Angels in America (2003) - Quotes from the Series

Prior I usually say, "Fuck the truth," but mostly, the truth fucks you.

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Harper Pitt I don't understand why I'm not dead. When your heart breaks, you should die.

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Harper Pitt I burned dinner.

Joe Pitt I'm sorry.

Harper Pitt Not my dinner, my dinner was fine. Your dinner. I put it back in the oven and turned everything up as high as it could go and I watched 'til it burned black. It's still hot, very hot, want it?

Joe Pitt You didn't have to do that.

Harper Pitt I know, it just seemed like the kinda thing a mentally-deranged sex-starved pill-popping housewife would do.

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Roy Cohn [under the impression that Belize is the Angel of Death] Can I ask you something, sir?

Belize [going along with it] "Sir"?

Roy Cohn What's it like? After?

Belize After...?

Roy Cohn This misery ends?

Belize Hell or heaven?

Roy Cohn ...heh...

Belize Like San Francisco.

Roy Cohn A city! Good! I was worried... it'd be a garden. I hate that shit.

Belize Mmmm. Big city. Overgrown with weeds, but flowering weeds. On every corner a wrecking crew and something new and crooked going up catty corner to that. Windows missing in every edifice like broken teeth, gritty wind, and a gray high sky full of ravens.

Roy Cohn Isaiah.

Belize Prophet birds, Roy. Piles of trash, but lapidary like rubies and obsidian, and diamond-colored cowspit streamers in the wind. And voting booths. And everyone in Balenciaga gowns with red corsages, and big dance palaces full of music and lights and racial impurity and gender confusion. And all the deities are creole, mulatto, brown as the mouths of rivers. Race, taste and history finally overcome. And you ain't there.

Roy Cohn And Heaven?

Belize That was Heaven, Roy.

Roy Cohn The fuck it was!

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Harper Pitt I dreamed we were there. The plane leapt the tropopause, the safe air, and attained the outer rim, the ozone, which was ragged and torn, patches of it threadbare as old cheesecloth, and that was frightening. But I saw something that only I could see, because of my astonishing ability to see such things: Souls were rising, from the earth far below, souls of the dead, of people who had perished, from famine, from war, from the plague, and they floated up, like skydivers in reverse, limbs all akimbo, wheeling and spinning. And the souls of these departed joined hands, clasped ankles, and formed a web, a great net of souls, and the souls were three-atom oxygen molecules, of the stuff of ozone, and the outer rim absorbed them, and was repaired. Nothing's lost forever. In this world, there's a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we've left behind, and dreaming ahead. At least I think that's so.

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Prior Walter I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

Hannah Pitt Well that's a stupid thing to do.

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Belize 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 could reach it. That was deliberate. Nothing on Earth sounds less like freedom to me. You come with me to Room 1013 over at the hospital and I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy, and mean. I live in America, Louis. I don't have to love it.

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Harper Pitt In my church we don't believe in homosexuals.

Prior In my church we don't believe in Mormons.

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Mr. Lies Respect the delicate ecology of your delusions.

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Roy Cohn AIDS. Homosexual. Gay. Lesbian. You think these are names that tell you who a person sleeps with, but they don't tell you that.

Henry No?

Roy Cohn No. Like all labels they tell you one thing, and one thing only: Where does an individual so identified fit into the food chain, the pecking order? Not ideology or sexual taste, but something much simpler: clout. Not who I fuck or who fucks me, but who will come to the phone when I call, who owes me favors. This is what a label refers to. Now to someone who does not understand this, a homosexual is what I am because I have sex with men, but really this is wrong. A homosexual is somebody who, in 15 years of trying cannot get a pissant anit-discrimination bill through the city council. A homosexual is somebody who knows nobody and who nobody knows. Who has zero clout. Does this sound like me Henry?

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Harper In your experience of the world. How do people change?

