Harris Quotes in ffolkes (1980)

ffolkes: Timing underwater. Speed Underwater. That is what half our assignments are about. Harris! Are you listening to me?

Harris: Yes sir.

ffolkes: Then bloody well well look at me! Yesterday, ONE man completed the exercise precisely on time. ME!

[Produces a hand grenade from his bag]

ffolkes: Today, you will ALL complete the exercise precisely on time...

Harris: How are we doing, sir?

ffolkes: Like plowmen at a bloody knitting convention.

Harris: We're improving, then.

Harris: [Seeing Grant in disguise] Well, it certainly looks as though you can get away with this rajah stuff.

Harris: Did you see an Arab running this way?

Harris: You don't look like anyone who would shoot a man down in cold blood.

Robert Grant: You're right. You better look close, Harris, and you'll see that I'm serious. After all, that time I spent in prison for you, you still think I wouldn't shoot?

Harris: All we've got to do is tear this up and we're in soft for the rest of our lives.

Robert Grant: None of that, Harris. We're playing this game straight.

Harris: Don't be a fool. We can have an entire kingdom at your feet.

Robert Grant: You heard what I said. I'm playing this straight.

Mustapha: It is really a curse for a woman.

Harris: Women! Ah, I don't trust them! They sell you out!

[Admiring a painting]

Harris: I like the relationships. I mean, each character has his own story. The puppy is a bit too much, but you have to over look things like that in these kinds of paintings. The way he's *holding* her... it's almost... filthy. I mean, he's about to kiss her and she's pulling away. The way the leg's sort of smashed up against her... Phew... Look how he's painted the blouse sort of translucent. You can just make out her breasts underneath and it's sort of touching him about here. It's really... pretty torrid, don't you think? Then of course you have the onlookers peeking at them from behind the doorway like they're all shocked. They wish. Yeah, I must admit, when I see a painting like this, I get emotionally... erect.

[the painting is revealed to be of a red rectangle]

Sara: And if I were to go?

Harris: All I know is, on the day your plane was to leave, if I had the power, I would turn the winds around, I would roll in the fog, I would bring in storms, I would change the polarity of the earth so compasses couldn't work, so your plane couldn't take off.

Tom: I'll have a decaf coffee.

Trudi: I'll have a decaf espresso.

Morris Frost: I'll have a double decaf cappuccino.

Ted: Give me decaffeinated coffee ice cream.

Harris: I'll have a half double decaffeinated half-caf, with a twist of lemon.

Trudi: I'll have a twist of lemon.

Tom: I'll have a twist of lemon.

Morris Frost: I'll have a twist of lemon.

Cynthia: I'll have a twist of lemon.

Harris: Why is it that we don't always recognize the moment when love begins but we always know when it ends?

Harris: Ordinarily, I don't like to be around interesting people because it means I have to be interesting too.

Sara: Are you saying I'm interesting?

Harris: All I'm saying is that, when I'm around you, I find myself showing off, which is the idiot's version of being interesting.

Harris: Sitting there at that moment I thought of something else Shakespeare said. He said, "Hey... life is pretty stupid; with lots of hubbub to keep you busy, but really not amounting to much." Of course I'm paraphrasing: "Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Harris: Let us just say I was deeply unhappy, but I didn't know it because I was so happy all the time.

Trudi: Sheila has been studying the art of conversation.

Harris: Oh, you're taking a course in conversation?

Sheila: Yes.

[long pause]

Harris: [answering the telephone] Hello, this is Harris. I'm in right now, so you can talk to me personally. Please start talking at the sound of the beep.

[BEEP]

Sara: Hello?

Harris: Hello.

Sara: Hello?

Harris: Hello.

Sara: Is this a person?

Harris: Yes, it is a person.

Harris: SanDeE*, your... your breasts feel weird.

SanDeE*: Oh, that's 'cause they're real.

Harris: I could never be a woman, 'cause I'd just stay home and play with my breasts all day.

