James L. Brooks

Excuse me. It is after ten. Give my daughter the pain shot, please.

Well, please - it's, it's after ten. It's after ten. I don't see why she has to have this pain.

It's time for her shot! Do you understand? Do something! All she had to do is hold out until ten! And it's past ten! She's - in pain, my daughter's in pain! Give her the shot, do you understand me?

Do you have any reaction at all to my telling you I love you?

Would you like to come in?

Everything would have been just fine, you know, if you hadn't gotten drunk. I was... I... I just didn't want you to think I was like one of your other girls.

Garrett! What is it that makes you so insistent on shocking and insulting me? I mean, I really hate that way of talking. You must know this. Why do you do it?

Raising three children, working full-time *and* chasing women requires a lot more energy than you have. You know, one of the nicest qualities about you has always been that you recognized your weaknesses. *Don't* lose that quality now just when you need it the most!

Careful there. Those are worth more than you'll ever make in your lifetime.

You are not special enough to overcome a bad marriage.

He can't even do the simple things, like fail locally.

Not that it's any of your business… Oh, let's just leave it at that.

Grown women are prepared for life's little emergencies.

Come closer… come closer… come closer…

You both of you have beautiful eyes and your hair is too long. I mean, I don't care how long it gets in the back, but keep your bangs cut, OK, it's too long.

Just keep it short, alright?

Look, I'm sorry about this but I can't help it, and I can't talk to you for too long or I'll get real upset. I want you to make a lot of friends. And I want you to be real nice to the girls 'cause they're gonna be real important to you, I swear.

Ted, give me a kiss, come on. Tommy, you be sweet. Be sweet. And stop tryin' to pretend like you hate me. I mean, it's silly.

I know you like me. I know it. For the last year or two, you've been pretending like you hate me. I love you very much. I love you as much as I love anybody, as much as I love myself. And in a few years when I haven't been around to be on your tail about something or irritating you, you could... remember that time that I bought you the baseball glove when you thought we were too broke. You know? Or when I read you those stories? Or when I let you goof off instead of mowing the lawn? Lots of things like that. And you're gonna realize that you love me. And maybe you're gonna feel badly, because you never told me. But don't - I know that you love me. So don't ever do that to yourself, all right?

Momma, that's the first time I stopped hugging first. I like that.

You don't know how lucky you are, you know. Everybody wants to go to Des Moines. People come from all over the world just to get one look at Des Moines before they die.

OK, you're allowed to say one mean thing to me a year. That'll do until you're 10.

I grew up with it my whole life. You can take it for a couple of minutes.

Some people say Des Moines is the best city in Iowa.

No, forget it, I'm not gonna make you feel better, I'm too mad.

Ok, I'll meet you at the place near the thing where we went that time.

I know you care about him. I've never seen you like this about anyone, so please don't get me wrong when I tell you that Tom, while being a very nice guy, is the Devil.

What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he's around?

Come on! Nobody is going to be taken in by a guy with a long, red, pointy tail! What's he gonna sound like?

No. I'm semi-serious here.

He will be attractive! He'll be nice and helpful. He'll get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation. He'll never do an evil thing! He'll never deliberately hurt a living thing... he will just bit by little bit lower our standards where they are important. Just a tiny little bit. Just coax along flash over substance. Just a tiny little bit. And he'll talk about all of us really being salesmen. And he'll get all the great women.

Wouldn't this be a great world if insecurity and desperation made us more attractive? If "needy" were a turn-on?

A lot of alliterations from anxious anchors placed in powerful posts!

And if things had gone differently for me tonight, then I probably wouldn't be saying any of this. I grant you everything. But give me this: He personifies everything that you've been fighting against. And I'm in love with you. How do you like that? I buried the lede.

And in the middle of all this, I started to think about the one thing that makes me feel really good and makes immediate sense... and it's you.

I'm going to stop right now. Except that I would give anything if you were two people, so that I could call up the one who's my friend and tell her about the one that I like *so much*!

Here's a good one. They allow us to have cameras at an execution in Florida. Do you broadcast tape of the guy in the chair when they turn on the voltage?