Mormon Mother Well it has something to do with God so it's not very nice. God splits the skin with a jagged thumbnail from throat to belly and then plunges a huge filthy hand in, he grabs hold of your bloody tubes and they slip to evade his grasp but he squeezes hard, he insists, he pulls and pulls till all your innards are yanked out and the pain! We can't even talk about that. And then he stuffs them back, dirty, tangled and torn. It's up to you to do the stitching.

Harper And then up you get. And walk around.

Mormon Mother Just mangled guts pretending.

Mormon Mother That's how people change.

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Roy Cohn I have sex with men. But unlike nearly every other man of whom this is true, I bring the guy I'm screwing to the White House and President Reagan smiles at us and shakes his hand.

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Prior We have reached a verdict, your honor. This man's heart is deficient. He loves, but his love is worth nothing.

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Prior Walter This disease will be the end of many of us, but not nearly all. And the dead will be commemorated, and we'll struggle on with the living, and we are not going away. We won't die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come.

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Harper Pitt I don't understand this. If I didn't ever see you before, and I don't think I did, then I don't think you should be here in this hallucination because in my experience the mind which is where hallucinations come from shouldn't be able to make anything up that wasn't there to start with that didn't enter it from experience from the real world. Imagination can't create anything new can it? It only recycles bits and pieces from the world and reassembles them into visions. Am I making sense right now?

Prior Walter Given the circumstances, yes.

Harper Pitt So when we think we've escaped the unbearable ordinariness and, well, untruthfulness of our lives it's really only the same old ordinariness and falseness rearranged into the appearance of novelty and truth. Nothing unknown is knowable.

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Joe Pitt I think we ought to pray. Ask God for help. Ask him together.

Harper Pitt God won't talk to me. I have to make up people to talk to me.

Joe Pitt You have to keep asking.

Harper Pitt I forgot the question?... Oh, yeah. God, is my husband a homo?

Joe Pitt Stop it! Stop it! I'm warning you! Does it make any difference that I might be one thing deep within? No matter how wrong or ugly that thing is so long as I have fought with everything I have to kill it? What do you want from me? What do you want from me Harper, more than that? For God's sake, there's nothing left. I'm a shell. There's nothing left to kill. As long as my behaviour is what I know it has to be, decent, correct that alone in the eyes of God.

Harper Pitt No, no, not that. That's Utah talk, Mormon talk. I hate it, Joe. Tell me, say it.

Joe Pitt All I will say is that I'm a very good man who has worked very hard to become good and you wanna destroy that. You wanna destroy me but I am not gonna let you do that.

Harper Pitt I'm gonna have a baby.

Joe Pitt Liar!

Harper Pitt You liar!... A baby born addicted to pills. A baby who does not dream but who hallucinates, who stares up at us with big mirror eyes and who does not know who we are.

Joe Pitt Are you really?

Harper Pitt No... Yes... No... Yes... Get away from me. Now we both have a secret.

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[Ancestor #1 watches Prior and Louis dance]

Prior Walter Ancestor #1 Hah. Now I see why he's got no children. He's a sodomite!

Prior Walter Ancestor #2 Be quiet you medieval gnome. Let them dance.

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Roy Cohn [on why he wanted Ethel Rosenberg to get the death sentence] I would have pulled the switch if they let me. Why? Because I hate traitors. I HATE communists. Was it legal? FUCK legal. Not nice? Fuck nice. The Nation says I'm not nice? FUCK THE NATION. Do you wanna be NICE? Or you wanna be EFFECTIVE?

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Belize Look at that heavy sky out there.

Louis Ironson Purple.

Belize Purple? What kind of a homosexual are you anyway? That's not purple, Mary, that color out there... is mauve.

