- Jerry Ryan: It's true. Half of me hasn't even been in this town.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: I tried Jake.
- Jerry Ryan: Of course.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: So we're both flops.
- Jerry Ryan: No. Not both of us. Not you. I've tried to make you over so you'd be more like me - like everyone, I guess. Stingy, holding back, guarding what we have because we've got so little. Everything you get, you give back double. No, you're not a flop. You're a gift, infant. Underneath that beautiful face there's a street brawler. But underneath that there's someone... that no one, nothing has ever dirtied. The way people were meant to be. That's what you are.
- Jerry Ryan: Well... so long, honey.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: I love you, Jerry. As long as you live, remember the last thing you heard outta me was I love you.
- Jerry Ryan: I love you too, infant.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Things look a lot different to me now. You did me a worid of good, Jerry.
- Jerry Ryan: Did I, Gittel? Really? Because if I could think that...
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: You helped me. This is the first time I come out with more than I went in. Whoever this guy is, he'll owe you.
- Jerry Ryan: Thank you. She'll owe you, too. More than she'll ever know.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Why so sore? 'Cause I feel sorry for ya?
- Jerry Ryan: I don't think I can afford you. I'm not ready for a whole human, complete with weaknesses...
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Who asked ya? Who made an offer?
- Jerry Ryan: I did, but I take it back. I'm neither ready nor able to be responsible for anything these days. Least of all an ingenuous nitwit. That's why I'm sore. Disappointment.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: What does ingenuous mean? Smart?
- Jerry Ryan: Dumb. Naive.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: I gotta get outta here before you slug me.
- Jerry Ryan: Slug you? That what you expect from your romances?
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: When it comes to men, I expect the worst.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Listen, Jerry, I'm the one in a trap. You move in with me, I'll... I'll nudja you into marrying me, I know I will. And then what'll I have? I don't wanna have to spend the rest of my life begging. It's not good enough for me, Jerry. Not any more. I want somebody who'll feel about me... what you said about her before. What do you say we give each other the gate, huh?
- Jerry Ryan: For my sake? So I can go back?
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: No. Whether you go or stay. To tell you the God's honest truth, Jerry, I didn't take one free breath since that hemorrhage. I wanna get outta here so I can breathe.
- Jerry Ryan: [after Gittel saying she would take shorthand] Shorthand is one thing this romance has lacked from the beginning.
- Jerry Ryan: You've nothing better to do.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: I've eleven different things I could be doing!
- Jerry Ryan: Different isn't better. Why aren't you doing them?
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: How'd I get in the wrong? Did you call about the icebox or not?
- Jerry Ryan: Not.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Well, I can't follow this. You called.
- Jerry Ryan: I called because I was going out of my head in solitary.
- Jerry Ryan: I called to make contact with someone of the weaker sex, who's weaker.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: OK, here I am. Contact.
- Jerry Ryan: I called to ask you to dinner tonight. And a show, if you like.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Well, why didn't ya?
- Jerry Ryan: I was afraid you'd say yes or no.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: I would have said "Sure"!
- Jerry Ryan: Right away we have problems. What show? Where to eat?
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Wait! Now I'm not so sure. I don't know if I want to get involved. You sound complicated.
- Jerry Ryan: Oh.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: I'm the girl, right? And you're the man. Make up your mind, ask me, and I'll make up mine.
- Jerry Ryan: Been trying for a month.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: To ask me to dinner?
- Jerry Ryan: No, to get unstuck from a piece of flypaper. After you've broken your leg in five places you hesitate to make that first step. Reason I hung up on you was because I didn't want to say, "Please, help me"
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: I'm late.
- Jerry Ryan: Yeah, I know.
- Jerry Ryan: Next time I'll make sarcastic remarks.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: We're on next time already!
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: What have you been doing in New York?
- Jerry Ryan: Mostly walking, by day and by night.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Monotonous but healthy.
- Jerry Ryan: I'd say you were a born victim.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Of what?
- Jerry Ryan: Yourself.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: I feel sorry for you. What's so terrible?
- Jerry Ryan: You feel sorry for me?
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Sure.
- Jerry Ryan: Gittel, how old are you?
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: 29.
- Jerry Ryan: Stop talking like 28. Start worrying about your own worries.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: First thing you said was "Help me", on the telephone!
- Jerry Ryan: No. I said I wouldn't say...
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: You said "Help me"! I said "Sure"
- Jerry Ryan: Will you stop walking up and down?
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: I'm nervous.
