- Raymond: Dr. Eugene Sands?
- Eugene: How do you know my name?
- Raymond: Took an interest.
- Eugene: I'm sorry, you are?
- Raymond: Oh, I'm sorry. Raymond Blossom.
- Eugene: You gonna hurt me?
- Raymond: You asking because you're afraid or because you want me to?
- Eugene: Just trying to plan my day.
- Raymond: Oh, man, if I'm interfering with your plans, please forgive me. It's just I was so knocked out by what you did last night I said I gotta meet this guy. That's it. That's all there is to it. Medical Science amazes me.
- Eugene: Is kidnapping the only way you can meet new friends?
- Eugene Sands: Sometimes in life, we are given a choice between being a slave in Heaven or a star in Hell. And Hell does not always look like Hell. On a good day, it can look a lot like LA.
- Eugene Sands: Tonight, I said to myself, "I will not get high." I might just as well have said to myself, "Tonight, I will not breathe."
- Eugene: Sometimes we all wonder how things come to be. A chain of events: A leads to B leads to C leads to Z. Each life is made up of big decisions and each day is made up of a million little decisions. What shirt to wear, what street to walk on, what to eat for lunch. Now all of these seemingly inconsequential choices may change your life forever. But who can handle that kind of responsibility? It would paralyze you to think about it. So you have to trust your instinct, what the Greeks might call your character. You better pray to whatever god you believe in that your character knows what the hell it's doing. I thought I was a man of character. Good character. Then I made a mistake. A bad one that changed everything. That's why I found myself walking into a lousy L.A. bar to buy some Phenolcitrate - -synthetic heroin, my personal favorite. See, when I got high, the chain of events disappeared. No past, no future, just the sweet and sticky now. But before I could get home that night with my bag of goodies something happened. I did a good thing. One good deed that started another chain that I wasn't ready for. A ride I had no business taking.
- Young Gangster: You gonna kill me?
- Eugene: No, but I know where to shoot you so you'll be in diapers for the rest of your life!
- Eugene: It's a choice that's been offered to many men Be a slave in heaven or a star in hell. Of course, I knew this was wrong, but I had been a surgeon, and on a big day, that could be like flying an F-14, only you are the pilot and the plane. I missed that. And hell does not always look like hell. On a good day, it can look a lot like L.A.
- Eugene: Alone at last!
- Claire: You must be somebody who's always on the lookout for a new way to fuck up.
- Eugene: Why is it that you always find me so objectionable?
- Claire: Other than the fact that you're a drug addict and the only patients you treat are criminals?
- Eugene: You mean your associates? I'm not a drug addict. I take drugs to feel normal, to get level. I regulate my intake very precisely.
- Claire: I'm sorry, that's right, you're a highly trained professional. You should know.
- Eugene: No, you were actually right the first time- I'm just basically always looking for a new way to fuck up.
- Claire: How did you lose your license?
- Eugene: I was operating on a patient and the patient died.
- Claire: Was it your fault?
- Eugene: I was under the influence of narcotics and methamphetamines at the time, so yes, you could say it was my fault.
- Claire: How long ago was it?
- Eugene: Ten months, five days... what time is it now?
- Eugene: Now I get to use a phrase I always wanted to use in med school: take your clothes off and get under the sheets.
- Claire: Where are we?
- Eugene Sands: My family's summer home. When I was a kid, whenever a friend of mine would get shot, I'd bring him here.
- Eugene: In any case I guess I learned that if you are in the business of saving lives you had better start with your own. And, of course, always call 911.
- Eugene: Life is all a matter of perspective. You really learn that as a doctor. A man with gangrene thinks he's lucky if he only loses a finger and not an arm. So if your life was going along well, and you found yourself walking with two guys that look like Metallica rejects, you might think it was a bad day
- Raymond: Hey, Eugene, have you ever thought about the idea that everything that happens, every action, causes a reaction? I mean, no matter how far away or obscure? Ah. A butterfly flaps its wings in Tibet, a car gets a flat in Toronto, a guy gets a blow job in Bangkok. All connected. All subject to the linkages of cause and effect, even if comprehensible only in retrospect.
- Eugene: Who was it that said, When a doctor sees a man, he doesn't see good or evil, only sick or healthy?
- Eugene: Now I get to use the line I always wanted to use in medical school. Take off your clothes and get under the sheets
- Eugene: I guess I should have felt better after saving that man's life, but I didn't. It just made me miss more what I once was. Like a prisoner getting one day out in the sun, it just made the prison seem that much more dismal.
- Eugene: When I pray to God, I don't ask him to eradicate disease. I pray that he sends me something that I haven't seen. I'm half kidding.
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