- Josh Neff: Disco will never be over. It will always live in our minds and hearts. Something like this, that was this big, and this important, and this great, will never die. Oh, for a few years - maybe many years - it'll be considered passé and ridiculous. It will be misrepresented and caricatured and sneered at, or - worse - completely ignored. People will laugh about John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, white polyester suits and platform shoes and people going like *this*
- [strikes disco pose]
- Josh Neff: , but we had nothing to do with those things and still loved disco. Those who didn't understand will never understand: disco was much more, and much better, than all that. Disco was too great, and too much fun, to be gone forever! It's got to come back someday. I just hope it will be in our own lifetimes.
- [Des, Charlotte, Dan, and Van stare at Josh like he's crazy]
- Josh Neff: ...Sorry, I've got a job interview this afternoon and I was just trying to get revved up, but... most of what I said, I, um... believe.
- [Josh describes Lady and the Tramp]
- Josh Neff: [referring to Lady and the Tramp] There is something depressing about it, and it's not really about dogs. Except for some superficial bow-wow stuff at the start, the dogs all represent human types, which is where it gets into real trouble. Lady, the ostensible protagonist, is a fluffy blond Cocker Spaniel with absolutely nothing on her brain. She's great-looking, but - let's be honest - incredibly insipid. Tramp, the love interest, is a smarmy braggart of the most obnoxious kind - an oily jailbird out for a piece of tail, or... whatever he can get.
- Charlotte Pingress: Oh, come on.
- Josh Neff: No, he's a self-confessed chicken thief, and all-around sleazeball. What's the function of a film of this kind? Essentially as a primer on love and marriage directed at very young people, imprinting on their little psyches the idea that smooth-talking delinquents recently escaped from the local pound are a good match for nice girls from sheltered homes. When in ten years the icky human version of Tramp shows up around the house, their hormones will be racing and no one will understand why. Films like this program women to adore jerks.
- Charlotte Pingress: It's really important there be more group social life. Not just all this ferocious pairing off.
- Des McGrath: You know that Shakespearean admonition, "To thine own self be true"? It's premised on the idea that "thine own self" is something pretty good, being true to which is commendable. But what if "thine own self" is not so good? What if it's pretty bad? Would it be better, in that case, *not* to be true to thine own self?... See, that's my situation.
- Des McGrath: Do yuppies even exist? No one says, "I am a yuppie," it's always the other guy who's a yuppie. I think for a group to exist, somebody has to admit to be part of it.
- Dan Powers: Of course yuppies exist. Most people would say you two are prime specimens.
- Josh Neff: A lot of people like to say they won't take no for an answer. I just wanted you to know that I'm not one of them; I can be easily discouraged. I *will* take no for an answer.
- Alice Kinnon: Okay. No.
- Josh Neff: You don't mean that?
- Alice Kinnon: No.
- [Smiles]
- Tom Platt: Actually, there's one theory that the environmental movement of our day was sparked by the rerelease of Bambi in the late 1950s.
- Des McGrath: Yuppie stands for "young upwardly mobile professional". Nightclub flunkie is not a professional category. I wish we were yuppies. Young, upwardly mobile, professional. Those are *good* things, not bad things.
- Alice Kinnon: I think it's much better to wait until things happen naturally. Forcing things never works.
- Charlotte Pingress: That's not true. Forcing things usually works beautifully.
- Charlotte Pingress: [to Dan] What if in a few years we don't marry some corporate lawyer? What if we marry some meatball, like you? Or not you, personally, but someone with similarly low socioeconomic prospects.
- Charlotte Pingress: Anything I did that was wrong, I apologize for. But anything I did that was not wrong, I don't apologize for.
- Josh Neff: Take The Tortoise and the Hare. Okay, the tortoise won one race. Do you think that hare is really going to lose any more races to turtles? Not on your life.
- Alice Kinnon: I like that tortoise.
- Josh Neff: So do I. But if you were a betting person, would you say, "That tortoise won against the hare; in future races I'm backing him"? No. That race was almost certainly a fluke and afterwards the tortoise is still a tortoise, and the hare a hare.
