Steven Zaillian

We've got to tell everybody. We've got to remind them. We've got to remind them how good it is.

Read the newspaper. What does it say? All bad. It's all bad. People have forgotten what life is all about. They've forgotten what it is to be alive. They need to be reminded. They need to be reminded of what they have and what they can lose. What I feel is the joy of life, the gift of life, the freedom of life, the wonderment of life!

"I'm all right, and then everything stops, There's no warning, It's like a light switch going off. It happens that fast. Something has to happen to bring me back. A sound or a touch. And then I can move again, I'm okay again. It's not that it feels bad, It's just that it's nothing. I feel nothing, like I'm dead. Nothing. Gets to be like I'm no a person anymore. Just a collection of tics. Not that I mind them necessarily. Sometimes they make life kind of interesting. Though I'm not sure who's in control, me or them. What I do mind is knowing that they shouldn't be there".

Hello. My name is Leonard Lowe. It has been explained to me that I've been away for quite some time. I'm back.

Look, l'm not a criminal. I've committed no crime, I'm not a danger to myself or to others. And yet, l'm stiIl not alIowed to go for a waIk on my own by myself. You didn't wake a thing, you woke a person. I am a person.

I'm sorry, if you were right, I would agree with you.

What we do know is that, as the chemical window closed, another awakening took place; that the human spirit is more powerful than any drug - and THAT is what needs to be nourished: with work, play, friendship, family. THESE are the things that matter. This is what we'd forgotten - the simplest things.

His gaze is from the passing of bars so exhausted, that it doesn't hold a thing anymore. For him, it's as if there were thousands of bars and behind the thousands of bars no world. The sure stride of lithe, powerful steps, that around the smallest of circles turns, is like a dance of pure energy about a center, in which a great will stands numbed. Only occasionally, without a sound, do the covers of the eyes slide open-. An image rushes in, goes through the tensed silence of the frame- only to vanish, forever, in the heart.

You'd think at a certain point all these atypical somethings would amount to a typical something.

I'm not very good with people. I like them. I wish I could say I had more than a rudimentary understanding of them. Maybe if they were less unpredictable...

His vision, from the constantly passing bars, has grown so weary that it cannot hold anything else. It seems to him there are a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world. As he paces in cramped circles, over and over, the movement of his powerful soft strides is like a ritual dance around a center in which a mighty will stands paralyzed. Only at times, the curtain of the pupils lifts, quietly - . An image enters in, rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles, plunges into the heart and is gone.

Do you think a Parkinsonian tremor taken to its extreme, would appear as no tremor at aIl?

Oh, yes. Imagine you accelerated a Parkinsonian hand tremor to the point of immobiIity in the - Suppose there's a patient with Parkinsonian compulsions accelerated: the hand tremor, the head bobbing, ticking, quickening of speech. Might they not aII cave in on themseIves and, in effect, turn a person into stone?

Some things couId reach him, though. The mention of his name, notes of a particuIar piece of music. Or the touch of another human being. But awakenings were rare and transient, Iasting onIy a moment or two. The rest of the time, he remained, as you see him here, in a metaphoricaI, if not physioIogicaI, equivaIent of sIeep, or even death.

The reaIity is we don't know what went wrong any more than we know what went right.

What kind of man makes a call like that...

Nowadays, young people, they don't know who Jimmy Hoffa was. They don't have a clue. I mean, maybe they know that he disappeared or something, but that's about it. But back then, there wasn't nobody in this country who didn't know who Jimmy Hoffa was.

Whenever anybody says they're a little concerned, they're very concerned.

And when they say they're more than a little concerned, they're desperate.

When I was young, I thought house painters painted houses. What did I know? I was a working guy. A business agent for Teamster Local 107 out of South Philly.

One of a thousand working stiffs... until I wasn't no more. And then I started painting houses... myself.

I thought maybe he owned the gas station. 'Cause he owned something, you could tell. Yeah, it turns out he owned the whole road.

They talked about it all the time. She came from mob royalty, if you want to call it that. To them, it was like they came over on the... the Italian Mayflower.

Sometimes with something like this, you might want to go to the bathroom first. It gives you a chance to make sure no followed you in. It also gives you a chance to make sure nobody's in the bathroom you have to worry about. It also gives you a chance to go to the bathroom.

Three people can keep a secret only when two of them are dead.