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Belize Real love isn't ambivalent. I'd swear that's a line from my favorite best-selling paperback novel, "In Love with the Night Mysterious", except I don't think you've ever read it. Well, you ought to, instead of spending the rest of your life, trying to get through "Democracy in America." It's about this white woman whose daddy owns a plantation in the Deep South, in the years before the Civil War. And her name is Margaret, and she's in love with her daddy's number-one slave, and his name is Thaddeus. And she's married, but her white slave-owner husband has AIDS: Antebellum Insufficiently-Developed Sex-organs. And so, there's a lot of hot stuff going down, when Margaret and Thaddeus can catch a spare torrid ten under the cotton-picking moon. And then of course the Yankees come, and they set the slaves free. And the slaves string up old daddy and so on, historical fiction. Somewhere in there I recall, Margaret and Thaddeus find the time to discuss the nature of love. Her face is reflecting the flames of the burning plantation, you know the way white people do, and his black face is dark in the night and she says to him, "Thaddeus, real love isn't ever ambivalent."

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Prior Walter Ancestor #2 The twentieth century. Oh dear, the world has gotten so terribly, terribly old.

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Harper Pitt Oh well don't apologize, I can't expect someone who's really sick to entertain me.

Prior How on earth did you know?

Harper Pitt Oh that happens. This is the very threshold of revelation. Sometimes you can see things like how sick you are. Do you see anything about me?

Prior Yes, you are amazingly unhappy

Harper Pitt Big deal, you meet a valium addict, you figure out she's unhappy -that doesn't count. Of course I - something else? something suprising?

Prior Something suprising?

Harper Pitt Yes

Prior Your husband's a homo.

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Harper Pitt What are you doing in my hallucination?

Prior Walter I'm not in your hallucination, you're in my dream.

Harper Pitt You're wearing makeup.

Prior Walter So are you.

Harper Pitt But you're a man.

Prior Walter [looks into mirror and screams] My hands and feet give it away.

Harper Pitt There must be some mistake here. I don't recognize you. Are you my... - some sort of imaginary friend?

Prior Walter No. Aren't you too old to have imaginary friends?

Harper Pitt I have emotional problems. I took too many pills. Why are you wearing makeup?

Prior Walter I was in the process of applying the face, trying to make myself feel better. I swiped the new fall colours at the Clinique counter at Macy's.

Harper Pitt You stole these?

Prior Walter I was out of cash. It was an emotional emergency.

Harper Pitt Joe will be so angry. I promised him no more pills.

Prior Walter These pills you keep alluding to...

Harper Pitt Valium, I take Valium. Lots of Valium.

Prior Walter And you're dancing as fast as you can.

Harper Pitt I'm not addicted. I don't believe in addiction and I... I never drink and I never take drugs.

Prior Walter Well, smell you, Nancy Drew.

Harper Pitt Except for Valium.

Prior Walter Except Valium in wee fistfuls.

Harper Pitt It's terrible. Mormons are not supposed to be addicted to anything. I'm a Mormon.

Prior Walter I'm a homosexual.

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

Prior Walter In my church, we don't believe in Mormons.

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Prior Walter That ludicrous spectacle in there. Just a parody of the funeral of someone who really counted. We don't. Faggots. We're just a bad dream the real world is having. And the real world's waking up.

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Harper Pitt I wish I could go traveling. Things aren't right with me.

[Harper opens cabinet door in bathroom to remove pill container. She closes the door which reveals Mr. Lie's reflection in the mirror. She gasps.]

Mr. Lies Cash, check, or credit card?

Harper Pitt You startled me.

Mr. Lies Cash, check, or...

Harper Pitt I remember you. You're from Salt Lake. You sold us the plane tickets when we flew here. What are you doing in Brooklyn?

Mr. Lies You said you wanted to travel.

Harper Pitt How thoughtful!

Mr. Lies Mr. Lies of the International Order of Travel Agents. We mobilize the globe. We set people adrift. We are adepts of motion, acolytes of the flocks. Cash, check, or credit card, name your destination.

Harper Pitt Antartica, maybe? I want to see the hole in the ozone. I heard on the radio...

Mr. Lies We'll arrange a guided tour. Now?

Harper Pitt Soon, maybe soon. I'm not safe here, you see. Weird stuff happens.

Mr. Lies Like?

