothing has meant more to me than so many... somethings. So, thanks.

Once I read a story about a butterfly in the subway, and today, I saw one! It got on at 42nd and off at 59th, where, I assume, it was going to Bloomingdales to buy a hat that will turn out to be a mistake, as almost all hats are.