Russell had a piece of everything. He had this store in Pittston called Penn Drape & Curtains. And he ran everything out of there. Who knew what it all was? I mean, I'm sure the man had partners. They always have partners. Nobody keeps all the money. But everybody listened to Russ. That I can tell you. You wanted to bribe a judge, you asked Russell. You didn't know how much to bribe him, Russell was gonna tell you. You wanna promote one of your guys, Russ would tell you you could or you could not. You wanna make somebody disappear, you gotta get Russell's permission. You know, no two ways about it. And when you did something for Russ, you did it yourself. Like Russ used to say...

You always charge a guy with a gun! With a knife, you run away.

If I said it once, I said it a thousand times, I don't care they're Irish. I don't care they're Catholic. If there's one person you can't trust in this life, it's millionaires' kids.

You don't keep a man waiting. The only time you do is when you want to say something. When you want to say fuck you.

I am sitting in a room... full of fuckin' idiots. You dumb motherfuckers! You know what you did? You take Johnny O'Rourke's kid and you put him on as general organizer, pay thirty-six fucking grand, at the same time... you let him sell insurance to his fucking father's...

To his fucking father's... to his fucking father's... LOCALS!

Damn it! How do you do that? How STUPID can you be? That fucking cocksucker Kennedy has got his nose up my ass everywhere I go! You don't know that they're hounding me? They're looking at everything I do, and you let this happen in public! You're giving it to him!

I'm going to jail. You understand? I'm going to prison... because of you. You dumb motherfuckers. This is what you wanted. You wanted to put me in jail. Tell me now so I can kill you... right here.

In a war, you go from point A to point B. Sometimes, you spill a little beer along the way. That philosophy make sense to you?

Uh... off hand, that particular amount of money I borrowed... I don't know at this particular moment. But the record of my loans, which I requested, I have, and out of all the moneys I loaned during this period of time I went into these ventures.

So What? That's what you want from a Number Two. You don't want somebody too smart. You want a nice guy. People like him, you know. Not dumb, but somebody you know you can have walking behind you without getting knifed.

Sat there every day with that whining cocksucker, from New Jersey, talking about his woes, his problems. And all I wanted to do was finish my ice cream in peace. This cocksucker shows up at a meeting fifteen minutes late. Wearing fucking shorts! Who wears shorts to a meeting?

Chuck. Listen to me. Never put a fish in your car. You never get the smell out. Unless you pack it tight. Remember that. It'll help you in life.

Success. It's got enemies. You can be successful and have enemies or you can be unsuccessful and have friends.

Nah, I just think that monopolies are made illegal in the country, Frank, 'cause nobody wants to compete. Y'know? Nobody wants to compete. Not with a monopoly. I mean, you let the dairy farmers do that, right? They'd be out of business tomorrow.

'Course you are right. Everyone's right. It's America. We just can't do it at that unreasonable expense of others. Because then it becomes un-American. That's why the price we pay for that gallon of milk could never represent the true cost of production 'cause it's gotta be controlled, right? It's got to be set. It's gotta be fair.

I know your customers are happy Frank. Bunch of fuckin' junkies that they are. What about your fellow dairy farmers out here, Frank? Are you thinkin' of us? You thinkin' of them?

I'm just thinking out loud now. If you took some of your inventory, Frank, and you sold it wholesale, we could work. We could do some distribution.

Well that's kind of a mom and pop store next to what I'm talking about. I mean, let's go at least bigger than K-mart. I'm talking about L.A. Chicago. Detroit. Las Vegas. Let's go nation-wide. Yannow. I'm gonna guarantee you peace of mind here. You're gonna want that. You're gonna need it. I don't know how you view me. Y'know, I'm kinda a Renaissance Man, Frank. Y'know, people I deal with on a daily basis, t-t-they're not enlightened, Frank. You talk to them about Civil Rights, they don't know, y'know? They're not open to things. Not from the way things are done. And who's doin' it? I talk to them, there's just no misunderstandings. And that's what I mean. Buy you peace of mind. Yeah.

Maybe it was a junkie, or it was a rival, some dumbass kid trying to make a name for himself, someone you forgot to pay off, someone you slide without realizing it, could be someone you put out of business for being so successful

I always wonder if people know when history's being made, and what they're doing at the time. This, for instance, could be a historic moment, and you're sipping a glass of ice water.