- Catherine: It was confessional, yet dishonest. Jane pretends to be horrified by the sexuality that she in fact fetishizes. She subsumes herself to the myth of black male potency, but then doesn't follow through. She thinks she 'respects Afro-Americans,' she thinks they're 'cool,' 'exotic,' what a notch he 'd make in her belt, but, of course, it all comes down to mandingo cliché, and he calls her on it. In classic racist tradition she demonizes, then runs for cover. But then, how could she behave otherwise? She's just a spoiled suburban white girl with a Benneton rainbow complex. It's just my opinion, and what do I know... but I think it's a callow piece of writing.
- Mr. Scott: I don't know about what happened... because once you start writing, it ALL becomes fiction.
- [Vi and Mr. Scott are having sex]
- Mr. Scott: Say, "Nigger, fuck me."
- Vi: Oh, but I... I can't... say that.
- Mr. Scott: Say, "Ni..."
- Vi: Ni...
- Mr. Scott: "... gger."
- Vi: ...gger.
- Mr. Scott: Say, "Nigger."
- Vi: Nigger.
- Mr. Scott: "Fuck me hard."
- Vi: Fuck... me... hard.
- Mr. Scott: Again!
- Vi: Nigger, fuck me hard!
- Mr. Scott: Again!
- Vi: Nigger, fuck me hard!
- Mr. Scott: [yelling] AGAIN!
- Vi: [screaming] NIGGER, FUCK ME HARD!
- Mikey Livingston: Why was he on death row?
- Consuelo: For rape and murder.
- Mikey Livingston: Consuelo, what is rape exactly?
- Consuelo: It is when you love someone and they don't love you and you do something about it.
- Mikey Livingston: Sometimes I think my parents don't love me.
- Consuelo: Well, when you get older you can do something about it.
- Mikey Livingston: Wasn't there high school in El Salvador?
- Consuelo: We had to work. My family was poor.
- Mikey Livingston: It must have been hard being poor.
- Consuelo: I am still poor.
- Mikey Livingston: But Consuelo... even though you're poor, don't you have any hobbies or interests or anything?
- Consuelo: No, Mikey.
- Scooby Livingston: You're a pervert?
- Toby Oxman: No. Actually I'm a documentary filmmaker.
- Scooby Livingston: Oh. You mean like "Blair Witch Project"?
- Vi: Fucking cripple.Why do I waste my time with undergrads? They're all so... juvenile! I just thought Marcus would be different. I mean, he's got CP.
- [Marty and Mikey sit by the comatose Brady, who lies in his own bed]
- Mikey Livingston: Dad? Do you think that Brady will ever get better?
- Marty Livingston: One in a million recover.
- Mikey Livingston: Maybe he's that one in a million.
- Marty Livingston: Mikey, there's optimism, and then there's stupidity. It's a very fine line.
- Mikey Livingston: [pause] I don't think there's any hope, either. I was just trying to make you feel better.
- Mikey Livingston: Mom, it's not fair if Brady can say the F-word and I can't.
- Marty Livingston: Well Mikey, listen up 'cause here's a lesson: Life's...not...fair!
- Marty Livingston: I had a terrific time in college. I don't see why this is so hard for you to grasp? Why are you out to make college out to be a bad thing? A negative experience? YOU had a bad time? Well, too bad. Get over it. Stop trying to impose YOUR misery on everybody else. "Oh, life is bad. Life is horrible." Life is tough on you, well, boo-hoo.
- Elizabeth St. Clair: The pressure to get into the college of your choice is incredible. They did a study recently of the youth in Bosnia during the bombing. They found that the stress the young people experience there was less than what American high school students go through when applying to college.
- Amy (segment "Fiction"): Why do people have to be so ugly, write about such ugly characters? It's perverted. I know you all think I'm being prissy, but I don't care. I was brought up in a certain way, and this is... mean-spirited.
- Conan O'Brien: Ahh... tell me, what... what do you want to do for me? What's... what's your idea?
- Scooby Livingston: Be your sidekick, you know, and... and maybe, eventually, become a TV talk show host.
- Conan O'Brien: TV talk show host? Okay. You were at sidekick eight seconds ago, then TV talk show host. You'll be a Latin dictator in about a minute.
- Mr. Scott: [critiquing a story] Callow... and coy. Jane wants more, but isn't honest enough to admit it. In the end she returns to the safety of her crippled... translation, sexually impotent... boyfriend.
- Esposito (segment "Non-Fiction"): I know they make fun of New Jersey all the time, but I don't care, 'cause they're just snobs. 'Cause Jersey is where America's at!
- Toby Oxman: Scooby does have a quality... that I've been looking for. A quality that is emblematic of America today. It's part disillusionment, part hope.
- Vi: I don't even like his books that much. They're all so... aggressively confrontational. I don't care if he's won the Pulitzer Prize.
- Marcus (segment "Fiction"): This is bullshit! Her story was the truth!
