Metropolitan (1989)

Roger W. Kirby: Man at Bar

Quotes 

• Man at Bar : The acid test is whether you take any pleasure in responding to the question "What do you do?" I can't bear it.

• Man at Bar : You go to a party, you meet a group of people, you like them and you think "These people are going to be my friends for the rest of my life." Then you never see them again. I wonder where they go. We simply fail without being doomed. I'm not destitute. I've got a good job that pays decently. It's just that it's all so mediocre, so unimpressive. The acid test is whether you take any pleasure in responding to the question "What do you do?". I can't bear it. You start out expecting something much more, and some of your contemporaries achieve it. You start reading about them in the papers or seeing them on TV. That's the danger of midtown Manhattan - running across far more successful contemporaries. I try to avoid them whenever I can. But when I can't, they're always friendly. But inevitably they ask what am I doing - or think it.

• Man at Bar : When I was in college, we'd go to dances during Christmas vacations. Do they still go on?

  Charlie Black : Yes.

  Man at Bar : Pretty much reduced though.

  Tom Townsend : Yeah.

  Man at Bar : Ah, well, I wouldn't put much stock in them.