- Charlotte Pingress: I'm sorry, its just that you're so terrific, it makes me sick to think you might get in that terrible situation again where everyone hated you.
- Alice Kinnon: Hated me?
- Charlotte Pingress: You're wonderful. Maybe in physical terms I'm a little cuter than you, but you should be much more popular than I am. It would be such a shame if what happened in college should repeat itself.
- Alice Kinnon: That's odd he knew I drank vodka tonics. I never told him.
- Des McGrath: It's uncanny.
- Alice Kinnon: You mean it's a complete cliché? All women recent college graduates drink vodka tonics, or something like that?
- Des McGrath: Well, maybe.
- Alice Kinnon: [to Charlotte] So, Jimmy thinks I'm a total cliche?
- Charlotte Pingress: I ordered a Vodka tonic too. So what? You're plenty original without having to order something weird to drink.
- Des McGrath: Yeah, I wouldn't worry about it. Can I get you another?
- Alice Kinnon: Thanks. Actually, if you don't mind, I think I'd prefer - um - a whiskey sour.
- Jimmy: You know this is the way people used to dance in bars in the old days.
- Charlotte Pingress: Did people ever really dance in bars? I thought that was a myth.
- Jimmy: People my older brothers age, they did.
- Charlotte Pingress: Your brother must be a lot older. Before disco, this country was a dancing wasteland. You know the Woodstock generation of the 1960s that were so full of themselves and conceited? None of those people could dance.
- Alice Kinnon: If when making love, the man... *spurts*... outside the woman, does that count as sexual intercourse?
- Tom Platt: "Spurts"?
- Alice Kinnon: If it... *squirts* outside, without getting in... does that count as losing your virginity?
- Tom Platt: No part of the man got in at any time?
- Alice Kinnon: I don't think so.
- Tom Platt: I think part has to get in to be considered sexual intercourse.
- Alice Kinnon: So then I was a virgin.
- [last lines]
- Des McGrath: One of the things that makes me happy in life is knowing I don't envy anyone. I don't want to be anyone else or do anything that I want to do... which of course right now is nothing now that I'm unemployed, but I have good projects for the future. Can I speak honestly?
- Charlotte Pingress: Yeah.
- Des McGrath: You and I are similar. We both got big personalities. That's good. What the world really needs is more big personalities. Perhaps ours burn too brightly, or are too big for people with normal healthy sized personalities like Alice. Or people with abnormal sized personalities like Josh. Or the itsy bitsy teeny wienie little polka dot bikini sized personalities like Jimmy Steinway.
- Charlotte Pingress: That's why I'm confident that I will ultimately be successful in television.
- Des McGrath: Absolutely. You see, one of the problems of finding the right person and settling down is that it takes all the fun and interest out of going to nightclubs. I mean if you are already living with somebody, why bother going out? Getting seriously involved with someone really just means ruining your nightlife. What I mean to say is... Jimmy, Alice, Josh... so what? That's what I say.
- Charlotte Pingress: I think I agree with you.
- Charlotte Pingress: This is going to sound dumb, but, it really works. Whenever you can, throw the word sexy - into a conversation. Its a kind of a signal. Like, um, there's something really sexy about strobe lights. Or, eh, this fabric is so sexy.
- Des McGrath: Its women like you whose attitudes towards men are so dehumanizing.
- Charlotte Pingress: Like what?
- Des McGrath: That men are swine, obsessed with large breasts and the sex act, devoid of any idealistic romantic sensibility. When, in fact, we have that idealistic sensibility, in spades. For instance, you have no idea what men really think about women's breasts.
- Alice Kinnon: What do men think about women's breasts?
- Des McGrath: Well, its not just something you blurt out. Its far more complicated and nuanced.
- Bernie Rafferty: So you don't know anything about this investigation.
- Des McGrath: No!... Well, a sort of *acquaintance* of mine who now works in Morgenthau's office approached me, but... I didn't tell him anything.
- Bernie Rafferty: You didn't tell me about that.
