Caden Cotard Quotes in Synecdoche, New York (2008)

Caden Cotard: I will be dying and so will you, and so will everyone here. That's what I want to explore. We're all hurtling towards death, yet here we are for the moment, alive. Each of us knowing we're going to die, each of us secretly believing we won't

Caden Cotard: I know how to do it now. There are nearly thirteen million people in the world. None of those people is an extra. They're all the leads of their own stories. They have to be given their due.

[last lines]

Caden Cotard: I know what to do with this play now. I have an idea. I think...

Millicent Weems: [voice over] Die.

Caden Cotard: I wanted to ask you, how old are kids when they start to write?

Madeleine Gravis: Listen, there's an absolutely brilliant novel written by a four year old.

Caden Cotard: Really?

Madeleine Gravis: 'Little Winky" by Horace Azpiazu.

Caden Cotard: That's cute.

Madeleine Gravis: Hardly, Litty Winky is a virulent anti-Semite. The story follows his initiation into the klan, his immersion in the pornographic snuff industry, and his ultimate degradation at the hands of a black ex-convict named Eric Washington Jackson Jones Johnson...

Caden Cotard: -Written by a four year old?

Madeleine Gravis: -Jefferson.

Caden Cotard: Wow, written by a four year old.

Madeleine Gravis: Well Azpiazu killed himself when he was five.

Caden Cotard: Why did he kill himself?

Madeleine Gravis: I don't know, why did you?

Caden Cotard: What?

Madeleine Gravis: I said, 'Why would you?'

Sammy Barnathan: I don't have a resume, or a picture. I've never worked as an actor.

Caden Cotard: Good. Tell me why you're here.

Sammy Barnathan: Well I've been... I've been following you for twenty years. So I knew about this audition because I follow you. And I've learned everything about you by following you. So hire me. And you'll see who you truly are. Peek-a-boo. Okay... Hazel, I don't think we need to talk to anyone else, this guy has me down. I'm going to cast him right now. And then maybe you and I can get a drink and we can try and figure out this thing between us. Why I cried... Because I've never felt about anybody the way I feel about you. And I want to fuck you until we merge into a Chimera, a mythical beast of penis and vagina, eternally fused, two pairs of eyes that look only at each other, and lips, ever touching, and one voice that whispers to itself.

Caden Cotard: Okay. You got the part.

Caden Cotard: Try to keep in mind that a young person playing Willie Loman thinks he's only pretending to be at the end of a life full of despair. But the tragedy is that we know that you, the young actor will end up in this very place of desolation.

Caden Cotard: I won't settle for anything less than the brutal truth. Brutal. Brutal. Each day I'll hand you a paper, it'll tell you what happened to you that day. You felt a lump in your breast. You looked at your wife and saw a stranger, et cetera.

Needleman Actor: Caden?

Caden Cotard: What?

Needleman Actor: When are we gonna get an audience in here? It's been seventeen years.

Caden Cotard: All right, I'm not excusing myself from this either. I will have someone play me, to delve into the murky, cowardly depths of my lonely, fucked-up being. And he'll get notes too, and those notes will correspond to the notes I truly receive every day from my god! Get to work!

Caden Cotard: My father died. They said his body was riddled with cancer and that he didn't know, he went in because his finger hurt. They said he suffered horribly, and that he called out for me before he died. They said that he said he regretted his life. They said he said a lot of things, too many to recount, and they said it was the longest and the saddest deathbed speech any of them had ever heard.

Caden Cotard: Hazel, you've been a part of me forever. Don't you know that? I breathe your name in every exhalation.

Caden Cotard: I didn't jump, Sammy! A man stopped me before I jumped! Get up! I didn't jump.

Caden Cotard: I know how to do the play now. It will all take place over the course of one day. And that day will be the day before you died. That day was the happiest day of my life. Then I'll be able to live it forever. See you soon.

Sammy Barnathan: Why did we leave Adele, Caden?

Caden Cotard: She left us. Nobody knows that better than you. Except me.

Adult Olive: I need to forgive you before I die... but I can't forgive someone who has not asked for forgiveness.

Caden Cotard: I just want...

Adult Olive: I have no time. I need you to ask for forgiveness.

Caden Cotard: Can you ever forgive me?

Adult Olive: For what?

Caden Cotard: For abandoning you.

Adult Olive: For abandoning you to have anal sex with my homosexual lover, Eric.

Caden Cotard: I will, I'll say it... For abandoning you... to have anal sex with my homosexual lover, Eric.

Adult Olive: No...

[Starts crying]

Adult Olive: No, I'm sorry. I cannot...

[Dies]

Maria: I hope you are happy, faggot.

Maria: It's all about your artistic satisfaction, Caden.

Caden Cotard: You're stoned.

Caden Cotard: I don't think you should tell her she doesn't have blood...

Caden Cotard: [Giving a stage direction] People don't walk like that.

Caden Cotard: I wish we had this when we were young. And all those years in between.

Caden Cotard: Was my father standing with us at the funeral?

Tammy: I don't know what he looks like.

Caden Cotard: He's dead. So he looks dead I guess.

Tammy: Hmm. Probably wasn't him then.

Caden Cotard: He was a big guy.

Caden Cotard: I breathe your name on every exhalation.

Caden Cotard: I don't menstruate, so I don't know how I could smell like I'm menstruating.

Caden Cotard: I don't know what I'm doing.

Hazel: Sammy's fun!

Caden Cotard: I'm fun!

Hazel: Oh honey, no you're not.

Caden Cotard: I think I have blood in my stool.

Adele Lack: [barely awake] That stool in your office?

Caden Cotard: Can you step out for a while?

Plumber: Go ahead, I've seen boy parts.

[repeated line]

Caden Cotard: Olive, it's daddy!