Harper Pitt Like you, for instance. Just appearing. Or last week. Well, nevermind. People are like planets, you need a thick skin. Joe stays away and now, well look, my dreams are talking back to me.

Mr. Lies The price of rootlessness, motion sickness. Only cure, keep moving.

Harper Pitt I'm undecided. I feel that something's going to give. It's 1985... fifteen years to the third millennium. Maybe Christ will come again or maybe the troubles will and the end will come. And the sky will collapse and there'll be terrible rain and showers of poison light. Or maybe my life is really fine... maybe Joe loves me and I'm only crazy thinking otherwise. Or maybe not. Maybe it's even worse than I know. Maybe I want to know, maybe I don't. The suspense, Mr. Lies, it's killing me.

Mr. Lies I suggest a vacation.

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Prior Walter Look. Garlic. A Mirror. Holy Water. A Crucifix. Fuck off! Get the fuck out of my room! Go!

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Prior When you cry, Louis, it's nothing. It's just the idea of crying.

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Roy Cohn You don't know what all I know. *I* don't know what all I know. Half this shit I make up and I'm still right, learned that in the 50's.

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Prior Walter But still. Still bless me anyway. I want more life. I can't help myself. I do. I've lived through such terrible times and there are people who live through much worse. But you see them living anyway. When they're more spirit than body, more sores than skin, when they're burned and in agony, when flies lay eggs in the corners of the eyes of their children - they live. Death usually has to take life away. I don't know if that's just the animal. I don't know if it's not braver to die, but I recognize the habit; the addiction to being alive. So we live past hope. If I can find hope anywhere, that's it, that's the best I can do. It's so much not enough. It's so inadequate. But still bless me anyway. I want more life. And if he comes back, take him to court. He walked out on us, he oughta pay.

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Roy Cohn I want a white nurse. My constitutional right.

Belize You're in a hospital, you don't have any constitutional rights.

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Prior [Wrestling the Angel] I will not let thee go except thou bless me! I will not let thee go except thou bless me! I will not let thee go except thou bless me!

The Angel You have prevailed Prophet. The choice is yours. Now release me; I have torn a muscle in my thigh.

Prior Big deal. My leg's been hurting for months.

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Roy Cohn Life is full of horror; nobody escapes, nobody; save yourself. Whatever pulls on you, whatever needs from you, threatens you. Don't be afraid; people are so afraid; don't be afraid to live in the raw wind, naked, alone... Learn at least this: What you are capable of. Let nothing stand in your way.

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[Hannah Pitt approaches a Homeless Woman]

Hannah Pitt Excuse me. I said excuse me. Can you tell me where I am? Is this Brooklyn? Do you know a Pineapple Street or is there some train or bus I...?

[sets down bags exaustedly]

Hannah Pitt I'm lost. I just arrived from Salt Lake City.

[beet]

Hannah Pitt Utah? I took the bus I was told to take and I got off... well it was the very last stop so I had to get off and I asked the driver was this Brooklyn and he nodded yes. But he was from one of those foreign countries where they think it's good manners to nod at everything, even if you don't know what it is you're nodding at. In truth I think he spoke no English at all... which I think would make him ineligible for employment on public transportation, you know with the public being English-speaking... mostly. Do you speak English.

Homeless Woman [nods yes]

Hannah Pitt Well I was supposed to be met at the airport by my son and he didn't show. And I don't wait more than three and three quarters hours for anyone, so I should have been more patient... I guess. But is this...

Homeless Woman Bronx.

Hannah Pitt [confused] Is that The Bronx? How in the name of Heaven did I get to The Bronx? When that drive...

Homeless Woman -slurp... slurp... will you stop that disgusting slurping, you disgusting slurping animal, feeding yourself. What would it matter to yourself or anyone if you just stop feeding and DIED!

Hannah Pitt Can you just tell me...

Homeless Woman Why was the Koziuscko Bridge named after a Po-lack?

Hanna I don't know what you're talking ab...

Homeless Woman It was a joke.