[Harris is trying to convince Sara not to go back to England]

Harris: There comes a time in a person's life when it's now or never. It's now or never. Let me read to you from this book of poems: "O pointy birds, o pointy pointy. Anoint..."

[Sara slams window shut]

Harris: I'm not kissing anyone hello anymore.

Trudi: Well just shake hands with them.

Harris: Are you kidding? I just wash my hands and I shake hands with some guy that feels like he's been squashing caterpillars.

Harris: So, I'll see you Sunday?

Trudi: I got a shower Sunday.

Harris: Oh yeah, and I really should take a bath... Monday?

[Harris kisses Sara. ]

Sara: Oh no, I can't. This is how Mommy met Daddy.

Harris: Let your mind go and your body will follow.

Harris: There's someone out there for everyone - even if you need a pickaxe, a compass, and night goggles to find them.

[whilst showing Sara around LA]

Harris: Some of these buildings are over 20 years old.

Sara: Why didn't you tell me you had just broke up with someone?

Harris: How do you know I just broke up with someone?

Sara: Because when men just break up with someone, they always run around with someone much too young for them.

Harris: She's not so young. She'll be 27 in four years.

Harris: A sign spoke to me, said I was in trouble.

Trudi: If you're talking to signs, you are in trouble.

Harris: I call it performance art, but my friend Ariel calls it wasting time. History will decide.

Harris: When I really analyze it, Trudi wasn't for me anyway. The only good times we had were having sex and laying in bed watching TV.

Ariel: I hate to tell you this, Harris, but if you can find somebody you can have sex with and lie in bed and watch TV, you've really got something.

Harris: I don't think we should make love, all right?

SanDeE*: Okay, we'll just have sex.

[Harris overhears an amorous couple in the next room]

Harris: They're really excited. They must be cheating on someone.

Harris: I've been thinking about myself and I think I can become the kind of person that's worth you staying for. First of all, I'm a man who can cry. Now it's true, it's usually when I've hurt myself, but it's a start.

[Trudi admits to Harris that she has been cheating on him]

Harris: How long has this been going on?

Trudi: Three years.

Harris: Three years? You mean this has been going on since the '80s?

[Harris' girlfriend slept with his agent]

Harris: And I thought they were only supposed to take 10 percent.

Crook: Hi. My name is Bob. I'll be your robber.

Harris: [hands him the money] Hi, how are you?

Crook: Thank you very much.

Harris: [to SanDeE*] Well, thank you for a lovely lunch and enema.

[after they get enemas together]

SanDeE*: So, what do you think?

Harris: I think it was a total washout.

SanDeE*: God, it really clears out your head.

Harris: Head? Head? You should go back in there and tell them they're doing it wrong. Well, it was a great lunch and enema, thanks.

[as they walk to the restaurant, a loud clanging sound is heard]

Harris: What's that clanging sound?

Roland: It's a nuisance. It's my damn testicles.

Harris: So there I was jabbering at her about my new job as a serious newsman - about anything at all - but all I could think was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful and yet again, wonderful.

Trudi: Do bullets go bad?

Harris: No, it's not like milk. They don't have expiration date or anything.

Harris: You're on time.

Sara: Actually I'm late.

Harris: You're exactly on time.

Sara: But I had planned to be early.

Harris: [after seeing tiny dinner at L'Idiot's] I'm already finished and I don't remember eating.

Sara: What did you have in mind?

Harris: Well, I was thinking of taking you on a cultural tour of L.A.

Sara: That's the first fifteen minutes, then what?

Harris: All right, a cynic. First stop is six blocks from here.

Sara: Why don't we walk?

Harris: Walk? A walk in L.A.?

Harris: Here, let me not drive for a while.

[Trudi is loading a gun]

Harris: Don't point it at me!

Trudi: Sorry, I don't know gun etiquette.

Trudi: Isn't that girl Sara awful? I mean, what's with that accent?

Harris: She has an accent because she's English.

Trudi: Or maybe she's just trying to impress everybody.

Harris: Oh, like that big phony, Winston Churchill.