- Joyce (segment "Fiction"): Right.
- Sue (segment "Fiction"): It's unbelievable!
- Elli (segment "Fiction"): It's clichéd!
- Amy (segment "Fiction"): It's disgusting!
- Vi: But it happened!
- Mr. Scott: I don't know about what happened, Vi, because once you start writing, it all becomes fiction. Still... it certainly is an improvement over your last story. There is now at least a beginning, a middle, and an end.
- Mikey Livingston: What do you like to do when you're not working?
- Consuelo: I am always working.
- Mikey Livingston: But when you're not, like now, what do you like to do?
- [Consuelo is cleaning the stove]
- Consuelo: This is work.
- Mikey Livingston: But it's not like... real work. This is just babysitting. You know, your job's really not so bad, if you think about it. You should smile more.
- Toby's Editor (segment "Non-Fiction"): It's funny, I suppose. But it seems glib and facile to just make fun of how idiotic these people are.
- Toby Oxman: I'm not making fun. I'm... I'm showing it as it really is.
- Toby's Editor (segment "Non-Fiction"): You're showing how superior you are to your subject.
- Toby Oxman: No, but I... I like my subject. I like these people.
- Toby's Editor (segment "Non-Fiction"): No, you don't.
- Toby Oxman: Yes, I do! I love them.
- Amy (segment "Fiction"): [critiquing a story about a disabled person] It kind of reminded me a little of Faulkner, but East Coast and disabled.
- Lucy (segment "Fiction"): Or Flannery O'Connor. She had multiple sclerosis.
- Joyce (segment "Fiction"): And Borges... he was blind.
- Ethan (segment "Fiction"): Updike has psoriasis.
- Toby Oxman: When you make a documentary, uh, you do it for many reasons. But money is certainly not one of them.
- Mr. Scott: Catherine is right. Your story is a piece of shit. You express nothing but banalities, and, formally speaking, are unable to construct a single compelling sentence. You ride on a wave of clichés so worn, in fact, it actually approaches a level of grotesquerie. And your subtitle... "The Rawness of Truth"... is that supposed to be a joke of some sort? Or are you just being pretentious?
- Marcus (segment "Fiction"): You're tired of me, I can tell.
- Vi: Marcus, I'm tired, that's all.
- Marcus (segment "Fiction"): You've lost interest. You hardly even sweat anymore when we have sex.
- Vi: I was never much of a sweater, you know that.
- Marcus (segment "Fiction"): Look, Vi, I don't blame you. You feel pity now. Pleasure isn't there anymore. The kinkiness is gone. You've become kind.
- Toby Oxman: When the sky is clear and the sun is warm, you're reminded of how beautiful things can be. A lamppost... a sign... a straw wrapper, blowing in the wind. But when that dark cloud appears, you realize how fragile the balance of life is.
- Toby Oxman: But don't you find it a little funny, too, at the same time?
- Toby's Editor (segment "Non-Fiction"): You've got a family tragedy on your hands. Will you tell me what's funny about that? About a kid in a coma?
- Mikey Livingston: But why are you so upset about Jesus?
- Consuelo: He is dead.
- Mikey Livingston: Oh. How did that happen?
- Consuelo: He was executed. He was on death row... and then he was executed.
- Mikey Livingston: How did they execute him?
- Consuelo: Poison gas.
- Mikey Livingston: Maybe it's for the best. I mean, if he was guilty of doing something wrong. People who are bad should be killed. Don't you think so?
- Consuelo: Jesus was not bad.
- Mikey Livingston: Maybe he was and you just didn't know it.
- Brady Livingston (segment "Non-Fiction"): [asking about Holocaust survivors] You know any survivors, Dad?
- Marty Livingston: Hmm. Do I know any? Personally?
- Fern Livingston (segment "Non-Fiction"): Well, technically, your Zeda is a survivor.
- Brady Livingston (segment "Non-Fiction"): He was in a concentration camp?
- Fern Livingston (segment "Non-Fiction"): No, but he had to escape the Nazis.
- Brady Livingston (segment "Non-Fiction"): But I thought he came over to America before the war.
- Fern Livingston (segment "Non-Fiction"): Well, he did, with his family. But his cousins, they had to stay and they were all killed. And if he'd stayed, he would've been killed. So in my book, he's a survivor.
- Brady Livingston (segment "Non-Fiction"): Even though it was only his cousins that were killed?
- Fern Livingston (segment "Non-Fiction"): But that could've happened to him, or... or to me, if I'd been alive. Or you.
- Mikey Livingston: Or me?
- Scooby Livingston: You mean, then we're all survivors?
- Fern Livingston (segment "Non-Fiction"): Well, yes. If it hadn't been for Hitler, he wouldn't have had to leave Europe. We would've been European.
- Scooby Livingston: But then, in a sense, since you would've never have met Dad if your family had stayed in Europe, if it weren't for Hitler none of us would've been born.
- Marty Livingston: Get the hell out of here.
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