Manhattan (1979)
Michael Murphy: Yale
Photos
Quotes
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Yale : You are so self-righteous, you know. I mean we're just people. We're just human beings, you know? You think you're God.
Isaac Davis : I... I gotta model myself after someone.
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Yale : It's just gossip, you know. Gossip is the new pornography.
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Isaac Davis : What are you telling me, that you're going to leave Emily, is this true, and run away with the winner of the Zelda Fitzgerald emotional maturity award?
Yale : Look, I love her, I've always loved her.
Isaac Davis : What kind of crazy friend are you?
Yale : I'm a good friend! I introduced her to you, remember?
Isaac Davis : Right, what was the point? I don't understand that!
Yale : Well, I thought you liked her?
Isaac Davis : Yes, I do like her, now we both like her!
Yale : Yeah, well I liked her first!
Isaac Davis : I liked her first? What are you, six years old? Jeezus!
Yale : Look, I thought it was over. I mean, would I have encouraged you to take her out if I still liked her?
Isaac Davis : So, what, you like her, now you don't like her, then you did like her, you know it's still early, you can change your mind one more time before dinner!
Yale : Don't get sarcastic about this. You think I like this?
Isaac Davis : How long were you going to see her without saying anything to me?
Yale : Don't turn this into one of your big moral issues!
Isaac Davis : You could have said, but all you had to do was call me and talk to me. You know, I'm very understanding. I'd have said no, but you'd have felt honest!
Yale : I wanted to tell you about it, I knew it was going to upset you! We had a few innocent meetings.
Isaac Davis : A few? She said one! You guys should get your story straight, you know. Don't you rehearse?
Yale : We met twice for coffee.
Isaac Davis : Hey come off it, she doesn't drink coffee! What'd you do, meet for Sanka? That's not too romantic, you know, it's a little on the geriatric side.
Yale : Well, I'm not a saint, okay.
Isaac Davis : But, you're too easy on yourself! Don't you see that? That's your problem, that's your whole problem. You rationalize everything, you're not honest with yourself. You talk about, you want to write a book, but in the end you'd rather buy the Porsche, you know. Or, you cheat a little bit on Emily and you play around the truth a little with me, and next thing you know, you're in front of a Senate committee and you're naming names, you're informing on your friends!
Yale : You are so self righteous, you know. We're just people! We're just human beings, you know. You think you're God!
Isaac Davis : I gotta model myself after someone!
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Yale : You know we have to stop seeing each other, don't you.
Mary Wilke : Oh, yeah. Right. Right. I understand. I could tell by the sound of your voice on the phone. Very authoritative, y'know. Like the pope, or the computer in 2001.
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Isaac Davis : I think that, under my personal vibrations, I could put her life in some kind of good order.
Yale : Yeah, that's what you said about Jill, and under your personal vibrations she went from bisexuality to homosexuality.
Isaac Davis : Yeah, but I gave her the old college try.
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Yale : You just can't live the way you do, you know? It's all so perfect.
Isaac : What are future generations gonna say about us? My god, you know someday we're gonna
[Isaac points to a hanging skeleton]
Isaac : we're gonna be like him! I mean, he was probably one of the BEAUTIFUL people. He was probably dancing and playing tennis and everything. And now look: this is what happens to us. You know, it's very important to have some kind of personal integrity, you know? I'll be hanging in a classroom one day, and I want to make sure when I thin out, that I'm... well-thought of.
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Yale : I think the essence of art is to provide a kind of working through the situation for people, you know, so that you can get in touch with feelings that you didn't know you had.
Isaac Davis : Talent is luck.
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Yale : What about Isaac? We can't abandon him, you know? He can't function anywhere other than New York, you know that. Very Freudian.
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Isaac Davis : Bergman's the only genius in cinema today, I think.
Yale : He's a big Bergman fan.
Mary Wilke : God, you're so the opposite! I mean, you write that absolutely fabulous television show. It's brilliantly funny and his view is so Scandinavian. It's bleak, my God! I mean, all that Kierkegaard, right? Real adolescent, you know, fashionable pessimism. I mean, the silence. God's silence. Okay, okay, okay. I mean, I loved it when I was at Radcliffe, but, I mean, all right, you outgrow it. You absolutely outgrow it.
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Yale : I think LeWitt's overrated. In fact, he may be a candidate for the Overrated Academy.
Mary Wilke : Oh, that's right.
Yale : Mary and I have invented the Academy of the Overrated.
Mary Wilke : For such people as...
Yale : For such notables as - Gustav Mahler.
Mary Wilke : And Isak Dinesen and Carl Jung.
Yale : F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Mary Wilke : Lenny Bruce. We can't forget Lenny Bruce, now, can we? How about Norman Mailer?
Isaac Davis : I think those people are all terrific. Everyone that you mentioned.
