Mick Boyle Quotes in Youth (2015)

Mick Boyle: [as he shows his protegee the distant Alps through a telescope] You see that mountain over there? Everything seems really close. That's the future. And now...

[as he flips the telescope around so it's in fish eye lens]

Mick Boyle: ... everything seems really far away. That's the past.

Mick Boyle: You say that emotions are overrated. But that's bullshit. Emotions are all we've got.

Mick Boyle: We are all extras. All we have is emotions.

Mick Boyle: Do you see that mountain over there?

Girl Screenwriter: Yes. It looks very close.

Mick Boyle: Exactly. This is what you see when you're young. Everything seems really close. And that's the future. And now. And that's what you see when you're old. Everything seems really far away. That's the past.

Lena Ballinger: You know, sometimes when I'm asleep at night, he watches me... and last night he stroked my cheek for the first time in my life. Only I wasn't asleep... I was pretending to be asleep.

Mick Boyle: Parents know when their children are pretending to be asleep.

Mick Boyle: I have to believe in everything in order to make things up.

Mick Boyle: You know, I've come to understand something, Fred. That people are either beautiful or ugly, and the ones in between are merely cute.

Lena Ballinger: You know, he said the reason he couldn't conduct the Simple Songs was because my mother's the only person on Earth who could sing them.

Mick Boyle: He said that?

Lena Ballinger: He said that to the queen's emissary.

Mick Boyle: It took him eighty years to finally say something romantic, and he goes and says it to the queen's emissary.

Mick Boyle: It doesn't make a difference! Men, artists, animals... plants! We're all just extras.

Mick Boyle: She says I lost so much time because of you, Michael. I lost the best years of my life.

Screenwriter in Love: Goes where the wind blows.

Mick Boyle: Which is what we all do.

Mick Boyle: That's a totally asinine idea. Who else?

Mick Boyle: I read somewhere that tear ducts can produce tears for three days without stop.

Mick Boyle: You made me realize that not only I do not remember my parents any more, but my childhood. For example, I do not remember a thing about it. There is only one thing I still remember.

Fred Ballinger: What?

Mick Boyle: The precise moment when I learned how to ride a bike. And this morning, as if by magic, I remembered the moment right after.

Fred Ballinger: When you fell off?

Mick Boyle: How the fuck did you know?

Fred Ballinger: Well, that happens to everybody. You learn something, you're happy and then... you forget to brake.

Fred Ballinger: You know what's the difference between you and me?

Mick Boyle: What.

Fred Ballinger: Ultimately, I never liked life well enough.

Fred Ballinger: Did you take a piss today?

Mick Boyle: [nods in affirmation] Twice. Four drops. You?

Fred Ballinger: The same. More or less.

Mick Boyle: More? Or less?

Fred Ballinger: Less.

Mick Boyle: [on phone] Julian, this is your father. Even though at this point, based on the evidence, I'm not so sure you're my son.

Shy Screenwriter: I am timid and insecure. My parents never gave me any encouragement. I've never had a girlfriend. And I have some serious doubts about my sexual orientation.

Mick Boyle: Stop it. You're not going to move me.

Shy Screenwriter: Well, I has polio.

[Mick laughs]

Mick Boyle: What do you need band-aids for?

Fred Ballinger: I don't. I'm doing it out of solidarity with you.

Mick Boyle: Nothing like being in a tunnel to make you feel you're in a tunnel.

Mick Boyle: Do you remember the other day when you told me you don't remember your parents any more?

Fred Ballinger: No, I... I don't remember.

Fred Ballinger: What it would've been like... to have slept with Gilda Black?

Mick Boyle: Yeah... I wonder too.

Fred Ballinger: Liar!