Five Easy Pieces Monologues

A dropout from upper-class America picks up work along the way on oil rigs when his life isn't spent in a squalid succession of bars, motels, and other points of interest.

I'd like a plain omelette, no potatoes, tomatoes instead, a cup of coffee and wheat toast.

What do you mean? You don't have any tomatoes?

Yeah, I know what it comes with, but it's not what I want.

Wait a minute, I have made up my mind. I'd like a plain omelette, no potatoes on the plate, a cup of coffee and a side order of wheat toast.

What do you mean you don't make side orders of toast? You make sandwiches, don't you?

You've got bread and a toaster of some kind?

OK, I'll make it as easy for you as I can. I'd like an omelette, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast, no mayonnaise, no butter, no lettuce, and a cup of coffee.

Yeah, now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, give me a cheque for the chicken salad sandwich, and you haven't broken any rules.

I want you to hold it between your knees.

You see this sign?

I don't know if you'd be particularly interested in hearing anything about me. My life, I mean... Most of it doesn't add up to much that I could relate as a way of life that you'd approve of... I'd like to be able to tell you why, but I don't really... I mean, I move around a lot because things tend to get bad when I stay. And I'm looking... for auspicious beginnings, I guess... I'm trying to, you know, imagine your half of this conversation... My feeling is, that if you could talk, we probably wouldn't be talking. That's pretty much how it got to be before... I left... Are you all right? I don't know what to say

... Tita suggested that we try to... I don't know. I think that she... seems to feel we've got... some understanding to reach... She totally denies the fact that we were never that comfortable with each other to begin with... The best that I can do, is apologize.

We both know that I was never really that good at it, anyway...

I'm sorry it didn't work out.

Ants! Why don't we all line up like a goddamned bunch of ants! Its the most beautiful part of the day!

It's ridiculous. I'm sittin' here listening to some cracker *asshole* lives in a trailer park compare his life to mine. Keep on tellin' me about the good life, Elton, because it makes me puke.

Your, your little friend's real, real sharp. Uh, I don't, uh, I don't wear the wig on TV because if you're gonna be out there in front of two and a half million people, you've got to be sincere. I mean, I like to wear it when I'm in bowling alleys and slipping around, stuff like that. I think it gives me a little class. What do you think?

I got you to come and work out here? I ain't figured out how you let me get you to come out here and work on these rigs. I've never worked on these damn things before, Elton. You've worked on 'em before. I can't figure out how you let me get *us* out here.