TV show quotes
Are you as low as you can go?
What?
I asked you if you still feel you've got room to fall, or whether this is bottom.
Honestly? If you'd asked me yesterday, I'd have said I couldn't go lower - sitting in jail, staring at a life behind bars or the electric chair. But now, here we are today, lower still.
Oh, I've been watching. This Varga fella plucked you like a chicken. But he's gone now, so I'm gonna finish the job.
Frederick Douglass once intoned, "I stand before you as a thief and a robber. I stole this head, these limbs, this body from my master and I ran off with them." My point being, the moment our feet touched American soil, we were already criminals.
Webster's defines "assimilation" as "the process of becoming similar to something". But imbibing these words, dear reader, we are forced to ask, similar to what? If America is a nation of immigrants, then how does one become American?
Oh, oh, apologies.
What?
Oh, I was simply excusing myself. I’m not normally this out of sorts.
It’s a funeral. People cry at funerals.
Ah, amen. Those are wise words for a person of your complexion. But then I’ve noticed your people are often more in touch with your spiritual side and emotional side.
My people?
[Oraetta snorts cocaine]
The Negro. It’s a Baptist fervor, I’d wager, what causes them to hoot and tumble to the floor, aflush with the Holy Spirit.
Miss Mayflower, I see you’ve met my daughter, Ethelrida.
Your daughter?
The one and only. Ethelrida, this is Miss Mayflower. She’s a nurse at St. Bartholomew.
[A confused Oraetta looks at the white Thurman and dark-skinned Oraetta]
Oh yeah. Huh! Yes, now I see it. This child is certainly the product of miscegentation.
Uh, if by that you mean she’s the spitting image of her father, then I take that as a compliment.
Your mother must be quite dark-skinned. As I’ve noticed in my study of the human animal, that in the combination of races, it is de rigueur for the more extreme coloration to prevail.
This is my associate, Doctor Senator.
You're a doctor?
No, sir. Name's Doctor. Doctor Senator. It was my mother's idea.
And what was her name?
Ma'am.
You got a funny way of talking.
Yep. I'm from Minnesota, land of 10,000 lakes.
No, I mean you use big words.
Well, I've found in my 36 years on God's green Earth that it's absolutely critical to be precise in your use of language so as to avoid instances of misreckoning.
Looks like you done well for yourself these years I've been away.
You ain't getting no handout.
Listen at you, acting like the big sister. Wasn't asking for money. Swanee and I got prospects.
What kind of prospects?
Bank robbing. [Swanee makes a finger gun gesture] Pa-choo, pa-choo.
You seeing to his education?
I'm teaching him how the world works.
And how's that?
It's dog eat dog.
That's how dogs work. Men are more complicated.
Not in my experience.
Am I getting fucked here?
Slow your roll.
'Cause the only reason I'm letting my daughter marry some guinea greaser is that I got ambitions: political, financial...
And here I am, hopelessly in love.
Go fuck a state park! You ain't getting a piece of the Gillis legacy until I got assurances you can deliver votes. Mayors don't elect themselves and elections aren't free.
Dad? Can I call you dad? My pop didn't claw his way out of the plebian dynasty so that his sons could end up in middle management. You want to be mayor? I want my kids to be president. So I'll get you your votes and your, uh, bustarella. But first I'm gonna slow-pump some babies into your daughter one at a time and twice on Sundays. Now get a drink. And try the calzone! They're a riot.
[regarding Oraetta] That is one weird white lady.
We haven't met. I'm Doctor Senator. [Doctor reaches his hand out but Gaetano refuses to shake it] You got to give respect to get respect.
Is that why you Americans are so soft? All this giving and getting? [in Italian] It's all shit. [in English] In the land of taking and killing, Gaetano is king.
Captain Hanhuck, I can safely say you blasphemy more than any man I've ever met. And I've been to Cleveland.
I was in the legal corps. Army. Pushing papers. After the ceasefire, they send me to Nuremberg for the trials. Last Negro in Germany, I'd imagine. You ever heard of "Double V"? It's what they sold us. Mm-hmm. Fight for our country and we get two victories: one for America and one for we sons of servitude. No more lynchings. No more blackjacks at the polls. So they send me to Nuremberg and this colonel tells me he's got a big job for me. Says, "You're gonna interview Hermann Goring, the Reichsmarschall himself." Says, "Days, weeks, however it long it takes to get him to talk." Says, "I need you, Doctor Senator, Esquire, to use your training, your skills to build the People's case." Well now, what is that if not the double victory, hm? So I sit with the man for six weeks, eight hours a day, six days a week and we get into it. The first two weeks, he just stares at me, murder in his eyes. But I use my wiles. You know, appeal to his ego, get him talking. Ah, soon he won't shut up. Bragging about every little thing, and I type it down and write it up for the colonel word for word. I spend two weeks crafting my conclusion, my analysis of international law. Then, one Sunday morning, after services, I knock on the colonel's door and I give him my report. You know what he does? Throws it in the trash. Yeah. 400 pages with footnotes. Throws it it in the trash and says, "I just wanted to make that old Nazi squirm having to answer to a Negro." So you say respect the deal? Excuse me if I say our word is exactly as good as yours. The slaughterhouses, they belong to us. Deal or no deal. You can call it the cost of transition.
Are you Jewish?
No.
Then how come they call you Rabbi? Isn't a Rabbi a Jewish priest?
You ever play poker? [Satchel shakes his head] But you know there's a game called poker, played with cards. Well, there's this saying in poker: "You play the hand you're dealt." You and me, we're proof of that. You see, when yours truly was a boy, he had the same thing happen to him, what happened to you.
You got traded?
What?
From baseball. That's what my daddy said. I got traded to another team.
Exactly. I got traded twice. Except, well, for you, you get to go back to your original team one day.
Is this your original team?
No. My team was shite.
What you need, son?
Just rub some coins together, that's all. Just a cup of joe.
Cup of joe? That's why your eyes so runny? Too much Sanka? Let me see what I got for you. [Loy pulls out a roll of cash which Dwayne stares at in awe; Loy turns to Lemuel] You see that? What happened to his face when I pull out my roll? What do we call that, Doctor?
We call that the blight.
The blight. See, five seconds ago this young hustler was fingering the holes in his pocket, living the now. But then he sees this and he starts to dream. "With that much cash, I can make plans! Turn my shit around!" Right? So now he's planning months into the future, sees himself all cleaned up, fine girl on his arm. Then what do you know? He ain't even colored no more. He's J.P. fucking Morgan. An American success story. But watch this.
[Loy puts the money back into his pocket]
[lunging for the money] Hey, hey, hey!
[Loy's entourage holds Dwayne back]
You see that? I just stole from that man. Forget it weren't his money. Just seeing that much scratch, he made a future for himself. And I took that from him.
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