- Mary: I would like a nice, powerful, mind-altering substance. Preferably one that will make my unborn children grow gills.
- [repeated line]
- Mary: Can I have a falafel with hot sauce, a side order of Baba Ghanoush and a seltzer, please?
- Mary: Do you know the story of Sisyphus?
- Leo: Who?
- Mary: Sisyphus. It's a myth about this guy who had to roll or push this incredibly huge rock up this steep mountain. Every time he would get to the top of this mountain the rock would roll down again. he would watch this and walk back down the mountain and do it all over again. Forever.
- Leo: Drag.
- Mary: It's a metaphor for life, Leo. It's famous.
- Leo: Is this some kind of drug rehab?
- Mary: [looks through book] It's not rehab.
- [reads]
- Mary: One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
- Leo: Bullshit. He's miserable.
- Mary: He doesn't have to be. He accepts his fate.
- Leo: You're telling me if your name is Syphilis, and you spend your life lugging a fucking rock up a hill you wouldn't be miserable?
- Mary: I think I'm an existentialist. I do.
- Mary: [after a man mouths off to Judy and storms out] What a dick.
- Judy Lindendorf: He's not a dick, he's a patron. I lost 2 dedicated clerks last month because I couldn't afford to pay them a competitive wage, they make more money at McDonald's. You... no, a girl like you couldn't...
- Mary: What do you mean a girl like me?
- Judy Lindendorf: Your mother was a woman with no common sense, of course your father was a man without a conscience.
- Mary: You think I couldn't be a librarian?
- Judy Lindendorf: Darling, a librarian is a professional with a master's degree in library science, even a clerk who *merely* shelves and stamps...
- Mary: You think I couldn't be a library clerk?
- Judy Lindendorf: Your mother was a woman with no common sense.
- Mary: You think I couldn't be a library clerk.
- Judy Lindendorf: A library clerk is *smart*, responsible...
- Mary: [yelling so people overhear] You don't think I'm smart enough to work in your fucking library?
- Judy Lindendorf: I think nothing of the sort.
- Mary: You're ashamed of me, Judy, you're my only family, and you're ashamed of me.
- Judy Lindendorf: Fine, you can start right now.
- Mary: Fine, I will! Great!
- Judy Lindendorf: [stands up] Wanda, this is my goddaughter, Mary, she's our newest clerk.
- Wanda: I assume you're familiar with the Dewey Decimal System.
- [Mary gets a look of horror]
- Mary: Do you realize how broke I am? What do you want me to do? I don't have a job. I'm a loser. Shoot me.
- Mary: I may have made a mistake but that is no reason to patronize me. It is dismaying that your expectations are based on the performance of a lesser primate, and also revelatory of a managerial style which is sadly lacking. Is it any wonder then that I've chosen not to learn the intricacies of an antiquated and idiotic system
- [grunt]
- Mary: i think not!
- Judy Lindendorf: Re-code it!
- Mary: Fuck you!
- Judy Lindendorf: Re-code it!
- Mary: If you had really loved my mother, you wouldn't treat me like this.
- Leo: Where's my crate? What the fuck?
- [sees his albums filed in milk crates]
- Leo: Oh my God, what happened? Yo, what happened here?
- Mary: Surprise!
- Leo: What?
- Mary: Surprise!
- Leo: You fucked with my albums?
- Mary: I organized them.
- Leo: Mary, there was a stack right here, it took me a week to pull them!
- Mary: They're organized by the Dewey Decimal System, which is perfect for small collections like yours, unlike the Library of Congress...
- Leo: Small collections? There are over 1,000 records here!
- Mary: I know, it took me all day to do it, Leo, they were a mess.
- Leo: What are you, my mother? They *were* in order! Jesus, I gotta be at Rene's in 20 minutes and you totally fucked my albums!
- Mary: I worked on this all day, it'll help you.
- Leo: You bitch! You fucking bitch! You have ruined my life, you know that? You ruined my fucking life.
- Mary: Give the system a chance. I made three card catalogues: titles, subjects and artists. Every categories of music: tribal, sleaze, disco, those are further sub-divided. Here's the list, Crisco disco, Frisco disco, now each album is coated with the yellow sticker, the red sticker means that Teddy Rogers worked on it, that's a no-no, we know that. Here's your #2 pencil, use this for scrap paper.
- Leo: It's over, everything.
- Mary: Write down the title and the author, artist, use all caps, that's not neat.
- Leo: [stands up] What the fuck am I doing?
- Mary: Okay, Leonard, fine, what do you need?
- Leo: Mighty Real from Sylvester.
- Mary: Okay, here we go.
- [flips through card system]
- Mary: It's going to be cross-listed under disco classics and divas, male. What else do you need?
- Mary: Excuse me, what are you doing? Yeah, you. Were you just putting that book away? It looked like you were just putting that book away. I guess you didn't know we have a system for putting books away here. No, I'm curious. You were just randomly putting that book on the shelf, is that it? You've just given us a great idea. I mean, why are we wasting our time with the Dewey Decimal System when your system is so much easier? Much easier! We'll just put the books anywhere! Hear that, everybody? Our friend here has given us a great idea! We'll just put the books any damn place we choose! We don't care, right? Isn't that right?
- Mary: [Trying to sell some clothes] Fifty? but it's Gaultier, it's a collector's item!
- Consignment Shop Owner: Honey, it's got two buttons missing.
- [Mary gives her a blank stare]
- Consignment Shop Owner: [with a condescending laugh] All right, I'll give you $50, but i won't take this... that's vintage, not designer.
- Mary: I probably shouldn't sell it anyway, it was my mom's, she died.
- Mary: When my bakery takes off, I'm taking everyone I ever met out to dinner, cocktails, nice view of the city.
- [gasps and takes out a burnt loaf of bread]
- Leo: Betty Crocker you ain't.
- Mary: I can't cook, I can't do anything! I'm gonna die in a subway somewhere with nothing!
- Leo: It's not that bad, just scrape it.
- Mary: Leo, I'm going to be 24 soon, I haven't done anything with my life.
- Leo: What about finding another space for a party? Yo, I spun at this fat outlaw party last year in this building that used to be a supermarket on Avenue D.
- Mary: It was Vicki's wedding reception, her dad owned that building. God it seems like yesterday. You know, life goes by so fast, what's the point?
- Leo: What do you mean?
- Mary: What does our life mean?
- Leo: *What* life?
- Judy Lindendorf: When I see you, a smart, powerful woman, and see you acting like the town idiot, it makes me sick! When most women are struggling to demonstrate their intelligence, their complexity, here you are trying to prove just how stupid you can be!
- Mary: Judy, please...
- Judy Lindendorf: Look! Here is a card from an early card catalogue. See that handwriting? Look at the flowery script. That's what young ladylike librarians were taught, penmanship.
- Mary: I am sorry!
- Judy Lindendorf: Melville Dewey hired women as librarians because he believed the job didn't require any intelligence! It was a woman's *job*!
- Mary: That's not my fault...
- Judy Lindendorf: That means it's under *paid* and under *valued*! This country has *more* illiteracy than some of the most underdeveloped nations! Even Americans who *can* read *don't*! They watch movies, they watch television, they watch movies *on* the television!
- Mary: I said I was...
- Judy Lindendorf: Get out! I won't have you working here.
- Judy Lindendorf: [as Mary starts to walk away] Mary!
- Judy Lindendorf: [as Mary stops and looks] This is a depression!
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