Hanna Well what's the punch line?

Homeless Woman I don't know.

Hanna Oh for Petes' sake!

[to the street]

Hanna Is there anyone who can tell me...

Homeless Woman [yelling to no one in particular] Stand further off you fat loathsome whore, you can't have any more of this soup slurp slurp slurp you animal, and I know you'll just go pee it all away and where will you do that behind what bush! It's fucking cold out here and I-

[gulp]

Homeless Woman ... not right because I'm supposed to live in a tunnel.

[to Hannah]

Homeless Woman You're not very funny. Have you read the propecies of Nostradomus?

Hannah Pitt Who?

Homeless Woman Some guy I once went out with somewhere. Nostradomus... prophet... outcast... eyes like scary shit, he would...

Hannah Pitt Shut up! Please stop jabbering for one minute and pull your wits together and tell me how to get to Brooklyn, because you know and you're going to tell me because there is no one else around to tell me and I'm cold and I'm wet and I'm very, very angry. So I'm sorry that you're psychotic but just make an effort. Pull yourself together and take a deep breath.

[Homeless Woman stares dumbfounded at Hannah]

Hannah Pitt Do it!

Homeless Woman [stuggles to take in a breath]

Hannah Pitt Good. Now exale.

[blows air out of her mouth]

Homeless Woman [Tries to mimic Hannah's exhaling with mixed results]

Hannah Pitt Now tell me how to get to Brooklyn.

Homeless Woman Hmmm... don't know.

[Hannah slumps defeatedly]

Homeless Woman Want some soup?

Hannah Pitt Manhattan? I don't suppose you know the address of the Mormon Visitor Center.

Homeless Woman 65th and Broadway.

Hannah Pitt How do you know that?

Homeless Woman I go there all the time. Free movies. Boring, but you can stay all day.

Hannah Pitt Well how can I get there?

Homeless Woman Take the D train. Next block take a right.

Hannah Pitt Thank you.

[Hannah picks up her bags and starts walking away. Homeless Woman dumps out the rest of her soup and throws the empty container in to a bin, startling Hannah]

Homeless Woman In the new century, I think we will all be insane.

[Hannah hurries away as fast as she can]

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[Ethel Rosenberg walks into the room]

Roy Cohn Aw, fuck. Ethel.

Ethel Rosenberg You don't look so good, Roy.

Roy Cohn Well, Ethel. I don't feel so good.

Ethel Rosenberg But you lost a lot of weight. That suits you. You were heavy back then. Zaftig, mit hips.

Roy Cohn I haven't been that heavy since 1960. We were all heavier back then, before the body thing started. Now I look like a skeleton they stare at.

Ethel Rosenberg The shit's really hit the fan, huh, Roy? The fun's just started.

Roy Cohn What is this Ethel, Halloween? You trying to scare me? Well you're wasting your time 'cause I'm scarier than you are any day of the week! So beat it, Ethel! Boo! Better dead than red! Somebody trying to shake me up? Hm, hm? From the throne of God in heaven to the belly of hell, you can all fuck yourselves and then go jump in the lake because I am not afraid of you or death or hell or anything!

Ethel Rosenberg I'll be seeing you soon, Roy. Julius sends his regards.

Roy Cohn Yeah, well send this to Julius!

[Roy flips her the bird]

Ethel Rosenberg You really are a very sick man, Roy.

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[Prior is talking about his lineage with Ancestor #1]

Prior Walter I'm the thirty-fourth, I think.

Prior Walter Ancestor #1 Actually the thirty-second.

Prior Walter Not according to mother.

Prior Walter Ancestor #1 Oh, then she's including the two bastards. I say leave them out. I say, no room for bastards. These little things you swallow...

Prior Walter Pills.

Prior Walter Ancestor #1 Pills. For the pestilence. I too...

Prior Walter Pestilence... you too what?

Prior Walter Ancestor #1 The pestilence in my day was much worse than it is now. Whole villages of empty houses. Look outdoors and you see Death walking in the morning, as plain as I see you now.

