- [Jack finds George crying with his head in the toilet]
- Jack Conrad: Aw, Georgie. Who was it this time?
- George Munn: [panting] Claire.
- Jack Conrad: Claire. Well, Claire's a lesbian. That's an uphill battle for anyone.
- Ruth Adler: How do you do it? Just tear up over and over like it's nothing?
- Nellie LaRoy: I just think of home.
- Elinor St. John: In a hundred years, when you and I are both long gone, any time someone threads a frame of yours through a sprocket, you will be alive again. You see what that means? One day, every person on every film shot this year will be dead. And one day, all those films will be pulled from the vaults, and all their ghosts will dine together, and adventure together, go to the jungle, to war together. A child born in 50 years will stumble across your image flickering on a screen and feel he knows you, like... like a friend, though you breathed your last before he breathed his first. You've been given a gift. Be grateful. Your time today is through, but you'll spend eternity with angels and ghosts.
- Jack Conrad: Elinor, you peddle gossip. You don't make anything. You don't know what it is to put yourself out there. You're just a cockroach. I've been counted out before. This isn't new to me.
- Elinor St. John: Have you ever stopped to think why, when there's a house fire, the people die and the cockroaches all survive?
- Jack Conrad: Jesus Christ.
- Elinor St. John: What happened was you thought the house needed you. It doesn't. Doesn't need you any more than it needs the roaches. And the roaches, knowing this, crawl back into the dark, lay low, and make it through. See, but you, you held the spotlight. It's those of us in the dark, the ones who just watch, who survive.
- Elinor St. John: Marbled meadows metamorphose into the medieval plains of Iberia. Soldiers swarm the fields like flecks of paint from a madman's brush as your humble servant bears witness to the latest of the moving picture's magic tricks. - - Oh, why do I bother? Look at these idiots! I knew Proust, you know.
- Nellie LaRoy: That's what a degenerate fucking animal from Jersey does. So you know what? I'm gonna let you go on fucking your cousins, polishing your guest lists, buying your underage fucking mistresses' fucking lingerie, you sick fucks! I'm the animal? What is this shit? What is this shit? Oh I'm the sick one? I'm the fucking crazy one? You people make me fucking sick! You're not better than me! You're not! You're not fucking better than me. I don't need this shit. You know what? I'm gonna go home, I'm just gonna stick some coke up my pussy and... . You can all stick your champagne flutes up your rose-smelling, candy tasting *Snow White fucking assholes*!
- Ruth Adler: Man number three, I can see your erection.
- Max (Ruth's Assistant Director): All right, tuck it. Just tuck it up.
- Jack Conrad: You ever been on a movie set before?
- Manny Torres: No.
- Jack Conrad: You'll see. It's the most magical place in the world.
- Manny Torres: Eso dicen.
- Driver (Wallach's Party): Sir, George won't come out of the car. He's insisting I drive him off the nearest cliff.
- Nellie LaRoy: I hate when people put fucking toppings on ice cream. Doesn't need it. It messes up a good thing. You know what I mean? I fucking hate that. God, I've never done nothing except disappoint people my whole life. Teachers told me I was no good. Boys told me I was no good. Every fucking casting director in the city told me I was too short or I was too fat. Usually I was too fat. You know, my mama actually had some fat years too. You wouldn't know it now, looking at her, but she did. They fucked up with me, Manny. They really fucked up with me. 'Cause I make 'em squirm. And I like making 'em squirm. Let 'em know that I got here on my terms, not theirs. And when I'm done, I'm gonna dance my ass off into the night. And they'll know - everyone will fucking know that they could never control one goddamn fucking thing. Do you like ice cream?
- Elinor St. John: And this boy, who breathed his first decades after you breathed your last, will look at your image and think he's found a friend.
- Lady Fay Zhu: You okay, sweetie?
- Jack Conrad: [long pause] It was the most magical place in the world, wasn't it?
- Lady Fay Zhu: It was.
- Jack Conrad: Another set, another review. Another romance, another breakup. I'm tired, Fay.