- Jerry Ryan: So am I, but this walking around isn't helping us any.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: I was just waiting to be stopped.
- Jerry Ryan: Gittel, when you've been married to somebody for 12 years, lived together for 12 years, you don't just break up. You can't just forget it like it was... Well, anyway, I cut out. Ran.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Stop running, it's the Atlantic Ocean already.
- Jerry Ryan: I'm not running any more.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Don't you see? If you can't talk to her, you're running.
- Jerry Ryan: Didn't you understand one word I said?
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Sure! As a juror I'd give me five years.
- Jerry Ryan: I'm not kidding. Need someone.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Let go!
- Jerry Ryan: Need someone.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Or what? Let me go or I'll yell.
- Jerry Ryan: No, you won't.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Help!
- Jerry Ryan: You lunatic. Somebody'll come.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Nobody'll come, it's New York.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: So then you say, "need you". I need you. Who says these things in black and white? You care about somebody, you don't make 'em ask. Like a bill that's gotta be paid. What kind of giving is that? So when you ask me to hand myself over on a platter... Well, what do you hand over, Jerry? What'll I get? Jake, I pay a penny, I get a penny candy. But you... You're a big 10-buck box and all I'll get is the cellophane. You short-change people. You make it look like you're giving but you don't.
- Jerry Ryan: 3.30, Friday, and any time thereafter.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Any time thereafter for how long?
- Jerry Ryan: You say something?
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: I said I love you.
- Jerry Ryan: When you have something like that to say, don't mumble.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: All right, I'll holler it.
- Jerry Ryan: I told you to make a claim on me, to depend on me. I practically forced you. Gittel, I care for you. I don't want to see you hurt or lost or short-changed.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: So what's the future, Jerry? You gonna think any less about her? A little time'll pass, everything'll be hunky-dory? How am I gonna give her competition? Have a hemorrhage twice a year? Trap you that way? I got half of you by being a wreck, is that how we'll go on? Oh, you gotta short-change me, Jerry.
- Jerry Ryan: I've tried not to.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: That's what's outta whack. How hard you try. Who works that hard if everything's OK?
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Things aren't even-Steven with us, Jerry. You do all the giving. What I have to give, you don't want. And what I want, you can't give. Doesn't matter if I learn shorthand or to play a bugle standing on my head. If you don't love me, you don't love me. And time isn't gonna make one lousy bit of difference.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Nebraska. That's right next to California, isn't it?
- Jerry Ryan: No, I think that's Nevada you're thinking about.
- Jerry Ryan: Just testing. Like the old lady said, how do I know what I think, until I hear what I say?
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Is it OK enough to?
- Jerry Ryan: Is what OK enough to?
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Your leg?
- Jerry Ryan: It may have affected my head!
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Pick up the phone if you're so strong.
- Jerry Ryan: Do you want me to?
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Sure I want you to. I don't know where I stand. I could scream my head off and nobody comes. Who can I count on besides me?
- Jerry Ryan: Me!
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Yeah. Lean on you and I'll fall in that big hole, someplace in Nevada!
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Jerry?
- Jerry Ryan: What?
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: You don't like me any more?
- Jerry Ryan: I hate you. Is that passionate enough?
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: It's like when I was a kid, we used to neck in the vestibule. She's inside you and I'm always outside in the vestibule. Everything you did here was to prove something to her.
- Jerry Ryan: To you. To myself.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: To her. With her you couldn't stand on your own two feet, so with me you will, only I gotta stand on them too. You'll show her. With her you took handouts, with me you'll give handouts. Lofts, presents. Never mind if I want 'em, you'll show her. When you're blue, I don't have to worry what I did wrong. She called, she didn't call. She wrote a letter, she didn't write a letter. It's always her.
- Jerry Ryan: This... This isn't true. All the courts in the worid will tell you it's true but it isn't. The bonds can't be "held for nought".
- Jerry Ryan: Do you sleep with Mr. America?
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Larry? I told ya, he's a dancer. I mean we're very good friends and all that. But what'd ya think, I'm peculiar or somethin'?
- [Turns toward Larry]
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Hey! Are you?
- Jerry Ryan: Am I what?
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Queer.
- Jerry Ryan: [Rolls his eyes, sighs] Now you've gone too far.
- [Walks over to Gittel and kisses her deeply]
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Brother, how long have you been on the wagon?
- Jerry Ryan: A year.
- Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz: Where ya been... in jail?
- [They kiss again - passionately]
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