Prior Walter You died of the plague.

Prior Walter Ancestor #1 The spotty monster. Like you, alone.

Prior Walter I'm not alone.

Prior Walter Ancestor #1 You have no wife, no children.

Prior Walter I'm gay.

Prior Walter Ancestor #1 Well, be gay, dance in your altogether for all I care, what's that to do with not having children?

Prior Walter Gay homosexual, not bonny, blithe and... never mind.

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Joe Pitt You said something about my friend. Is this about Louis? Is he...?

Prior Walter [shouting] Is he what? Sad, hot, happy? Talk to him yourself, Bullwinkle! What do I look like, a marriage counselor?

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Prior Walter You're seeing someone else.

Louis Ironson What? No.

Prior Walter You are.

Louis Ironson I'm not! Well - occasionally, I - he's a... just a pickup...

Prior Walter Goddamn, ask me how I knew.

Louis Ironson How?

Prior Walter Threshold of revelation.

Louis Ironson What?

Prior Walter Fuck you! I'm a prophet.

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Prior Walter I'm a prophet.

Joe Pitt What?

Prior Walter Prophet! Prophet! I prophecy, I have sight, I see! What do you do?

Joe Pitt I'm a clerk.

Prior Walter Oh, big deal, a clerk? You, what, you file things? You better be keeping a file on the hearts you break. That's all that counts in the end. You'll be having bills to pay in the world to come. You and your friend, the Whore of Babylon. Sorry, wrong room.

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Harper Pitt I'm gonna have a baby.

Joe Pitt Liar.

Harper Pitt You liar. A baby born addicted to pills. A baby who does not dream, but who hallucinates. Who stares up at us with big mirror eyes and who does not know who we are.

Joe Pitt Are you really?

Harper Pitt No. Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes. Get away from me. Now we both have a secret.

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Louis Ironson Well, oh boy. A gay Republican.

Joe Pitt Excuse me?

Louis Ironson Nothing.

Joe Pitt Oh, I'm not... no, forget it.

Louis Ironson Not... Republican? Not Republican?

Joe Pitt What?

Louis Ironson What.

Joe Pitt Not gay. I'm not gay.

Louis Ironson Oh. Sorry. It's just that sometimes you can tell by the way a person sounds. I mean, you sound...

Joe Pitt No, I don't. Like what?

Louis Ironson Like a Republican.

Joe Pitt Do I sound like a...?

Louis Ironson What? Like a Republican? Or do I?

Joe Pitt Do you what?

Louis Ironson Sound like a...

Joe Pitt Yeah. Like a... I'm confused.

Louis Ironson Yes. My name is Louis but all my friends call me Louise. I work in word processing. Thanks for the toilet paper.

[Joe goes to speak, but Louis quickly plants a kiss on his cheek before exiting, leaving Joe slightly shocked]

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Joe Pitt I think we ought to pray. Ask God for help. Ask Him together.

Harper Pitt God won't talk to me, I have to make up people to talk to me.

Joe Pitt You have to keep asking.

Harper Pitt I forgot the question. Oh yeah... God, is my husband a homo?

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Ethel Rosenberg [to a dying Roy Cohn] I came here to forgive, but all I can do is take pleasure in your misery. Knowing that I would get to see you die, more terribly than I did. And you are. Cause you're dying in shit, Roy. Defeated.

[leans in]

Ethel Rosenberg And you could kill me... but you couldn't ever defeat me... you never won. And when you die, all anyone will say is, "Better that he had never lived at all."

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Prior And you were there and you, and you. And some of it was wonderful and some of it was terrible but all the same I kept saying I want to go home. And they sent me home.

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Prior Maybe I am a prophet. Not just me, all of us who are dying now. Maybe we've caught the virus of prophecy... Be still, toil no more. Maybe the world has driven God from heaven and incurred the angel's wrath. I believe I've seen the end of things, and having seen I'm going blind as prophets do; it makes a certain sense to me. And if I hate heaven my only resistance is to run.