- [long pause]
- Jack Conrad: It's okay.
- [clicks tongue]
- Jack Conrad: It's okay. I've been the luckiest bastard in the world. I had a good run, didn't I? Hmm?
- Lady Fay Zhu: You sure did.
- Jack Conrad: Yeah. I enjoyed that.
- Manny Torres: [on the phone, after seeing "The Jazz Singer"] Jack? It's Manny. Everything's about to change.
- Jack Conrad: Hola, Carmelita!
- [turns to his fiancée Estelle]
- Jack Conrad: I have no idea who that was.
- Jack Conrad: It's not a low art, you know. I want you to know that. What I do means something to millions of people. My folks didn't have the money or the education to go to the theater, so they went to the vaudeville houses, and then the nickelodeons. And you know what? There's beauty there. What happens up on that screen means something. Maybe not to you in your ivory tower. But for real people on the ground, it means something.
- Estelle: Jack, I - I have no idea what you're talking about.
- Jack Conrad: Of course you don't. Of course you don't! A hundred thousand people see you on Broadway, and it's the smash of the century, right? Well, here it's a flop! A fucking flop! So do me a favor, darling. Save your subtext recommendations for your pretentious Eugene O'Neill-Henrik Ibsen jerk-offs that only a handful of rich geriatrics give two fucks about, and I'll do what I do - without your help!
- Nellie LaRoy: Fucking listen up, all you big-dick Mister Men! Who wants to see my dad fight a fucking snake?
- Jack Conrad: Fuck yeah!
- Ruth Adler: Just, uh, shoot the men.
- Max (Ruth's Assistant Director): No tits?
- Ruth Adler: No tits.
- Max (Ruth's Assistant Director): All right, no tits, everybody! We're shooting the men.
- Ruth Adler: Cut! Okay, forgive the ask. This is nuts, but could you by any chance try the same thing with less tears?
- Nellie LaRoy: One tear or two...
- Jack Conrad: This table only has one bottle, and we're gonna need eight. We're also gonna need two gin rickeys, an orange blossom with brandy, three French 75s. Can you do a Corpse Reviver? Gin, lemon, triple sec and Kina Lillet with a dash of absinthe. Two of those.
- Jen: Two of those.
- Jack Conrad: [enters her room as she is typing] Madame? Let's chat.
- Elinor St. John: I'm on a deadline, darling.
- Jack Conrad: You know, when I first moved to LA, you know what the signs on all the doors read? "No actors or dogs allowed." Yeah, I changed that. I helped build this place you call home. I've never had any illusions about us. I've never pretended we're friends. We're friendly. I scratch yours, you scratch mine. That's our work. But this?
- [tosses the Photoplay magazine on Elinor's table]
- Jack Conrad: This is something else.
- [sits down on a chair in front of Elinor's desk]
- Elinor St. John: [places her glasses on her desk] What do you want, Jack?
- Jack Conrad: I want to know why you wrote it.
- Elinor St. John: No, you want to know why they laughed. Would you like me to tell you?
- Jack Conrad: Why they laughed. Sure, Elinor. Why?
- Elinor St. John: There is no why. It wasn't your voice. It wasn't a conspiracy. And it certainly wasn't anything I wrote. There's nothing you could have done differently. There's nothing you can do. Your time has run out. There is no why. Stop questioning it.
- Jack Conrad: I'm on a dry spell.
- Elinor St. John: No. It's over. It's been over for a while. I'm sorry.
- Jack Conrad: Elinor, you peddle gossip. You don't make anything. You don't know what it is to put yourself out there. You're just a cockroach. I've been counted out before. This isn't new to me.
- Elinor St. John: Have you ever stopped to think why, when there's a house fire, the people die and the cockroaches all survive?
- Jack Conrad: Jesus Christ.
- Elinor St. John: What happened was you thought the house needed you. It doesn't. Doesn't need you any more than it needs the roaches. And the roaches, knowing this, crawl back into the dark, lay low, and make it through. See, but you, you held the spotlight. It's those of us in the dark, the ones who just watch, who survive.
