- Katie: I want to go to Chow Funs
- Ben: I thought we agreed we couldn't really talk at Chow Funs
- Katie: I know
- Ben: Are you saying Chow Funs because you can't face telling the kids? Because if that's why you're saying Chow Funs, don't say Chow Funs
- Katie: That's not why I'm saying Chow Funs. Funs, I'm saying Chow Funs because we're an us. There's a history here, and histories don't happen overnight. In Mesopotamia or Ancient Troy there are cities built on top of other cities, but I don't want another city, I like this city. I know what kind of mood your in when you wake up by which eyebrow is higher, and you know I'm a little quiet in the morning and compensate accordingly, that's a dance you perfect over time. And it's hard, it's much harder than I thought it would be, but there's more good than bad and you don't just give up! And it's not for the sake of the children, but God they're great kids aren't they? And we made them, I mean think about that! It's like there were no people there, and then there were people and they grew, and an an an I won't be able to say to some stranger Josh has your hands or remember how Erin threw up at the Lincoln Memorial And I'll try to relax, let's face it, anybody is going to have traits that get on your nerves, I mean, why shouldn't it be your annoying traits, and I know I'm no day at the beach, but I do have a good sense of direction so I can at least find the beach, which isn't a weakness of yours, it's a strength of mine. And God you're a good friend and good friends are hard to find. Charlotte said that in Charlottes Web and I love how you read that to Erin and you take on the voice of Wilber the Pig with such dedication even when your bone tired. That speaks volumes about character! And ultimately, isn't that what it comes down too? What a person is made of? That girl in the pin helmet is still here 'bee boo bee boo' I didn't even know she existed until you and I'm afraid if you leave I may never see her again, even though I said at times you beat her out of me, isn't that the paradox? Haven't we hit the essential paradox? Give and take, push and pull, the yen the yang. The best of times, the worst of times!I think Dickens said it best, 'He could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean', but, doesn't really apply here does it? What I'm trying to say is, I'm saying Chow Funs because, I love you
- Ben: Did you hear that kids? Mom wants to go to chow Funs!
- Rachel: It is physically impossible to French-kiss a man who leaves the new roll of toilet paper resting on top of the empty cardboard roll. Does he not see it? DOES HE NOT *SEE* IT?
- Ben: Isn't this the moment where one of us is supposed to say: Look, this is ridiculous, we love each other, all couples go through this, let's give it another try.
- Stan: Love is just lust in disguise, and lust fades, so you damn well better be with someone who can stand you.
- Rachel: You were our Fred and Ethel Mertz!
- Katie Jordan: Funny, we thought you were OUR Fred and Ethel Mertz.
- Dave, Ben's Literary Agent: You're writing a book about your grandmother?
- Ben: Yeah, she was an extraordinary woman.
- Dave, Ben's Literary Agent: Oh, um, I'm sure she was. Did she fuck a president?
- Ben: No.
- Dave, Ben's Literary Agent: No. Did she discover uranium?
- Ben: No.
- Dave, Ben's Literary Agent: A cure for cancer?
- Ben: No.
- Dave, Ben's Literary Agent: Nothing like that?
- Ben: No.
- Dave, Ben's Literary Agent: Why, why would anybody wanna read a book about her?
- Ben: 'Cause, Dave, she was four-foot-nine, she emigrated from Europe when she was a little girl, she worked in a sweatshop making buttonholes fourteen hours a day, and yet somehow managed to raise five kids and stay married to the same man for fifty-seven years. I'm telling you, Dave, this is gonna be the greatest love story ever told.
- Dave, Ben's Literary Agent: Let me explain something to you, not as your agent, this is as a friend. C'mere.
- [Dave leads Ben over to his office window]
- Dave, Ben's Literary Agent: C'mere. Alright, you see all these people out here, huh? You see they're getting into buildings, they're, they're driving in cars, they're crossing the street there, they're walking around. Every single one of these people is going to die someday, and they all know it, which is why they tend to regard the time that they have on this planet as precious. Now, there, there are a lot of things that take up a lot of that time, even if they don't enjoy it. They have to go to work, they have to get dressed, they have to wait in lines, they have to clean yards, they gotta get batteries, they have to, they have to visit the eye doctors, they're doing all these things. Now, add that to the time they spend sleeping, and eating, and, and, and, and washing up, and voting, and, and, and, and buying gifts for people they don't even like, and you can see why they're so choosy about how they spend whatever leisure time they do have. And you can understand why, unless she went down on somebody really interesting, why they're not going to waste their valuable time reading a book about your fucking grandmother.
