The Narrator Quotes in Bunraku (2010)

The Narrator: An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, will forever make better grammatical balance than turning the other cheek.

The Narrator: Life, every man holds dear. But the dear man holds honor far more precious than dear life. Especially if that man happens to be Japanese.

[first lines]

The Narrator: Long before the dawn of man, strife was already a major component of life. Wherever a creature shared a piece of land with another, it was just a matter of time until a struggle for resources would ensue. Man was no different, showcasing a perverse fascination with violence. Man and civilization brought forth more innovative ways of taking human life than any other function needed for survival. There are more ways of killing a man than there are ways of making bread or making love. While the latter two are quite limited in scale, man has gone beyond imagination with his capacity to destroy life with one push of a button. Between uncontrolled crime in the streets and escalating war on the borders, it was all just a matter of time. From the ashes, a new world was born. The surviving nations finally realized that man's unstoppable appetite for destruction must be contained. A ban on all firearms was strictly enforced. And just as the sword gave way to the gun, the gun gave way to the sword; leaving the authorities to carry the hope of their nations on the tip of a spear. Little did they know that the self-destructive nature of man could never be stopped. There's not enough love in this world, not enough money to prevent this ancient circle from coming around again. When the time is ripe, evil will rise; personified in our case with a wood cutter. Nikola is his name, and this is his town, his land. The God forsaken place where our tale begins. And as many ways as there are of killing a man, there are equally as many ways of telling this old tale of strife.

The Narrator: Revenge is an act of style for all practical matters... no one has known to come back from the dead... after being avenged in the name of justice moreover so man can fight anything... but his nature

The Narrator: [first lines - surveying windmill park] I know. I know what you're thinking, not the first to use it. But with a visual like this, what does it matter. So much can be drawn, endless numbers in constant motion, yet rooted in the ground. Would be easy to point out how so many turn in the same way, but never quite together. And then, there is my favorite.

[one not turning]

The Narrator: There are those who could use poetic imagery to comment on tilting at these modern windmills. Me, I just like the way they look.

[struck in the head from behind]

The Narrator: [driven into the city] In case you were wondering, these fellows ain't taking me on a picnic. No, they're getting me ready for The Rajah. The man who spent the better part of a decade trying to find me. Well, looks like he found me. So they're going to hurt me, to reintroduce me to lady pain, almost to the point of dying - almost, but not quite.

The Narrator: [being kicking from all sides] Say, maybe they'll get tired of beating me after a while.

[now being punched]

The Narrator: Well, it's not a perfect plan, but it will have to do... for now.

The Narrator: The suave devil you see here is Walter. His boys just gave me a beating that will have *them* waking up sore in the morning.

The Narrator: Maybe it's best just to sleep on it. The only problem is when I sleep, I remember. And nothing hurts quite like that.

The Narrator: Just once, just once, I'd like to keep the perfect sleep. You know the one I'm taking about. You fall asleep on a train, or someone's couch, or in a hospital, and it's perfect. The ecstasy of the unlikely. And then some bastard wakes you up and you can't get it back, no matter how hard you try. You never knew it was perfect until you lost it. And all you have left is that sick burning desire to get it back. The perfect sleep.

The Narrator: If you don't like to focus on yourself, a rare quality, you might listen to others, an even rarer quality. If you observe and anticipate, you might just get something accomplished.

The Narrator: And there he is, the Rajah's prize possession, Captain Keller. He's killed more people than you've met. A good man to avoid.

The Narrator: Like Winston Churchill told me, I never, never, never, never - in nothing great or small, large or petty - never give in.

Kolya: You ever find a gun you like?

The Narrator: Yeah, the other guy's.

The Narrator: Soon Nikolai's men will enter this room ready to kill me. Seems like a good time to catch up on my sleep.

The Narrator: How do you expect to survive against me?

Nikolai: Because, I want to kill you more than you want to live.

The Narrator: For the first time in my life I feel like I've been part of a job well done. The operative word being *done*.

[last lines]

The Narrator: You see, in our own way she's mine and I am hers. Perfection and imperfection. That is why I close my eyes now, I realize what she has taught me, an imperfect sleep can be the most perfect sleep of all. And now that I've had a perfect sleep, I will finally have a different kind of sleep, a sleep from which I will never awake again.

The Narrator: The French dig this kind of visual... and I dig the French.

The Narrator: Something broke through the terror - flickerings, fragments of his short life, the random events that delivered him to this, his moment of annihilation. As terror gave way to exhaustion, Babe turned to his attacker, his eyes filled with one simple question: Why?

The Narrator: The Ku Klux Klan, who saw Zelig as a Jew, that could turn himself into a Negro and an Indian, saw him as a triple threat.

The Narrator: Who was this Leonard Zelig that seemed to create such diverse impressions everywhere? All that was known of him was that he was the son of a Yiddish actor named Morris Zelig, whose performance as Puck in the Orthodox version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was coolly received. The Elder Zelig's second marriage is marked by constant violent quarreling. So much so that although the family lives over a bowling alley, it is the bowling alley that complains of noise. As a boy, Leonard is frequently bullied by anti-Semites. His parents, who never take his part and blame him for everything, side with the anti-Semites. They punish him often by locking him in a dark closet. When they are really angry, they get into the closet with him. On his deathbed, Morris Zelig tells his son that life is a meaningless nightmare of suffering and the only advice he gives him is to save string.

The Narrator: That Zelig could be responsible for the behavior of each of the personalities he assumed means dozens of lawsuits. He is sued for bigamy, adultery, automobile accidents, plagiarism, household damages, negligence, property damages, and performing unnecessary dental extractions.

The Narrator: Food on a chain gang is scarce and not very nourishing. The men get one hot meal a day: a bowl of steam.

The Narrator: Frankie Wolf, wanted by authorities for dancing with a mailman.

The Narrator: Paris, France, 1789. Thirty years later, under the reign of Louis XVI, longstanding grievances between aristocrat and peasant were about to boil over. The pot in which these troubles boiled was kindled with the firewood of oppression and injustice and heated by the flames that sucked the air from gasping peasants. Would the pot cool off, would it merely simmer, or would it boil over in the kitchen of France - to stain the floor of history forever?

The Narrator: The Summer Palace, 1789: King Louis, whose tinkering with time pieces did not tell him that his own time was running out; Queen Marie, who tinkered with everything but time pieces - she didn't care what time it was; but the Duke d'Escargot knew what time it was - his tinkering was well-timed. For the time was 1789!

The Narrator: You may eat him, children.