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Joe Pitt I want to... I don't know anymore what I want.

Hannah Pitt What you want, what you want. Well, that shifts with the breeze. How can you steer your life by what you want? Hold to what you believe!

Joe Pitt You and me, it's like we're in Salt Lake again. You sort of bring the desert with you.

[Noticing Hannah becoming upset]

Joe Pitt Are you...? Don't cry.

Hannah Pitt Oh, if I ever do, I promise you, you'll not be privileged to witness it.

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Martin Heller It's the fear of what comes after the doing that makes the doing hard to do.

Roy Cohn Amen.

Martin Heller But you can almost always live with the consequences.

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The Angel You can't outrun your occupation, Jonah. Hiding from me one place, you'll find me in another. I-I-I-I stop down the road waiting for you. You know me, prophet. You're a battered heart bleeding life in the universe of wounds. Vessel of the book now, on you, in you, in your blood we write, have written, stasis. The end.

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

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Prior I had a wet dream.

Belize Mmm. The Calvin Klein man?

Prior No, it was a woman.

Belize Are you turnin' straight on me?

Prior An... unconventional woman!

Belize Grace Jones?

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Belize I live in America, Louis. I don't have to love it. You do that. Everybody's gotta love something.

Louis Ironson Everybody does.

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Hannah Pitt An angel is a belief, with wings, and arms that can carry you. It's not to be afraid of, and if it can't hold you up, seek for something new.

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Harper Pitt Imagining, just like me. Except the only time I wasn't imagining is when I was with you. You, the one part of the real world that I wasn't allergic to.

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Ethel Rosenberg [seeing the buttons on the telephone] Oh! Buttons! Such things they have these days!

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Prior Are you a ghost, Lou?

Louis Ironson No. Just spectral. Lost to myself. Sitting all day on cold park benches wishing I could be with you.

[Extends his arm]

Louis Ironson Dance with me, babe.

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Harper Pitt Night flight to San Francisco - chase the moon across America.

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Harper Pitt There's something creepy about this place. Remember Rosemary's Baby?

Joe Pitt Rosemary's Baby?

Harper Pitt Our apartment looks like that one. Wasn't that apartment in Brooklyn?

Joe Pitt No.

Harper Pitt Well, it looked like this. It did!

Joe Pitt Then let's move.

Harper Pitt Georgetown's worse. The Exorcist was in Georgetown.

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Prior Walter [to himself, as Louis approaches] Oh, this is gonna be so much worse than I'd imagined.

Louis Ironson Hello.

Prior Walter Fuck you, you little shit bag.

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Prior Oh my queen; you know you've hit rock-bottom when even drag is a drag.

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The Angel My wrath is as fearsome as my countenance is splendid.

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The Angel I am the continental principality of America! I am a bird of prey! I will not be compelled!

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Sir Whadda you want?

Louis Ironson I want you to fuck me, hurt me, and make me bleed.

Sir I want to.

Louis Ironson Yeah?

Sir I wanna hurt you.

Louis Ironson Fuck me.

Sir Yeah?

Louis Ironson Hard.

Sir Yeah? You've been a bad boy?

Louis Ironson [laughs] Very bad. Very bad.

Sir You need to be punished, boy?

Louis Ironson Yes, I do.

Sir Yes, what?

Louis Ironson ...Oh, uh...

Sir Yes, what, boy?

Louis Ironson Oh! 'Ts- yes, sir.

Sir I want you to take me to your place, boy.

Louis Ironson No, I can't do that.

Sir No, what?

Louis Ironson No sir, I can't. I don't live alone, sir.

Sir Your lover know you're out with a man tonight, boy?

Louis Ironson No sir, he... my lover doesn't know.

Sir Your lover know you like...

Louis Ironson Let's change the subject, okay? Can we go to your place?

Sir ...I live with my parents.

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Roy Cohn Butterfingers spook faggot nurse, I think you have little reason to want to help me.