- Jack Conrad: A house fire.
- Elinor St. John: And there'll be hundreds more like it, too. An earthquake could wipe this town off the map and wouldn't make a difference. It's the idea that sticks. There'll be a hundred more Jack Conrads. Hundred more me's. Hundred more conversations just like this one, over and over again, until God knows when. Because it's bigger than you.
- [gets up from her chair]
- Elinor St. John: I know it hurts. No one asks to be left behind.
- [sits on her desk in front of Jack]
- Elinor St. John: But in a hundred years, when you and I are both long gone, any time someone threads a frame of yours through a sprocket, you will be alive again. You see what that means? One day, every person on every film shot this year will be dead. And one day, all those films will be pulled from the vaults, and all their ghosts will dine together, and adventure together, go to the jungle, to war together. A child born in 50 years will stumble across your image flickering on a screen and feel he knows you, like... like a friend, though you breathed your last before he breathed his first. You've been given a gift. Be grateful. Your time today is through, but you'll spend eternity with angels and ghosts.
- Jack Conrad: [sadly gets up from his chair, begins to walk away, and stops for a second to sigh] Thank you for that.
- [continues to walk away as Elinor returns to her typewriter]
- Constance Moore: This goddamn bitch is stealing the scene from right in front of me! She's changing the blocking in every take! She's icing her nipples to perk them up!
- Nellie LaRoy: Fuck you, I ain't icing my nipples, this is natural. You're just sore because yours just look like fuckin' latkes.
- Constance Moore: [holds up a dildo] And she placed this... in my dressing room.
- Nellie LaRoy: I don't even know what that is.
- Jack Conrad: [approaches the bellhop] Hey, you do a great job. What's the best tip you've ever received?
- Bellhop: Fifty dollars.
- Jack Conrad: Who gave you that?
- Bellhop: You did, Mr. Conrad.
- Jack Conrad: [gives the rest of his money to the bellhop and says his last words] It's on you now, kid. The future's yours.
- Manny Torres: I just love watching movies, you know?
- Nellie LaRoy: I love watching movies too.
- Manny Torres: You sit there. And you're watching the movie and...
- Nellie LaRoy: And you escape. You don't have to be in your own shitty fucking life.
- Manny Torres: Exactly!
- Nellie LaRoy: Exactly!
- Nellie LaRoy: You can be in their life!
- Manny Torres: Or wherever!
- Nellie LaRoy: Or wherever!
- Manny Torres: You can be in the fucking Wild West! You can be in fucking space! You can be like a gangster. And people dance in movies and people die in movies. And they're not really dead. It's fucking amazing. They're not really dead!
- Nellie LaRoy: You know, "Roy," actually, in French, means "king." And I added the "La," so it's "Nellie the King." I made that up.
- Manny Torres: Nothing happened, for real, but at the same time, it's something even more important than life. You can feel it! Like - I don't know. Movies are sad sometimes. Movies are fucking happy.
- Nellie LaRoy: They make you feel something.
- Bob Levine: The Jersey thing doesn't work anymore. Today's audiences find her pornographic. She's been hanging around Jim McKay's casinos like a half-wit. She owes gambling debts all over town. And she sounds like a donkey.
- Director (Wallach's Party): Oh God, please forgive us! You sent us this beautiful light and we're squandering it!
- Ruth Adler: Who the fuck is this? I asked for the girl with the tits.
- The Count: This is who they found.
- Ruth Adler: What happened to the tits part?
- The Count: She OD'd.
- Lady Fay Zhu: [singing] There's one pet I like to pet. Every evening we get set. I stroke it. Every chance I get. It's my girl's. Pussy. Seldom plays and never purrs. And I love. The thoughts it stirs. But I don't mind. Because it's hers. It's my girl's pussy. 'Cause I'll do anything. For my sweet pet. She works me to a sweat. And that's hard to do. I must first. Remove my gloves. When stroking my girl's. Pussy.
- Jack Conrad: [over the phone to Manny] Don't say a word. I'm happy for you. You deserve this. Now go and show those fat fucks how it's done!