- Des McGrath: I didn't think it was important, it only just happened.
- Bernie Rafferty: When?
- Des McGrath: Tonight - just now.
- Bernie Rafferty: Why did you use the past perfect, then?
- Des McGrath: I used the past perfect?
- Bernie Rafferty: Yeah: "I was approached." It sounds like a while ago.
- Charlotte Pingress: You're not fit to lick the boots of my real gay friends.
- Des McGrath: Well, I don't *want* to lick the boots of your real gay friends.
- Dan Powers: You know, Alice, except for politics, we've got a lot in common: We're both pretty serious, and, I think, respect each other's bases for judgment. Occasionally I get reactionary thoughts, too.
- Alice Kinnon: I'm not reactionary.
- Dan Powers: Well, aesthetically.
- Alice Kinnon: Oh, well - *aesthetically*.
- Dan Powers: Reincarnation - life after death - mumbo-jumbo of all kinds has been highly commercial throughout the history of book publishing. The first printed book... was the Bible.
- Tom Platt: Why is it that when people have sex with strangers on their mind their IQ just drops like 40 points?
- Des McGrath: 'Yuppie scum'? In college, before dropping out, I took a course in the propaganda uses of language; one objective is to deny other people's humanity, or even right to exist.
- Jimmy: In the men's lounge someone scrawled 'kill yuppie scum'.
- Des McGrath: Do yuppies even exist? No one says, "I am a yuppie," it's always the other guy who's a yuppie. I think for a group to exist, somebody has to admit to be part of it.
- Alice Kinnon: Do you really think we know each other well enough to move in together?
- Charlotte Pingress: Well, maybe that's good.
- Alice Kinnon: Its not just that we don't know each other well. I'm not even sure we really like each other.
- Charlotte Pingress: That's okay. You know, Alice, I'm not so much of a bitch as I seem.
- Dan Powers: Actually, I was thinking I'd go home.
- Holly: What?
- Alice Kinnon: You should come.
- Dan Powers: I don' t know. I'm not really a disco type.
- Charlotte Pingress: Well, who is?
- Dan Powers: I probably wouldn't get in, anyway.
- Charlotte Pingress: Of course you'll get in. Holly's gorgeous!
- Charlotte Pingress: Alice is not having a cocktail? I can't believe it.
- Alice Kinnon: Well, I'm not.
- Charlotte Pingress: What is it? Do you have strep throat or something you are taking antibiotics for? Oh my God, you have the clap! Don't you?
- Josh Neff: I don't think people really change that way. We can change our context, but, we can't change ourselves.
- Des McGrath: Group social life has its place, but at a certain point other biological factors come into play. Our bodies weren't really designed for group social life. A certain amount of pairing off was always part of the original plan.
- Des McGrath: [indicating Van] I tease him a *little* bit...
- Bernie Rafferty: No teasing, Des.
- Des McGrath: No *teasing*?
- Alice Kinnon: I love the company! They've been so great to us there.
- Dan Powers: Well, I don't know; we were exploited. But they were nice about it...
- [first lines]
- Alice Kinnon: I hear you have a much better chance of getting in if you come by cab.
- Charlotte Pingress: You're really worried about getting in?
- Alice Kinnon: Yes.
- Charlotte Pingress: I thought you've been here several times before.
- Alice Kinnon: Not the front way. They were private parties. We came in through the back.
- Charlotte Pingress: We look real good tonight. I'm sure we're gonna get in.
- [Alice and Charlotte round the corner and see a large crowd waiting outside the Disco Club]
- Alice Kinnon: [beat] Let's get a cab.
- Charlotte Pingress: Yeah.
- Alice Kinnon: There's Jimmy Steinway. I can't believe it. He's already leaving?
- Charlotte Pingress: You like him? I could never be interested in anyone who worked in advertising.
- Tom Platt: This is supposed to be good for cigarette mouth. Do you smoke?
- Alice Kinnon: When I drink or go out at night, I smoke. I live dangerously - on the edge. I'm no kindergarten teacher.