Vision Quest (1985)

Matthew Modine: Louden Swain

Photos 

7 more photos

Quotes 

• Louden Swain : You never took a night off to see me wrestle before. They'll dock you for that.

  Elmo : Hey, kid - money ain't everything.

  Louden Swain : It's not that big a deal, Elmo. I mean, it's six lousy minutes on the mat, if that.

  Elmo : You ever hear of Pele?

  Louden Swain : Yeah, he's a, a soccer player.

  Elmo : A very famous soccer player.

  [pause] 

  Elmo : I was in the room here one day... watchin' the Mexican channel on TV. I don't know nothin' about Pele. I'm watchin' what this guy can do with a ball and his feet. Next thing I know, he jumps in the air and flips into a somersault and kicks the ball in - upside down and backwards... the goddamn goalie never knew what the fuck hit him. Pele gets excited and he rips off his jersey and starts running around the stadium waving it around his head. Everybody's screaming in Spanish. I'm here, sitting alone in my room, and I start crying.

  [pause] 

  Elmo : That's right, I start crying. Because another human being, a species that I happen to belong to, could kick a ball, and lift himself, and the rest of us sad-assed human beings, up to a better place to be, if only for a minute... let me tell ya, kid - it was pretty goddamned glorious. It ain't the six minutes... it's what happens in that six minutes.

• Louden Swain : But all I ever settled for is that we're born to live and then to die, and... we got to do it alone, each in his own way. And I guess that's why we got to love those people who deserve it like there's no tomorrow. 'Cause when you get right down to it - there isn't.

• Tanneran : Well, what do you think? Does anybody understand a word of it? Huh? Louden? This poem mean anything to you at all?

  Louden Swain : Yeah, kind of. I figure the girl in the poem's about my age. She's feeling sad about the leaves falling from the trees, and the poet, he tells her that what she's really sad about is that she's beginning to realize she's going to die someday, too. The thing is, she's already dying.

  Tanneran : Is that a good thing to realize, or do you think maybe we'd be better off not thinking about it?

  Louden Swain : I don't know. Nobody likes to think about it. I don't like to think about it. But if you don't, you might go through life thinking you've got plenty of time. You put off the really important stuff until later, and pretty soon, before you know it, there's no more time left, you've blown it.

  Tanneran : That's not bad, Louden. Not bad at all.

• Tanneran : I think you're dehydrated.

  Louden Swain : No, I'm just the victim of a screwed-up nitrogen imbalance. Plus, I think I've contracted priapism.

  Tanneran : What's priapism?

  Louden Swain : It's a disease of a constant erection.

  [Tanneran giggles] 

  Louden Swain : It's not funny, believe me! The girl of my dreams lives under my own roof, but she thinks I'm just a kid, a dumb jock, all of which is more or less true. I'm dying, Mr. Tanneran, just like that girl in the poem... only quicker, and with a hard-on.

• Louden Swain : Hey, Carla? I'd do it all again.

  Carla : So would I.

• Referee : [as Louden gets a nose bleed in the final match vs. Shute]  Let me take a look at you. Coach, we got a bloody nose here.

  Coach : Come here. You're doing fantastic, fantastic!

  Kuch : You're beating Shute. I'm shitting in my pants. You're killing him.

  Coach : Shut up, Kuch! Have you done everything you came to do?

  Louden Swain : Not yet.

  Coach : Then do it, boy. You've got 27 seconds left, you're down 4 points. Forget your nose, forget about everything. You've gotta' go out there and *stick* him! Now go on back there and do it!

• Louden Swain : Can 800 million Chinamen be wrong?

  Tanneran : Frequently.

• Louden Swain : My name's Louden, Louden Swain. Last week I turned 18. I wasn't ready for it. I haven't done anything yet. So I made this deal with myself. This is the year I make my mark.

• Louden Swain : I'm gonna drop down to 168 and wrestle Shute

  Kuch : SHUTE? Shute's a monster! A genuine geratoid! His own father has to use a livewire to keep him from fuckin' the fireplace!

• Elmo : [looks at Louden's book]  What the fuck is this?

  Louden Swain : What? You don't recognize it?

  Elmo : Wait a minute! This is coos!

  Louden Swain : Yeah, I'm thinking very seriously of becoming a gynecologist

  Elmo : A coos doctor in outer space? Man, you're flippin' out!

• Margie Epstein : [after reading Louden's article about the clitoris]  I'm speechless. You've broken new ground here, Louden! This is professional stuff! We're gonna' draaaggg this dinky school paper right into the twentieth century! I mean, where do you get your ideas?

  Louden Swain : Well, I've been thinking a lot about that stuff lately.

  Margie Epstein : Oooohhh, we're gonna' make history here!

• Elmo : What the fuck is this?

  Louden Swain : You mean you don't recognize it?

  Elmo : Wait a minute. This is cooze.

  Louden Swain : Yeah. I'm thinking very seriously of becoming a gynecologist.

  Elmo : A cooze doctor in outer space? Man, you're flippin' out!

  Elmo : I want to be able to look inside women, find the power that they have over me.

• Louden's Dad : Aren't you going to be late for school, son?

  Louden Swain : I'm working on my article for the school paper.

  Louden's Dad : What part of the body are you taking on this time?

  Louden Swain : Clitoris.

  Louden's Dad : That's kind of a female thing, isn't it?

  Louden Swain : Yeah, but it's homologous with the male penis.

  Louden's Dad : Are you sure that's a proper subject for a school paper?

  Louden Swain : Pop, this is the 20th century.

• Louden Swain : Hey, Elmo.

  Elmo : Yeah?

  Louden Swain : What do you know about the clitoris?

  Elmo : Well, I don't know what it looks like exactly, but I kind of know where it's at... sort of.

• Carla : I heard you fainted.

  Louden Swain : Oh. I had kind of a temporary nitrogen imbalance, kind of a sodium depletion syndrome, maybe some general light-headedness, maybe one or two other things.

  Carla : Will you live, or what?

  Louden Swain : I'm just trying to cut weight, you know, trying to get down to 168.

  Carla : I don't get it. Why do you want to get smaller and wrestle a small guy? Why not get bigger and wrestle a big guy?

  Louden Swain : Big guys aren't better. 168 happens to be the toughest division in the state - maybe in the whole god damn world.

• Otto : If you're on some kind of ego trip, man, that's your problem. You're not a team player and you never were.

  Louden Swain : I got a bulletin for you, Otto: wrestling is not a team sport! When you're out there on the mat with another guy who's quicker and faster than you, there's not a whole helluva' lot a team can do for you.

• Carla : Want to know what turns me on?

  Louden Swain : If you don't mind.

  Carla : Hands. Really big hands. The kind that when they hold you, you really feel held. Like nothing can sneak up on you.

• Louden Swain : I figure all this is just the first period. Pretty soon we'll be in control of our lives.

  Kuch : What lives, man? This is my last wrestling season. I'll be in the fucking Navy this time next year.

  Louden Swain : Come on, Kuch, man. You're going to be the first Indian president.

  Kuch : Sure, except for one thing - I ain't no fucking Indian. It's just shit I made up.

  Louden Swain : A lot of people ain't Indians, Kuch. Come on, man. Stop crying. I'm lousy with people who cry.

  Kuch : Who's crying? Fuck you if you think I'm crying!