Belize Consider it solidarity, one faggot to another.

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The Angel Stop moving!

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Prior [stalks Joe and sees him enter the Mormon center] Mormon? He's a Mormon?

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Harper Pitt People are like planets, you need a thick skin.

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The Angel Greetings, Prophet! The great work begins! The Messenger has arrived!

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The Angel Oceania I-I-I think I have a copy.

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The Angel There is no Zion save where you are.

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The Angel American prophet tonight you become American eye that pierceth dark, American heart hot full for truth.

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Joe Pitt If you have something you want to ask me ask me! Ask me, go!

Harper Pitt I can't, I'm scared of you.

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Harper Pitt Well this is the most depressing hallucination I ever had.

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Harper Pitt It's a sin and it's killing us both.

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Harper Pitt I got this tree from the great Antarctic pine forest, right over the hill.

Mr. Lies There are no pine forests in Antarctica.

Harper Pitt This one's a blue spruce.

Mr. Lies There are no blue spruce in...

Harper Pitt I chewed this pine tree down with my teeth. Like a beaver. I'm hungry, I haven't eaten in three days. I'm gonna use it to build something. Maybe a fire. Lucky I brought these.

Mr. Lies Snow'll melt

Harper Pitt Let it. 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.

Mr. Lies Eskimo's back.

Harper Pitt I know. I wanted a real Eskimo, someone chilly and reliable. An Eskimo dressed in seal pelts. Not this. This is just some lawyer, just...

Joe Pitt Hey, buddy.

Harper Pitt Hey.

Joe Pitt I looked for you. I've been everywhere.

Harper Pitt Well, you found me.

Joe Pitt No, I'm not looking now. I guess I'm having an adventure.

Harper Pitt Who with?

Joe Pitt No one you know. No one I know, either.

Harper Pitt ls it fun?

Joe Pitt Scary fun.

Harper Pitt Can I come with you? This isn't working anymore, I'm cold.

Joe Pitt I wouldn't want you to see.

Harper Pitt You think it's worse than what I imagine? It's not.

Joe Pitt I should go.

Harper Pitt Bastard! You fell out of love with me.

Joe Pitt That isn't true, Harper.

Harper Pitt Then come back!

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Joe Pitt My whole life has conspired to bring me to this place, and I can't despise my whole life. I think I believed that when I met you, I could save you. You, at least, if not myself.

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Harper Pitt You try to walk out right now I'll put your dinner back in the oven and turn it up so high the whole building will fill with smoke and everyone will asphyxiate. So help me God I will, now answer the question.

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Roy Cohn I have all the time in the world.

Ethel Rosenberg You're immortal.

Roy Cohn I'm immortal. Ethel. I have forced my way into history. I ain't never gonna die.

Ethel Rosenberg History is about to crack wide open. Millenium approaches.

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[about how to get the angel to go away]

Hannah Pitt I don't know. I don't know what to do.

Prior Come on, what about scriptural precedence!

Hannah Pitt That was supposed to be more of a metaphor!

Prior A metaphor, come on, what am I supposed to do?

Hannah Pitt You have to... wrestle her!

Prior Say what?

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Harper You mean like no Eskimo in Antarctica.

Mr. Lies Correcto. Ice and snow, no Eskimo. Even hallucinations have laws.

Harper Well then who's that?

Mr. Lies [surprised] An Eskimo.

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Roy Cohn [Referring to his heart] Tough little muscle. Never bleeds.

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[after Prior Walter says he is distracted]

The Angel The stiffening of your penis is of no consequence!

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Belize [seeing that Roy appears dead] Is he...

Ethel Rosenberg Mm hmm.

Roy Cohn [rising from his bed] No I'm not! I fooled you, Ethel! I knew it was you the whole time! I can't believe you actually feel for that Ma stuff! I just wanted to see if I could finally, FINALLY, make Ethel Rosenberg sing! I win!

[He starts to flatline again]

Roy Cohn Oh... fuck.

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Angels in America quotes