Angels in America Season 1 quotes

You know what your problem is, Louis? Your problem is that you are so full of piping hot crap that the mention of your name draws flies.

I'm a Mormon.

Prior Walter

I'm a homosexual.

Oh. In my church we don't believe in homosexuals.

Prior

In my church we don't believe in Mormons.

Louis Ironson

I can't believe you're a Mormon. I can't believe I spent three weeks in bed with a Mormon.

Good morning. [he ruffles Louis' hair and gets up]

Louis

I can't believe you didn't tell me.

I did.

Louis

Yeah, after I asked. I thought you were a Protestant or something.

Well, I'm not.

Louis

But you're a lawyer! A serious lawyer!

The chief clerk of the chief justice of the Supreme Court is a Mormon, Louis.

I don't understand why I'm not dead. When your heart breaks, you should die. But there's still the rest of you. There's your breasts and your genitals... They're amazingly stupid, like babies or faithful dogs. They don't get it, they just want him. Want him.

Roy Cohn

Yeah, you heard of Ethel Rosenberg. Maybe even read about her in the history books. Well, if it wasn't for me, Joe, Ethel Rosenberg would be alive today, writing some personal-advice column for Ms. Magazine. She isn't. Because, during the trial, Joe, I was on the phone every day talking with the judge. Every day, doing what I do best — talking on the telephone. Making sure that that timid Yid nebbish on the bench did his duty to America, to history. That sweet, unprepossessing woman, two kids, boo-hoo-hoo, reminded us all of our little Jewish mamas. She came this close to getting life. I pleaded till I wept to put her in the chair. Me, I did that. I'd have fucking pulled the switch if they let me. Why? Because I fucking hate traitors. Because I fucking hate communists. Was it legal? Fuck legal! Am I a nice man? Fuck nice! They say terrible things about me in The Nation? Fuck The Nation! You want to be nice or you want to be effective?! You want to make the law, or be subject to it? Choose!

My wrath is as fearsome as my countenance is splendid!

Louis Ironson

There are no gods here, no ghosts and spirits in America, there are no angels in America, no spiritual past, no racial past, there's only the political, and the decoys and the ploys to maneuver around the inescapable battle of politics.

Roy Cohn

Yea, AZT. I want my own private stash, Martin. Of serious, honest-Abe medicine that I control here in the room with me. No placebos. No, I'm no good at tests, Martin. I'd rather cheat. So, send me my pills with a get-well bouquet, pronto, or I'm gonna ring up CBS and sing Mike Wallace a song. You know the ballad of adorable Ollie North and his secret Contra slush fund. You only think you know all I know. I don't even know what all I know. Half the time I just make it up and it still turns out to be true! We learned that trick in the fifties.

[To Prior] The stiffening of your penis is of no consequence!

Louis Ironson

I don't believe you! Not Roy Cohn! He's like...the polestar of human evil. He's the worst human being who ever lived. He's not human, even.

Roy Cohn

Your problem, Henry, is that you are hung up on words, on labels: "gay", "homosexual", "lesbian." You think they tell you who a person sleeps with, but they don't tell you that. Like all labels, they refer to one thing and one thing only: Where does a person so identified fit in the food chain? In the pecking order. Not ideology or sexual taste, but something much simpler: clout. Who owes me favors. Not who I fuck or who fucks me, but who will pick up the phone when I call. To someone who doesn't understand this, homosexual is what I am because I sleep with men, but this is wrong. Homosexuals are not men who sleep with other men. Homosexuals are men who, in 15 years of trying, can't get a pissant anti-discrimination bill through City Council. They are men who know nobody, and who nobody knows. Now, Henry, does that sound like me?

No.

Roy

No. I have clout — lots! I pick up that phone, dial 15 numbers, and guess who's on the other end of the line? In under five minutes, Henry.

The President.

Roy

Better — his wife.

I'm impressed.

Roy

I don't want you to be impressed, Henry — I want you to understand. This is not sophistry, and this is not hypocrisy. This is reality. I have sex with men, but unlike nearly every other man of which this is true, I bring the guy I'm screwing to Washington, and President Reagan smiles at us and shakes his hand, because what I am is defined entirely by who I am. Roy Cohn is not a homosexual. Roy Cohn is a heterosexual man who fucks around with guys.

I hate America, Louis. I hate this country. Nothing but a bunch of big ideas and stories and people dying, and then people like you. The white cracker who wrote the national anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word 'free' to a note so high nobody can reach it. That was deliberate. Nothing on Earth sounds less like freedom to me. You come to room 1013 over at the hospital, Louis, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean. I live in America, Louis. I don't have to love it. You do that. Everybody’s gotta love somethin'.

Louis Ironson

I'm not saying Kaddish for him. The drugs, okay, fine, sure. But no fucking way am I praying for him. My New Deal pinko parents in Schenectady would never forgive me. They're already so disappointed. He's a fag, he's an office temp. Now look, he's praying for Roy Cohn.

But I've got better things with my time than to sit here and listen to this racist bullshit simply because I feel sorry for you-

Louis Ironson

I am not racist!

Oh, come on.

Louis Ironson

…So maybe I am a racist.

Scoffs I really hate that. It's no fun picking on you, Louis. You're so guilty. It's like throwing darts at a glob of jello. There are no satisfying hits, just quivering. The darts just plop in and vanish.

Look at that heavy sky out there.

Louis Ironson

Purple.

Purple? Boy, what kind of a homosexual are you anyway? That's not purple, Mary. That color up there is mauve.