- Ben: So, if I'm reading you right, you don't like the idea.
- Dave, Ben's Literary Agent: It's not that.
- Katie: Once you establish *anything* truly intimate with another person - even *talking* - it has to affect the person you're supposed to be the most intimate with.
- Katie: There are some hurts that you never completely get over. And you think, I don't know, that time will diminish their presence - an-an-and to a degree it does - but, ah... it still hurts. Because, well... hurt hurts.
- Stan: Fear is the main motivation for everything. That and guilt, are the two emotions that keep a society humming.
- Katie Jordan: I think the loudest silences are the ones filled with everything that's been said, said wrong, said 300 times. Until fighting becomes the condition rather than the exception. And suddenly without even knowing it, it becomes the language of the relationship and your only option is a silent retreat to neutral corners.
- Rachel: It's not an affair. Theresa never had sex with him, they just kissed.
- Katie Jordan: A kiss is an affair.
- Liza: You think so?
- Katie Jordan: Absolutely. Once you establish anything truly intimate with another person, even talking, it has to affect the person you're supposed to be the most intimate with.
- Liza: But the crazy thing is that Theresa could fuck her husband. She just couldn't kiss him, I mean really kiss him.
- Rachel: It's not so crazy. There have been times when I'm so angry at Stan that I could fuck him but I don't want that count on anyone near me.
- Katie Jordan: A kiss can be so much more intimate than sex.
- Liza: Yeah. Why is that?
- Rachel: Because fucking means "yeah, yeah, I love you" but a kiss, a kiss means "I like you".
- Rachel: The key to a happy marriage is to accept the essential chasm between men and women.
- Liza: Which is?
- Rachel: A man can mend a fight with sex. A woman can't have sex until they've resolved the fight.
- Liza: Why is that?
- Rachel: It's the basic difference between the penis and the vagina. A penis is a thruster, a battering ram, if you will. Even if it's mad, it can ram. Sometimes it even helps. It's the mad ram principle. However, the vagina - ah, the vagina. The vagina has to be relaxed in order to open and receive. It can't be that gracious hostess in a state of anger. And that goes for blow jobs and kissing as well. Every female point of entry needs to know that the penis is coming... in peace.
- Stan: My ass was on television this morning.
- Dave, Ben's Literary Agent: What are you telling us?
- Stan: I'm telling you my ass was on television.
- Dave, Ben's Literary Agent: Oh, that's right. That was that special. "The Kennedy Center Salutes 50 Years of Stan's Ass."
- Stan: I went to the doctor, he took this tube that had a camera on the end of it, stuck it up my ass, and we watched it on a monitor in his office.
- Ben: You had a sigmoidoscopy.
- Stan: Exactly.
- Dave, Ben's Literary Agent: That's a lot different than your ass being on television.
- Stan: How?
- Ben: Well, first of all, a network can't cancel your ass.
- Stan: Point well taken.
- Ben: Plus, I don't know what kind of demographics you hope to be knocking down with that big, hairy crack winkin' at you.
- Dave, Ben's Literary Agent: All right. All right, gentlemen. We're in a public place. Do you think we could elevate the level of conversation?
- Stan: Fine with me.
- Dave, Ben's Literary Agent: Good. I jerked off to your secretary last night. I hope you don't mind.
- Stan: Why should I mind?
- Dave, Ben's Literary Agent: I don't know. I just wanted to make sure it was all right so I could forage ahead with a clear conscience.
- Stan: Pound away.
- Dave, Ben's Literary Agent: You're a good friend.
- Stan: So, what's going on with you and Charlene?
- Dave, Ben's Literary Agent: Had a great night last night.
- Stan: You still claim you're not cheating.
- Dave, Ben's Literary Agent: Yeah, I maintain that with every fiber of my being. Online sex is not cheating.
- Stan: How do you figure? It's 3:00 in the morning, your wife and kids are sleeping upstairs, and you're downstairs in your den fucking some bimbo in cyberspace.
- Dave, Ben's Literary Agent: Okay. First of all, we're not fucking. We're typing. And second of all - and this is me taking umbrage - Charlene is not some bimbo.
- Ben: You're right. She's probably a stockbroker named Ralph pretending to be some bimbo named Charlene.
- Dave, Ben's Literary Agent: Why would you piss on something so beautiful?
- Ben: What did I say?