Nathaniel Sr quotes from Six Feet Under

[to Nate] Well, well, the prodigal returns. This is what you've been running away from your whole life, buddy boy. Scared the crap out of you when you were growing up, didn't it? And you thought you'd escape. Well, guess what? Nobody escapes.

[as the Death Man] Nobody stays!

[commenting on his own headstone] Is that the best anyone could come up with? "Father, husband, caregiver"?

Nate

What would you prefer? "Introvert, sadist, mindfucker"?

So I'm walking along one day, and this asshole stops me and asks me if I'm all right. He says I got a look. He'd seen a man with that same look once and had ignored it, and that man had jumped out a nine-story window. You know the reconstruction involved in a death like that? This business gets under your skin, it's like a fucking virus. They can even see it on your face, smell it on you.

Nate

What the hell is this place, this music? Since when did you listen to the Classics IV? What the hell did you do here? Who the hell are you?

So many questions. Why couldn't you ask 'em when I was still alive? It's okay, I couldn't answer most of them anyway, unlike now. Now I'm a fucking prophet.

Nate

All right.

Think I'm kiddin,' buddy boy? That's one of the perks of being dead: you know what happens after you die – and you know the meaning of life.

Nate

That seems fairly useless.

Yeah, I know – life is wasted on the living.

Nate

Could've told me you were proud of me.

Never around for me to tell, which is exactly what I was proud of you for. Therein lies your Catch-22.

Nate

So what's the meaning of life?

You really wanna know?

Nate

I don't know. Will it fuck me up if I do?

Ruth

Nathaniel, what happened to us? We were so in love once.

Life happened to us. I buried hundreds of people, and we watched each other grow old.

Ruth

But we're not old.

Well, technically speaking, I'm as old as I'm ever going to get.

Ruth

We were such children when we met. Then we watched those children disappear.

You're looking for me?

Claire

Yeah. Where the fuck is your grave?

Claire

[seeing Gabriel] He's dead?

Don't ask me. This is your thing.

How's life?

Claire

How's death?

David

So, what if I just shut the door on Keith, like he's dead to me... I'll just end up replacing him with someone else, the same way that mom is replacing you with George. Is that all life is? We just go through it replacing people?

Pretty much. Some people just do it faster and more often than others."

Nate

I quit my job.

I quit my fucking life.

Nate

No, you got fired.

You're missing the point.

David

There is no point, that's the point... Isn't it?

Don't give me this phony existential bullshit, I expect better from you. The point's right in front of your face.

David

Well, I'm sorry but I don't see it.

You aren't even grateful, are you?

David

Grateful? For the worst fucking experience of my life?

You hang onto your pain like it means something, like it's worth something. Well, let me tell 'ya, it's not worth shit. Let it go. Infinite possibilities, and all he can do is whine.

David

Well, what am I supposed to do?

What do you think? You can do anything, you lucky bastard, you're alive! What's a little pain compared to that?

David

It can't be so simple.

[putting his arm around David and pulling him closer] What if it is?

The day I turned 40, you were in Europe. I spent the whole day wondering if you'd call.

Nate

Sorry.

Oh, don't apologize. You did what you had to do, you little fucker.

Nate

You know, so much crazy shit has happened since these pictures were taken. So much. The idea of 40 more years—

The next 40 fly by much faster. It'll be over before you know it.

Nate

Time flies when you're having fun, huh?

No, time flies when you're pretending to have fun. Time flies when you're pretending to love Brenda and that baby she wants so much. Time flies when you're pretending to know what people mean when they say "love". Face it, buddy boy, there's two kinds of people in the world: there's you, and there's everybody else, and never the twain shall meet.