Charlie Black Quotes in Metropolitan (1990)

Charlie Black: Snobbery is looked down upon.

Cynthia McLean: Is our language so impoverished that we have to use acronyms of French phrases to make ourselves understood?

Charlie Black: Yes.

Charlie Black: Of course there is a God. We all basically know there is.

Cynthia McLean: I know no such thing.

Charlie Black: Of course you do. When you think to yourself, and most of our waking life is taken up thinking to ourselves, you must have that feeling that your thoughts aren't entirely wasted, that in some sense they are being heard. Rationally, they aren't. You're entirely alone. Even the people to whom we are closest can have no real idea of what is going on in our minds. We aren't devastated by loneliness because, at a hardly conscious level, we don't accept that we're entirely alone. I think this sensation of being silently listned to with total comprehension... something you never find in real life... represents our innate belife in a supreme being, some all-comprehending intelligence.

Charlie Black: Fourierism was tried in the late nineteenth century... and it failed. Wasn't Brookfarm Fourierist? It failed.

Tom Townsend: That's debatable.

Charlie Black: Whether Brookfarm failed?

Tom Townsend: That it ceased to exist, I'll grant you, but whether or not it failed cannot be definitively said.

Charlie Black: Well, for me, ceasing to exist is - is failure. I mean, that's pretty definitive.

Tom Townsend: Well, everyone ceases to exist. Doesn't mean everyone's a failure.

Tom Townsend: [pulls out a gun after Rick punches him] Get back, Rick!

Rick Von Sloneker: Jesus, he's got a gun!

Charlie Black: I warn you! He's a Fourierist!

Charlie Black: Where do you get off, "you're suprised"? At what? You were Audrey's escort, yet you blithely left her stranded in the middle of the dance so you can try to work things out with Serena! And then you try to shirk the whole thing off on Fred.

Tom Townsend: I'm not trying to shirk it off on Fred. And I was not Audrey's escort. We were all there as a group. In any case, I'm very sorry there was a mixup.

Charlie Black: There was no mixup.

Tom Townsend: I'm sorry I left. But it wasn't intentional.

Charlie Black: When you're an egoist, none of the harm you ever do is intentional!

Charlie Black: I can't believe you don't have a driver's license.

Tom Townsend: Of course I don't. I live in Manhattan.

Charlie Black: Hey, look at this.

Tom Townsend: What is it?

Charlie Black: Looks like some girl's panties.

Tom Townsend: Jesus, that bastard.

Charlie Black: That was really embarrassing. Thank you for including me.

Sally Fowler: What have you against Tom?

Charlie Black: Just one thing: He's not a good person.

Charlie Black: Thanks a lot. We shouldn't be long.

Cab Driver: Take as long as you like - I'm leaving.

Tom Townsend: He seems less pessimistic than you.

Charlie Black: I know: it doesn't ring true.

Charlie Black: But I *am* authorized to use my mother's card: I use it all the time.

Charlie Black: I don't see how you can stand him. You're always complaining about people being frauds and phoneys. This guy is the phoney of the decade, yet you act as he were your long-lost best friend.

Nick Smith: Tom's hardly a phoney. Just mildly deluded. He's a perfectly nice guy.

Charlie Black: That's just another aspect of his phoniness. He's a terrible phoney, and when he's not being a phoney, he's a bastard.

Nick Smith: Oh, come on.

Charlie Black: You saw how he treated Audrey last night.

Nick Smith: Well, Audrey seems to have forgotten it.

Charlie Black: She has to act that way. Otherwise it would be even more humiliating. But I don't have to pretend Tom Townsend is a nice guy.

Nick Smith: You're really gaga about Audrey, aren't you?

Charlie Black: If by "gaga" you mean, do I like her? Yes, I do.

Nick Smith: Well, why don't you do something about it, instead of just going on and on about what a bastard Tom Townsend is.

Charlie Black: What do I do? Declare myself? That would be an absolute disaster. I don't think I haven't thought about these things. But I think if the situation could just continue as it has been, they gradually, over time, it'd grow into something more. That, at least, is what I've been hoping for.