50 Quotes From ‘Kicking And Screaming,’ In Order Of Awesomeness

By Oliver Miller

Welcome to the über-hipster movie; the proto-hipster movie. (And please, don’t confuse it with the Will Ferrell movie about soccer.) This movie was released in 1995, where “hipsters” were yet but a distant gleam in our eyes. I myself saw it during my freshman year of college, while on a date. But the movie itself somehow magically came to predict the course of my life; like Grover, I ended up studying creative writing; like Jane, I moved to Prague; like Otis I… briefly experimented with wearing pajamas as everyday attire.

These days, Noah Baumbach is quasi-famous for movies like ‘The Squid and the Whale,’ and ‘Francis Ha.’ But this is where it all started, and it’s the only actual realistic depiction of college that I’ve ever seen up on the silver screen. (Minor points can be deducted for the fact that all of the actors are 30, not 21, and for the fact that all the guys wear suits — but even that helps, by sparing us from seeing the horror that was mid-90s fashion; it keeps the movie from dating itself.)

Anyway, if you’re a young millennial-person-type-thing who is about to graduate from college, trust me that all of this will happen to you; the movie covers the frightening first year of being out of school. Also, I am so, so sorry that I couldn’t include Max’s song where he just reads the titles of all the books on his bookshelf: “♪ ♫ …In this He-ARRTT of Dark-NESS. ♪ ♫” …But there were just so many other good quotes to include.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE8Vj9LypkM&w=584&h=390]

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“Come on… be romantically self-destructive with me.”
“Despite my best efforts to do nothing… things happen.”
“What I used to able to pass off as a bad summer could now potentially turn into a bad life.”
“GO AWAY, COOKIE MAN.”
“Sometimes you can be such a child.” “…Yeah; but if I was a child you’d find that endearing.”
“Well, my brother’s gay so… I know!”
“Prague… you’ll come back a bug…”
“Cool! A dictionary! I’m gonna look up ‘blowjob.'”
“…Oh, I’ve been to Prague. Well, I haven’t ‘been to Prague’ been to Prague, but I know that thing; that, ‘Stop shaving your armpits, read The Unbearable Lightness of Being, date a sculptor, now I know how bad American coffee is thing.'” “…They have good beer there.” “… ‘Now I know how bad American beer is thing.'”
“I gotta go. I gotta sleep with a freshman.” “…Yeah, me too.“
“I found myself writing ‘wake up’ and ‘go to bed’ in my day planner as if they are two different events.”
“I like that you drink. I like a bartender who drinks. Otherwise I feel like I’m being poisoned.”
“I’m too nostalgic. I’ll admit it.”
“...We graduated four months ago. What can you possibly be nostalgic for?“
“I’m nostalgic for conversations I had yesterday. I’ve begun reminiscing events before they even occur. I’m reminiscing this right now. I can’t go to the bar because I’ve already looked back on it in my memory… and I didn’t have a good time.”
“I’m going to be 17 tomorrow.” “…Wow, now you can read ‘Seventeen’ Magazine and get all the references.
“It was arousing… violently arousing.” “…Otis, did you even read the book?”
“Okay; the way I see it, if we were an old couple, dated for years, graduated, away from all these scholastic complications, and I reached over and kissed you, you wouldn’t say a word, you’d be delighted… probably — but if I was to do that now it’d be quite forward, and if I did it the first time we ever met you probably would hit me.” “…What do you mean?” “…I just wish we were an old couple so I could do that.”
“…How do you make God laugh? Make a plan.”
“I’ve always thought that my parents were part of a trickle-down method of parenting, you know, like a reflection on the Reagan years. Looked good to a lot of people but basically I’m paying for all that neglect now.” “...I guess my parents have sort of a Lyndon Johnson feel to them; like there’s no satisfactory reason why they became parents, like my real parents were assassinated and these people were next in line for the job...”
“I find you irritatingly attractive.”
“Ah! Here’s my drunk boyfriend.”
“You know, you’re sneaky like that; like that thing in that movie.”
“You might want to slow down; there’s no alcohol in that.”
“Okay. ‘Monkeys’ is a stupid subject.”
“You’re a foul-weather friend… You’re not interested in me unless I’m suffering like you.”
(Sees a girl move a symbolic model of an airplane.) “…Shit. I wish I hadn’t noticed that.”
“…Just great. This is so frustrating, because I’m terrible at conflict. I hate it. And if I’d imagined this problem while falling asleep one night… I don’t think I would have spoken up to you. Even in my fantasy life I just would have accepted it. That’s who I am. But today I have to go. I have to. And when I tell people about this in the future, I know that — it’ll be the time that I went. And I know that when I review this whole episode in my head… I’m not gonna know what I did or why I did it. …But it’ll make a good story of my young adult life. You know; the time I chose to go to Prague. I’ll look back on it and I won’t believe that I actually went, you know. That I went away. So let me go. I have to. I need — just put me on the plane. …Let me go.”
“I begged you not to go off of Prozac.”
“Are you wearing a pajama top?” “…No. …Yes.”
“…Warm mayonnaise only means trouble.”
“You have a drinking problem. Seek help.”
“You know, I sold term papers to make a living… and slept with undergraduates, the whole deal. After my seventh or eighth year, I began to feel like I was using myself. Somehow I experienced my time as a postponement of my life… but eventually I just realized that this is my life.”
(Drunk.) “…You know, these little things that people have as pets called ‘dogs.’ Right? You know, ‘dogs.'” (Pause.) “‘Cantaloupe.’ We eat… ‘cantaloupe.'” “…What are you talking about?” “…These — these things — these things that; that, that we take for granted — they’re just… they’re all so weird.”
“I have a tremendous heat running through my body.”
“…You know what? I can’t stand you. I can’t stand… that.” (She gestures.) “You know? Your shoes, your pants, that shirt you’re wearing, your hair. Your hair drives me crazy.”
“Calm down. Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the futon this morning.”
“…Do you have any more cheese?” “...Just Cheez Whiz, actually.”
“Your attention span is, like, one-quarter of a music video.”
“Uh, while I’m here, um… I’d just like to respond to a remark that you made in class yesterday. You know, I couldn’t think of anything clever to say then; but… last night, while I was lying in bed, I came up with a retort. And when you said that I might be perversely attracted to your story, I should have responded… ‘I’m not attracted to someone’s spelling mistakes.‘” (Long pause.) “…I’m responding to your witticism now. “…Fourteen hours after I said it?” “…Yes.” “…Uh-huh.“
“Well, you shoot for the stars, you hit the… roof.”
“I’m thinking of getting ‘I Hate It‘ tattooed inside my mouth.”
“I hope you don’t mind that I took my shirt off.” “…Well, maybe just this once.”
(Calls urgently on the phone.) “Max; when Josie and the Pussycats were in outer space… what was the name of the puffy guy who flew?!” “…Bleep Bleep.” “Great. Thank you.”
“Look at this girl. God, I’d like to fuck the dickens out of her, if you know what I mean.” “...No, I have no idea what you mean.”
“I think I made a wise decision with these slacks tonight. What do you think?”
“I’ve noticed that, uh, the characters in Grover’s stories… spend all their time discussing the least important… things. Uh. You know; like what to have for dinner or… who’s the best-looking model in the Victoria’s Secret catalog.”
“What would you rather do, fuck a cow or lose your mother?” “…Hmm. Fuck a cow.” “Cow-fucker!”
“This is useless. We just have to walk away like mothers in nursery school.”
“…So, uh, how does that work? Do I — do I have to start paying back my student loans, like, tomorrow?”

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image – Kicking and Screaming