No, NICE calls, worried that I was having a heart attack.

I think we have the kind of friendship where if I were the devil, you'd be the only one I would tell.

Six years from now, I'll be back here with my wife and two kids. And I'll see you, and one of my kids will say, "Daddy, who is that?" And I'll say it's not nice to point at single fat women.

No, I think anyone who puckers up their lips and presses it against their bosses buttocks and then smooches is an ass-kisser.

I can sing while I read, I am singing and reading both.

120 people were reported injured, at least 22 people died.

I wish I were one of them.

If anything happens to me, you tell every woman I've ever gone out with I was talking about her at the end. That way they'll have to reevaluate me.

I don't know... It's very strange not feeling that stupid panic thing inside you all the time. Without that you just start thinking about yourself, and what does that ever get anybody? Today, on the bus there was this adorable couple and I felt myself giving them a dirty look. I had no idea everything was...

...Moving in the wrong direction. Away from when I even remembered what it was like to have a man to... anything... hold fucking - sorry - hands with, for Christ's sake. I was feeling, like, really bad that Dr. Bettes is married. Which is probably why I make poor Spencer hug me more than he wants to. Like the poor kid doesn't have enough problems, he has to make up for his mom not getting any. Oh, boy. Who needs these thoughts?

Well, part of what I said in this entire history of my life which you won't read is that somehow you've done more for my mother, my son and me, than anyone else ever has... And that makes you the most important, surprising, generous person I've ever met and that you be in our daily prayers forever. I also wrote one part... I wrote, "I'm sorry"... I was talking about I was sorry when I got mad at you when you came over and you told my son that he ought to answer back so I wrote that I was sorry for busting you on that... and I'm sorry for busting in on you that night... when I said I was never... I was sorry and I'm sorry every time your food was cold and that you had to wait two seconds for a coffee filler... and I'm sorry for never spotting, right there at the table in the restaurant, the human being that had it in him to do this thing for us... You know what, I'm just going to start from the beginning... I have not been able to express my gratefulness to you... even as I look at the word "grateful" now it doesn't begin to tell you what I feel for you...

I've got this, what, ailment? My doctor, a shrink that I used to go to all the time, he says that in fifty or sixty percent of the cases, a pill really helps. I hate pills. Very dangerous thing, pills. Hate. I'm using the word "hate" here, about pills. Hate. My compliment is, that night when you came over and told me that you would never… all right, well, you were there, you know what you said. Well, my compliment to you is, the next morning, I started taking the pills.

Just let me... let me talk. I might be the only person on the face of the earth that knows you're the greatest woman on earth. I might be the only one who appreciates how amazing you are in every single thing that you do, and how you are with Spencer, "Spence," and in every single thought that you have, and how you say what you mean, and how you almost always mean something that's all about being straight and good. I think most people miss that about you, and I watch them, wondering how they can watch you bring their food and clear their tables and never get that they just met the greatest woman alive. And the fact that I get it makes me feel good... about me.

Never, never, interrupt me, okay? Not if there's a fire, not even if you hear the sound of a thud from my home and one week later there's a smell coming from there that can only be a decaying human body and you have to hold a hanky to your face because the stench is so thick that you think you're going to faint. Even then, don't come knocking. Or, if it's election night, and you're excited and you wanna celebrate because some fudgepacker that you date has been elected the first queer president of the United States and he's going to have you down to Camp David, and you want someone to share the moment with. Even then, don't knock. Not on this door. Not for ANY reason. Do you get me, sweetheart?

It's not true. Some of us have great stories, pretty stories that take place at lakes with boats and friends and noodle salad. Just no one in this car. But a lot of people, that's their story. Good times, noodle salad. What makes it so hard is not that you had it bad, but that you're that pissed that so many others had it good.

The next thing I know, she's sitting right there next to me. Well, it's not right to go into details… I got nervous. I screwed up. I said the wrong thing, where if I hadn't, I could be in bed right now with a woman who if you make her laugh you got a life. Instead, I'm here with you: no offense, but a moron pushing the last legal drug.