Miles Teller Monologues

What do you know about war? They'll tell you it's about patriotism, democracy... or some shit about the other guy hating our freedom. But you wanna know what it's really about? What do you see? A kid from Arkansas doing his patriotic duty to defend his country? I see a helmet, fire-retardant gloves, body armor and an M16. I see $17, 500. That's what it costs to outfit one American soldier. Over two million soldiers fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. It cost the American taxpayer $4.5 billion each year just to pay the air conditioning bills for those wars. And that's what war is really about. War is an economy. Anybody who tells you otherwise is either in on it or stupid.

They called guys like us war dogs. Bottom feeders who make money off of war without ever stepping foot on the battlefield. It was supposed to be derogatory, but… we kind of liked it.

So, I don't get it. If there's an entire defense industry, why would the Pentagon want to buy anything from you?

The best thing about now, is that there's another one tomorrow.

Compared to other kids, I haven't had that many hardships… not really. Shit's… Stuff's happened, sure, but stuff always happens right? But the real challenge of my life, the real hardship is me. It's always been me.

You know what Dan, if you were my Dad, you wouldn't have to.

P.S. - I don't know if this was due a long time ago. Probably was. That's fine. It may be too late for this essay. But it's not too late for me.

Once you've actually talked to her, you see who she is.

You think beauty's in some classroom or some textbook, and it's not. That's not what it's about. This right here. This is beautiful. All of this. That's all you need.

As long as I can remember, I've never not been afraid. Afraid of failure… of letting people down… hurting people… getting hurt. I thought if I kept my guard up and focused on other things, other people… if I couldn't even feel it, well then no harm would come to me. I screwed up. Not only did I shut out the pain, I shut out everything - the good and the bad - until there was nothing.

As long as I can remember, I've never not been afraid. Afraid of failure... of letting people down... hurting people... getting hurt. I thought if I kept my guard up and focused on other things, other people... if I couldn't even feel it, well then no harm would come to me. I screwed up. Not only did I shut out the pain, I shut out everything - the good and the bad - until there was nothing.

It's fine to just live in the now,but the best part about now is there's another one tomorrow. And I'm gonna start making them count.

ps.I don't know if this was due a long time ago, Maybe too late for this essay ,it's not too late for me.

She can do that? She can refuse my bail, are you serious? Okay, uh, look, I just need to talk to her.

Right, that makes sense. Well, I would prefer not to spend the next twenty four hours in an uncomfortable silence with you, so why don't we just pretend that we never had sex? It didn't happen. And then we can pretend that it's just the weather and not your passive-aggressive magical grandmother.

Did you just call my penis big?

Well, it's still nice to hear.

Look at 'em, a million tiny, little matchmakers. Thank you, snowflakes.

Women are most honest when they're trying to hurt somebody's feelings.

Hey. I just thought of an idea that could fix everything. Do you want to get high?

Yeah, me neither. That was just a test. I didn't know if you were a cop.

I'm just gonna lay it out there. This is why I don't think we should be together. And I've thought about it a lot and this is what's gonna happen. I'm gonna keep pursuing what I'm pursuing. And because I'm doing that, it's gonna take up more and more of my time. And I'm not gonna be able to spend as much time with you. And when I do spend time with you, I'm gonna be thinking about drumming. And I'm gonna be thinking about jazz music, my charts, all that. And because of that, you're gonna start to resent me. And you're gonna tell me to ease up on the drumming, spend more time with you because you're not feeling important. And I'm not gonna be able to do that. And really, I'm gonna start to resent you for even asking me to stop drumming. And we're just gonna start to hate each other. And it's gonna get very... It's gonna be ugly. And so for those reasons, I'd rather just, you know, break it off clean... because I wanna be great.