- Clementine Kruczynski: This is it, Joel. It's going to be gone soon.
- Joel Barish: I know.
- Clementine Kruczynski: What do we do?
- Joel Barish: Enjoy it.
- Joel: [narration as Clementine acknowledges him by raising her coffee mug] Why do I fall in love with every woman I see who shows me the least bit of attention?
- [Mary reads to Dr. Mierzwiak out of "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations"; the lines are from Alexander Pope's poem "Eloisa to Abelard"]
- Mary: How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! / The world forgetting, by the world forgot / Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! / Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.
- Joel: [in the house on the beach] I have to go. I have to catch my ride.
- Clementine: So go!
- Joel: I did. I thought maybe you were a nut... but you were exciting.
- Clementine: I wish you had stayed.
- Joel: I wish I had stayed too. NOW I wish I had stayed. I wish I had done a lot of things. I wish I had... I wish I had stayed. I do.
- Clementine: Well I came back downstairs and you were gone!
- Joel: I walked out, I walked out the door!
- Clementine: Why?
- Joel: I don't know. I felt like a scared little kid, I was like... it was above my head, I don't know.
- Clementine: You were scared?
- Joel: Yeah. I thought you knew that about me. I ran back to the bonfire, trying to outrun my humiliation, I think.
- Clementine: Was it something I said?
- Joel: Yeah... you said "so go." With such disdain, you know?
- Clementine: Oh, I'm sorry.
- Joel: It's okay.
- [Walking Out]
- Clementine: Joely? What if you stayed this time?
- Joel: I walked out the door. There's no memory left.
- Clementine: Come back and make up a good-bye at least. Let's pretend we had one.
- [Joel comes back. Clementine walks down the stairs towards him]
- Clementine: Bye Joel.
- Joel: I love you.
- Clementine: Meet me... in Montauk...
- Clementine: Joely?
- Joel: Yeah Tangerine?
- Clementine: Am I ugly?
- Joel: Uh-uh.
- Clementine: When I was a kid, I thought I was. I can't believe I'm crying already. Sometimes I think people don't understand how lonely it is to be a kid, like you don't matter. So, I'm eight, and I have these toys, these dolls. My favorite is this ugly girl doll who I call Clementine, and I keep yelling at her, "You can't be ugly! Be pretty!" It's weird, like if I can transform her, I would magically change, too.
- Joel: [kisses Clementine] You're pretty.
- Clementine: Joely, don't ever leave me.
- Joel: You're pretty... you're pretty... pretty...
- [last lines]
- Joel Barish: I can't see anything that I don't like about you.
- Clementine Kruczynski: But you will! But you will. You know, you will think of things. And I'll get bored with you and feel trapped because that's what happens with me.
- Joel Barish: Okay.
- Clementine Kruczynski: [pauses] Okay.
- [first lines]
- Joel: [voice over] random thoughts for Valentine's Day, 2004. Today is a holiday invented by greeting card companies to make people feel like crap.
- Joel: I had a really nice time last night.
- Clementine: Nice?
- Joel: I had the best fucking night of my entire fucking life, last night!
- Clementine: Thaaaat's better!
- Joel: I could die right now, Clem. I'm just... happy. I've never felt that before. I'm just exactly where I want to be.
- Clementine: You don't tell me things, Joel. I'm an open book. I tell you everything, every damn, embarrassing thing.
- Joel: Hi.
- Clementine: Hi. Didn't figure you'd show your face around me again. I guess I thought you were... humiliated. You did run away, after all.
- Joel: I just needed to see you.
- Clementine: Yeah?
- Joel: I'd like to, um... take you out, or something.
- Clementine: You're married.
- Joel: Not yet, not married. No, I'm not married.
- Clementine: Look man, I'm telling you right off the bat, I'm high-maintainance, so... I'm not gonna tip-toe around your marriage, or whatever it is you've got goin' there. If you wanna be with me, you're with me.
- Joel: Okay.
- Clementine: Too many guys think I'm a concept, or I complete them, or I'm gonna make them alive. But I'm just a fucked-up girl who's lookin' for my own peace of mind; don't assign me yours.
- Joel: I remember that speech really well.
- Clementine: I had you pegged, didn't I?
- Joel: You had the whole human race pegged.
- Clementine: Hmm. Probably.
- Joel: I still thought you were gonna save my life... even after that.
- Clementine: Ohhh... I know.
- Joel: It would be different, if we could just give it another go-round.
- Clementine: Remember me. Try your best; maybe we can.
- Clementine: I'm Clementine. Can I... borrow a piece of your chicken?
- Joel: And then you just took it... without waiting for an answer. It was so intimate; like we were already lovers.
- Clementine: Sometimes I don't think people realize how lonely it is to be a kid. Like... you don't matter.
- Clementine: I wish you'd stayed.
- Joel: I wish I'd stayed, too. NOW I wish I'd stayed. I wish I'd done a lot of things. I wish I'd... I wish I'd stayed... I do.
- Joel Barish: I can't see anything I don't like about you.
- Clementine: But you will, you will think of things and I'll get bored with you and feel trapped because that's what happens with me.
- Joel Barish: Okay.
- Clementine: Okay.
- [Joel calls Clem on the telephone]
- Clementine: What took you so long?
- Joel: I just walked in.
- Clementine: Do you miss me?