Harris: If confusion about your love life is ruining your day, I think it's good to go over to your best friend's house and ruin her day too.

Harris: [calling the restaurant] Hello, L'Idiot? Yes, I'd like to make reservations for two for Friday. Saturday? Sunday? Ah good. Eight-thirty. Five-thirty or ten-thirty? Um, five-thirty. Visa... I'm a weatherman... yes, I'm on TV! Renting... I just sold a condo... yes, in this "soft market"... well, I don't see how that's any of your... the low fifties.

Gail, News Anchor: And what a surprise this weekend when the weather turned unseasonably low. Here's Harris Telemacher, our "wacky weatherman" with a report.

Harris: And when the weather dropped down to 58 degrees this weekend, how did you cope?

Man: I went to make sure all the windows were shut.

Harris: And, what about your pets? Were they outside? What happened?

Man: Well, the cats were out till around ten. But it got a little too cold for them and they came in.

Harris: The cats were out till around ten. But it got a little too cold for them and they came in! Well, that's how L.A. coped with that surprise low of 58 degrees that turned the weekend into a real weenie shrinker!

Harris: Forget for this moment the smog and the cars and the restaurant and the skating and remember only this. A kiss may not be the truth, but it is what we wish were true.

Harris: But then I'd just be using you to get back at her!

SanDeE*: I don't mind.

Harris: Let's go!

Trudi: He said it's the first day of spring.

Harris: Oh shit! Open season on the L.A. freeway!

Harris: You know, you're really nobody in L.A. unless you live in a house with a really big door.

Harris: We've got sun, earth, and atmosphere, and when you've got that, you've got weather!

SanDeE*: I'm studying to be a spokesmodel.

Harris: What is, what is a spokesmodel?

SanDeE*: Um, it's just a model who speaks, you know, and she points at things like merchandise, you know, like a car or washer and dryer. Sometimes it's something really small, you know, like, like a book or fine art print.

Harris: They have classes for that?

SanDeE*: Yeah, 'cause it's a lot harder than it looks.

Harris: [Sara dodges cars while driving on the left] Right side... right side! Get on the right side!

Sara: I don't think he can hear you.

Harris: A kiss may not be the truth, but it is what we wish were true.

Harris: Okay, more wacky, less egghead. What was your name again?

Harris: There are two reasons for the ridiculous detour I was about to embark on...

[SanDeE* is leaving work]

Harris: Are you closed?

SanDeE*: Ya. Sorry.

Harris: The first reason was: I believed a relationship with Sara was impossible...

[SanDeE* "spinning" in the rain]

Harris: And the second reason was: I was a big, dumb male.

SanDeE*: I don't put any pressure on you, do I?

Harris: Not at all... I don't pressure you, do I?

SanDeE*: No, no, I just don't think there should be any pressure.

Harris: No. Tell me if I pressure you.

SanDeE*: OK. And you too, but don't feel like you have to.

[Sara McDowel asks Harris when the right time for deep, sustained, booming sounds were in L.A. We later find out she plays tuba]

Harris: Ah - deep, sustained, booming sounds. Around nine, nine-fifteen.

Harris: Well, maybe you think it's intellectual because you were raised with a banana and an inner tube... This is an intellectual-free zone.

Richard: There are no bears in Hungary. Unless we've crossed the border into Romania, in which case there ARE bears. If we're in Serbia, then... I don't know.

Harris: That's really interesting, Richard. Tell me something: are bears required to stop at borders? Is there some sort of, I don't know, passport control for bears?

Harris: [after Steve finds a tooth in the pie] Bit young to be losing your teeth, Steve.

Steve: It's not my tooth.

Richard: What?

Jill: Could it be the cow's tooth?

Steve: A cow with gold fillings?

Richard: I can't spell success without "u". And you, and you, and you...

Harris: There's only one "u" in success.

Charles Drucker: Harris. Say something honest, no holds barred. GO!

Harris: I like... small boys.

Charles Drucker: About the product, you fucking idiot!

