The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

Owen Wilson: Eli Cash

Photos 

Quotes 

• Eli : I'm not in love with you any more.

  Margot : I didn't know you ever were.

  Eli : Let's not make this any more difficult than it already is.

  Margot : OK.

  Eli : OK, what?

  Margot : OK, I'm not in love with you either.

  Eli : Yes, I know, you're in love with Richie. Which is sick and gross.

• Eli : Well, everyone knows Custer died at Little Bighorn. What this book presupposes is... maybe he didn't.

• Eli : I wish you'd've done this for me when I was a kid.

  Richie : But you didn't have a drug problem then.

  Eli : Yeah, but it still would've meant a lot to me.

• Eli : [to Richie]  I always wanted to be a Tenenbaum, you know?

  Royal : [quietly]  Me too. Me too.

  Eli : It doesn't mean what it used to though, does it?

• Margot : Do you send my mother your clippings and your grades from college?

  Eli : Please stop belittling me. You never gave me the time of day til I started getting good reviews.

  Margot : Your reviews aren't that good.

  Eli : But the sales are.

• Eli : [reading part of his newest novel at a press conference]  The crickets and the rust-beetles scuttled among the nettles of the sage thicket. "Vámonos, amigos," he whispered, and threw the busted leather flintcraw over the loose weave of the saddlecock. And they rode on in the friscalating dusklight.

• Eli : Did I hit the dog?

  Chas : Yeah.

  Eli : Is he dead?

  Chas : Yeah.

  Eli : I need help.

• Eli : Why would a reviewer make the point of saying someone's *not* a genius? Do you especially think I'm *not* a genius? You didn't even have to think about it, did you?

• Eli : I'm worried about you, Richie.

  Richie : Why?

  Eli : Well, actually, Margot is, for some reason. But I did find it odd when you said you were in love with her. She's married you know.

  Richie : Yeah.

  Eli : And she's your sister.

  Richie : Adopted.

• Eli : What'd you say?

  Richie : Hmm?

  Eli : What?

  Richie : I didn't say anything.

  Eli : When? Right now?

  [a pause] 

  Eli : I'm sorry, don't listen to me. I'm on mescaline. I've been spaced out all day.

  Richie : Did you say you're on mescaline?

  Eli : I did, indeed. Very much so.

• Peter Bradley : [interviewing Eli Cash on television]  Now, your previous novel...

  Eli : Yes, Wildcat.

  Peter Bradley : Not a success. Why?

  Eli : Well... Wildcat was written in a kind of obsolete vernacular...

  [long pause as he starts to become spaced out] 

  Eli : [whispering]  Wildcat... wild... cat... pow... wildcat...

  [he gets up] 

  Eli : I'm gonna go. I'm taking this off and I'm going. Stepping out.

  Royal : [watching the television]  What the hell kind of way to act is that?

  Richie : He's on drugs.

• Richie : Did you tell Margot about that letter I wrote to you?

  Eli : Why? Did she mention it? Yes, I did. Why would have she repeated that, I wonder?

  Richie : Well, I would ask you the same question.

  Eli : Rightly so.

• Eli : [hearing the news that Royal is dying]  I am very sorry, Margot.

  Margot : It's okay. We're not actually related anyway.

  Eli : True.

• Eli : [immediately after landing in the front room after crashing his car into the house]  Where's my shoe?

  [on cue, Dudley retrieves his shoe] 

• Eli : How's Richie?

  Margot : I don't know. I can't tell.

  Eli : Yeah, me neither. He wrote me a letter. He says he's in love with you.

  Margot : What are you talking about?

  Eli : That's what he said. I don't know how we're supposed to take it.

• Richie : Are we still friends?

  Eli : What?

  Richie : Are we?

  Eli : Of course. How can you even ask me that?

  Richie : Doesn't matter.

  Eli : Doesn't matter? It does matter.

  Richie : I heard about you and Margot.

  Eli : [long pause]  I'm sorry.