- Joel: Oddly enough, I do!
- Clementine: You said "I do" - I guess that means we're married!
- Joel: I guess so!
- Clementine: You don't tell me things, Joel. I'm an open book. I tell you everything... every damn embarrassing thing. You don't trust me.
- Joel: Constantly talking isn't necessarily communicating.
- Clementine: I don't do that. I want to know you.
- [angry]
- Clementine: I don't constantly talk! Jesus! People have to share things, Joel...
- Joel: Mmmhhmmm...
- Clementine: That's what intimacy is. I'm really pissed that you said that to me!
- Joel: I'm sorry... I just, my life isn't that interesting.
- Clementine: I want to read some of those journals you're constantly scribbling in. What do you write in there if you don't have any thoughts or passions or... love?
- Joel: If only I could meet someone new. I guess my chances of that happening are somewhat diminished, seeing that I'm incapable of making eye contact with a woman I don't know.
- Joel: [on tape recording] And the whole thing with the hair - it's all bullshit.
- Joel: I really like your hair.
- Clementine: Thank you.
- Clementine: Face it, Joely, you're freaked out because I was out late without you - and in your little wormy brain you're trying to figure out: did she fuck someone tonight?
- Joel: No, see Clem. I assume you fucked someone tonight. Isn't that how you get people to like you?
- Patrick: Baby, what's going on?
- Clementine: I don't know. I don't know! I'm lost! I'm scared! I feel like I'm disappearing. My skin's coming off! I'm getting old! Nothing makes any sense to me!
- Patrick: You're not getting old.
- Clementine: Nothing makes any sense! Nothing makes any sense!
- Clementine Kruczynski: I apply my personality into paste.
- Joel Barish: Oh, I doubt that very much.
- Clementine Kruczynski: Well, you don't know me, so... you don't know, do you?
- Joel Barish: Sorry, I was... just trying to be nice.
- Clementine Kruczynski: Yeah... I got it...
- [She hides behind the seat for a minute]
- Clementine Kruczynski: ... I'm Clementine, by the way.
- Joel Barish: I'm Joel.
- Clementine Kruczynski: Hi, Joel.
- [they shake hands]
- Clementine Kruczynski: No jokes about my name... Nooo, you wouldn't do that. You were trying to be nice.
- Joel Barish: I don't know any jokes about your name.
- Clementine Kruczynski: Huckleberry Hound.
- Joel Barish: I don't know what that means.
- Clementine Kruczynski: Huckleberry Hound? What are you, nuts?
- Joel Barish: It's been suggested.
- Clementine: You're not a stalker, or anything, right?
- Joel: I'm not a stalker. YOU'RE the one that talked to me, remember?
- Clementine: That is the oldest trick in the stalker book.
- Joel: Really? There's a stalker book? Great, I gotta read that one.
- [as Joel and Clementine eat out, he thinks about the other glum-looking couples in the restaurant]
- Joel: Are we like those bored couples you feel sorry for in restaurants? Are we the dining dead? I can't stand the idea of us being a couple people think that about.
- Clementine: I don't need nice. I don't need myself to be it, and I don't need anybody else to be it at me.
- Joel: Wait!
- Clementine: ...What?... What do you *want* Joel?
- Joel: I don't know! I want you wait for just a... a while.
- Clementine: Let me show you something... come on...
- Joel: I think I heard a crack.
- Clementine: It's not gonna crack, or break, or... it's so thick!... Show me which constellations you know.
- Joel: Um... oh... I don't... know any.
- Clementine: Show me which ones you know!
- Joel: Okay... okay... oh! There's Osidius.
- Clementine: Where?
- Joel: Right there... see? Sort of a swoop and a cross, Osidius the Emphatic.
- Clementine: You're full of shit, right?
- Joel: Nope. Osidius, right there, swoop and cross.
- Clementine: Shut the fuck up!
- Clementine: [Clementine has dyed her hair orange] You like? To match my sweatshirt, exactly.
- Joel: Ahaaahhhhh! Ohhhhhh! I like it!
- Clementine: You do?
- Joel: You look like a tangerine!
- Clementine: Hmmm, Clemen-teen the tangerine.
- Joel: Juicy 'n seedless.
- Clementine: I like that.
- Joel Barish: Is there any risk of brain damage?
- Dr. Mierzwiak: Well, technically speaking, the operation is brain damage, but it's on a par with a night of heavy drinking, nothing you'll miss.
- [4-year-old Joel watches his mother leave the room]
- 4-Year-Old Joel: I really want her to pick me up. It's amazing how strong that desire is.
- Clementine: Too many guys think I'm a concept, or I complete them, or I'm gonna make them alive. But I'm just a fucked-up girl who's lookin' for my own peace of mind; don't assign me yours.
- Joel: I remember that speech really well.
- Clementine: I had you pegged, didn't I?
- Joel: You had the whole human race pegged.
- Clementine: Hmm. Probably.
- Joel: I still thought you were gonna save my life... even after that.
- Clementine: Ohhh... I know.
- Joel: It would be different, if we could just give it another go-round.
- Clementine: Remember me. Try your best; maybe we can.
- Clementine: My embarrassing admission is, I really like that you're nice right now. I mean, I can't tell from one moment to the next what I'm gonna like, but right now. - I'm glad you are.