Harris: So tomorrow, I have a senior staff meeting with the director, a Q4 performance review, and an academy course to prep. But now, instead, I get to waste my whole day at your funerals.

Gabe: The island. The middle of nowhere. They're all professionals. What's the point?

Harris: The point is that they're isolated, alone, and forgotten. That's what it's like to be in the mind of a sociopath.

Harris: Here we are. Crimetown USA. Where all the residents are dead... or about to be.

Gabe: Sir, I thought they didn't let foreign nationals into the FBI?

Harris: Don't worry. On the inside he's 100% American. Right, Rafe?

Rafe: As American as the death penalty.

Harris: That's my boy.

Harris: You're a privileged group. You're all smart or you wouldn't be here. I just want you to be smarter.

Harris: [eating cake] Have some cake.

Harris: Don't forget, you're 50 miles offshore so if you run out of toilet paper, you are shit out of luck.

Harris: Harold, call it off, you can't do it! You can't deal with these people! For Christ's sake, they're not interested in money! They're political, they're fanatics!

Harris: [calls to him onstage] My lord!

Rochester: I asked for no interruption.

Harris: My suit is one of the utmost urgency: the stage direction at the end of this scene requires, in my opinion, some authorial exposition.

Rochester: It seems straightforward enough.

Harris: Yes, um,

[reading from the script]

Harris: "Then dance six naked men and women, the men doing obedience to the women's cunts, kissing and touching them often, the women in like manner to the men's pricks, kissing and dandling their cods and then fall to fucking, after which the women sigh and the men look simple and so sneak off." The end of the second act.

Rochester: A strong scene, an eminently playable scene, and though I say it myself, a climactic one.

Harris: And w-will the kind of equipment that that young lady has in her hand

[a large wooden dildo]

Harris: be available for gentlemen for... strapping around the middle for the execution of this scene?

Rochester: I had not envisioned you to be so encumbered; I feel this scene should be given... in the flesh.

Harris: And will we give... two performances on the day?

Rochester: No, Mr. Harris.

Harris: [relieved] I am glad to hear that from the author.

Rochester: With the dress rehearsal, the court performance and the public showing, I envisage three.

Harris: Right; I don't know if you've met my regular understudy, Mr. Lightman, he's a most dependable fellow.

Rochester: Sir, you have the honour of playing *my* understudy.

Harris: [cross] Well, I shall take this opportunity to withdraw from the engagement.

[he leaves]

Rochester: [calls after him angrily] You are one of *life's* understudies!

Wilk: That Ben Quick, he sure is a comer.

Harris: Yep. Name suits him, alright. First into that farm, then into the store, now int the house. And all he started with was a book of matches.

Houston: I wish I was Ben Quick. He's got this h'yere whole state of Mississippi to graze on.

Minor Role: Yeah, but if you should happen to go to see him on business, go out nekkid. That way you won't feel the cold comin' back.

Harris: [as he and Midge look at the New York skyline from the window of Harris' high-rise office] Wonderful view, isn't it? The capitol of the whole world. It's all yours if you want it. People look very small down there, don't they? You know, there are only two kinds of people in this world. The big and the little. It's very seldom anyone gets the chance to decide for himself which he's going to be.

Palmer: You think of everything in terms of price tags, don't you?

Harris: Yes.

Sarah Logan, Harris: Deb...

Sarah Logan: Yeah... What? Hurry!

Harris: Heard Desjardins on the switchboard... You were... going to be his fifth victim. Monacan Hill. Cave...

Sarah Logan: You killed him didn't you?

Mia Medina: So, you start projects and you bounce in the middle of it? If this is about the window...

Harris: It's not about the window, okay? That's just fucking icing on top of this shitty fucking cake!

Cynthia: [looking up at the vent] Where's Connie and Ed?... Where's Connie and Ed?

Harris: With us!

Harris: [while giving a TV interview] I could kill you right now, couldn't I?

Reporter #1: You could.

Harris: [laughs] But I won't.