David Shayne Quotes in Bullets Over Broadway (1994)

Olive: Why do you have to be so masso... masso...

David Shayne: Masochistic.

Olive: Masochistic? What the does that mean?

David Shayne: It means someone who enjoys pain.

Olive: Enjoys pain? What is she, *retarded*?

Helen Sinclair: Two martinis please, very dry.

David Shayne: How'd you know what I drank?

Helen Sinclair: Oh, you want one too? Three.

Helen Sinclair: No, no, don't speak. Don't speak. Please don't speak. Please don't speak. No. No. No. Go. Go, gentle Scorpio, go. Your Pisces wishes you every happy return.

David Shayne: Just one...

Helen Sinclair: Don't speak.

Sheldon Flender: You, you, you're all missing the point, the point is I can give pleasure many times a day!

Rita: Oh, now, really Flender, what does quantity got to do with it?

Sheldon Flender: Quantity, quantity affects quality!

David Shayne: Says who?

Sheldon Flender: Karl Marx!

Rita: Oh, so now we're talking economics.

Sheldon Flender: Sex is economics!

Sheldon Flender: [bragging] I have never had a play produced. That's right. And I've written one play a year for the past twenty years.

David Shayne: Yes, but that's because you're a genius. And the proof is that both common people and intellectuals find your work completely incoherent. Means you're a genius.

David Shayne: Maybe Olive's got stage fright. Maybe she won't show.

Julian Marx: Not Olive. That dame doesn't have a nerve in her body. I don't think her spinal cord touches her brain.

David Shayne: Your taste is exquisite.

Helen Sinclair: [correcting] My taste is superb. My eyes are exquisite.

David Shayne: You thought my first draft was c-cerebral and tepid?

Helen Sinclair: Only the plot and the dialogue. But this...

David Shayne: Was-was-was there nothing in the original draft that you feel was worth saving?

Helen Sinclair: The stage directions were lucid. Best I've ever seen... and the color of the binder. Good choice.

David Shayne: Thank you. I've always had a flair for stage directions.

David Shayne: I studied playwrighting with every teacher, I read every book...

Cheech: Let me tell you somethin' about teachers. I hate teachers. Those blue-haired bitches used to whack us with rulers. Forget teachers.

Helen Sinclair: Make love to me.

David Shayne: Here? Now?

Helen Sinclair: I see no reason to wait.

David Shayne: Jerome Kern is on the other side of the door.

Helen Sinclair: Yes, he's a wonderful composer. You'll have to meet him. Now hang up your pants.

Nick: Sorry you guys had to hear that. Some problems with the firm.

David Shayne: Really? What type of firm is it, Nick?

Nick: It's a "don't stick your nose in other people's business and it won't get broken" type of firm.

David Shayne: I've become involved with Helen Sinclair, and I feel terrible. But I can't help myself. She's so charismatic, and she's brilliant and beautiful. I mean, a real artist, and, and we speak the same language.

Sheldon Flender: You're wracked with guilt.

David Shayne: I'm wracked with guilt.

Sheldon Flender: You're wracked with guilt. You are wracked with guilt.

David Shayne: I don't know whether... I can't sleep.

Sheldon Flender: Guilt is petit-bourgeois crap. An artist creates his own moral universe.

David Shayne: I know that. I know...

Sheldon Flender: Well? What is the problem then? I'm gonna give you some advice. The same advice that was given to me many years ago when I had a very similar dilemma.

David Shayne: Similar to mine. To...

Sheldon Flender: Yes. Yes.

David Shayne: What did you do? What?

Sheldon Flender: You gotta do what you gotta do.

David Shayne: Suddenly I'm taking suggestions from some strong-arm man with an IQ of minus 50.

David Shayne: You're gonna write it?

Cheech: What am I? A fuckin' idiot? They taught me how to read and write in school before I burned it down.

David Shayne: You burned down your school?

Cheech: Yeah, it was Lincoln's birthday. There was nobody there.

Lord Chafee: My tongue is hanging out to present it on the London stage.

David Shayne: London.

Lord Chafee: Look at his face, Helen. You're going to be the toast of Broadway. Why not the West End, hmm?

David Shayne: I'll have a double anything.