Kramer vs. Kramer Monologues

After his wife leaves him, a work-obsessed Manhattan advertising executive is forced to learn long-neglected parenting skills, but a heated custody battle over the couple's young son deepens the wounds left by the separation.

Is that what you think? No. That's not it, Billy. Your mom loves you very much... and the reason she left has nothing to do with you. I don't know if this will make sense, but I'll try to explain it to you. I think the reason why Mommy left... was because for a long time... I kept trying to make her be a certain kind of person. A certain kind of wife that I thought she was supposed to be. And she just wasn't like that. She was... She just wasn't like that. I think that she tried for so long to make me happy... and when she couldn't, she tried to talk to me about it. But I wasn't listening. I was too busy, too wrapped up... just thinking about myself. And I thought that anytime I was happy, she was happy. But I think underneath she was very sad. Mommy stayed here longer than she wanted because she loves you so much. And the reason why Mommy couldn't stay anymore... was because she couldn't stand me. She didn't leave because of you. She left because of me. Go to sleep now because it's really late, okay? Good night. Sleep tight.

You go right back and put that right back until you finish your dinner... I'm warning you, you take one bite out of that and you are in big trouble. Don't... Hey! Don't you dare... Don't you DARE do that. You hear me? Hold it right there! You put that ice cream in your mouth and you are in very, very, VERY big trouble. Don't you dare go anywhere beyond that... Put it down right now. I am not going to say it again. I am NOT going to say it AGAIN.

o the other morning, I'm at the refrigerator… you know, getting Billy ready for school. So I'm just in my underwear and he notices I've lost weight. And he comes in and pats me. He comes up to here , and he says "Daddy, you've really lost a lot of weight", he looks up at me and he says "And it's all gone to your nose."

My wife used to always say to me, "Why can't a woman have the same ambitions as a man." I think you're right. Maybe I've learned that much. But by the same token, I'd like to know, what law is it that says a woman is a better parent simply by virtue of her sex? I've had a lot of time to think about what it is that makes somebody a good parent, you know. It has to do with constancy. It has to do with patience. It has to do with listening to him. It has to do with pretending to listen to him when you can't even listen any more. It has to do with love - like, like, like she was saying. And I don't know where its written that says that a woman has a corner on that market. That a man has any less of those emotions than a woman does? Billy has a home with me. I've made it the best I could.

Come here. We didn't have diet soda. We had egg creams - which is a little bit of chocolate syrup and a little bit of seltzer water and a little bit of milk and you went Shoooosh! all swooshed up when you drank it and it was de-licious. We didn't have the Mets, but, we had the Brooklyn Dodgers. We had the Polo Grounds. We had Ebbits Field. Ah, boy, those were the days. And we didn't have the Volkswagens; but, we had all those different kind of cars with the funny names on 'em. We didn't have any Burger Kings or McDonalds. We had automats where you went inside and you put a quarter in and you get, you know, a piece of pie or a sandwich that you see through a window. We didn't have any graffiti; but, we had this guy, Kilroy, and he went down the street...

The fact is that for the last six months I've been spitting blood to get this agency one of the biggest accounts its ever had and at five o'clock this afternoon we got the account! At eight o'clock I'm walking home with the Vice President who tells me I'm going to be the next Creative Director of this Department and I come through this door, to share with my wife who what was going to be one of the five best days of my life and she looks at me and tells me she doesn't want to live with me anymore! Don't you understand what she's done to me?