Metropolitan (1989)

Taylor Nichols: Charlie Black

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Quotes 

• Charlie Black : Of course there is a God. We all basically know there is.

  Cynthia McLean : I know no such thing.

  Charlie Black : Of course you do. When you think to yourself, and most of our waking life is taken up thinking to ourselves, you must have that feeling that your thoughts aren't entirely wasted, that in some sense they are being heard. Rationally, they aren't. You're entirely alone. Even the people to whom we are closest can have no real idea of what is going on in our minds. We aren't devastated by loneliness because, at a hardly conscious level, we don't accept that we're entirely alone. I think this sensation of being silently listned to with total comprehension... something you never find in real life... represents our innate belife in a supreme being, some all-comprehending intelligence.

• Charlie Black : Fourierism was tried in the late nineteenth century... and it failed. Wasn't Brook Farm Fourierist? It failed.

  Tom Townsend : That's debatable.

  Charlie Black : Whether Brook Farm failed?

  Tom Townsend : That it ceased to exist, I'll grant you, but whether or not it failed cannot be definitively said.

  Charlie Black : Well, for me, ceasing to exist is - is failure. I mean, that's pretty definitive.

  Tom Townsend : Well, everyone ceases to exist. Doesn't mean everyone's a failure.

• Tom Townsend : [pulls out a gun after Rick punches him]  Get back, Rick!

  Rick Von Sloneker : Jesus, he's got a gun!

  Charlie Black : I warn you! He's a Fourierist!

• Cynthia McLean : Is our language so impoverished that we have to use acronyms of French phrases to make ourselves understood?

  Charlie Black : Yes.

• Charlie Black : That's interesting, because actually there's very little social snobbery in the United States. I mean, it's considered unacceptable. There's... there's almost a national taboo against it. It's looked down upon.

  Cynthia McLean : That's good, isn't it?

  Charlie Black : Well, I'm not talking about what's good or bad. I'm just making an observation of fact.

  Sally Fowler : Well, I think it IS good. I can't stand snobbery or snobbish attitudes of any kind.

• Charlie Black : That was really embarrassing. Thank you for including me.

• Charlie Black : I can't believe you don't have a driver's license.

  Tom Townsend : Of course I don't. I live in Manhattan.

• Tom Townsend : I'm a committed socialist, not a Marxist. I favor the socialist model developed by the 19th-century French social critic Fourier.

  Charlie Black : You're a Fourierist?

  Tom Townsend : Yes.

• Tom Townsend : Yesterday I was thinking, maybe Fourier was a crank. His ideas completely unworkable.

  Charlie Black : I wouldn't want to live on a farm with a lot of other people.

• Charlie Black : The term 'bourgeois' has almost always been - been one of contempt. Yet it is precisely the - the bourgeoisie which is responsible for - well, for nearly everything good that has happened in our civilization over the past four centuries. You know the French film, "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie"? When I first heard that title I thought, "Finally, someone's gonna tell the truth about the bourgeoisie." What a disappointment. It would be hard to imagine a less fair or accurate portrait.

  Sally Fowler : Well, of course. Buñuel's a surrealist. Despising the bourgeoisie is part of their credo.

  Nick Smith : Where do they get off?

  Charlie Black : But the truth is, the bourgeoisie does have a lot of charm.

  Nick Smith : Of course it does. The surrealists were just a lot of social climbers.

• Charlie Black : Where do you get off, "you're suprised"? At what? You were Audrey's escort, yet you blithely left her stranded in the middle of the dance so you can try to work things out with Serena! And then you try to shirk the whole thing off on Fred.

  Tom Townsend : I'm not trying to shirk it off on Fred. And I was not Audrey's escort. We were all there as a group. In any case, I'm very sorry there was a mixup.

  Charlie Black : There was no mixup.

  Tom Townsend : I'm sorry I left. But it wasn't intentional.

  Charlie Black : When you're an egoist, none of the harm you do is intentional!

• Sally Fowler : What have you against Tom?

  Charlie Black : Just one thing: He's not a good person.

• Tom Townsend : He seems less pessimistic than you.

  Charlie Black : I know: it doesn't ring true.

• Charlie Black : But I *am* authorized to use my mother's card: I use it all the time.

• Charlie Black : I don't see how you can stand him. You're always complaining about people being frauds and phoneys. This guy is the phoney of the decade, yet you act as he were your long-lost best friend.

  Nick Smith : Tom's hardly a phoney. Just mildly deluded. He's a perfectly nice guy.

  Charlie Black : That's just another aspect of his phoniness. He's a terrible phoney, and when he's not being a phoney, he's a bastard.

  Nick Smith : Oh, come on.

  Charlie Black : You saw how he treated Audrey last night.

  Nick Smith : Well, Audrey seems to have forgotten it.

  Charlie Black : She has to act that way. Otherwise it would be even more humiliating. But I don't have to pretend Tom Townsend is a nice guy.

  Nick Smith : You're really gaga about Audrey, aren't you?

  Charlie Black : If by "gaga" you mean, do I like her? Yes, I do.

  Nick Smith : Well, why don't you do something about it, instead of just going on and on about what a bastard Tom Townsend is.

  Charlie Black : What do I do? Declare myself? That would be an absolute disaster. I don't think I haven't thought about these things. But I think if the situation could just continue as it has been, they gradually, over time, it'd grow into something more. That, at least, is what I've been hoping for.

• Charlie Black : I think that - that - that we are all, in a sense, doomed.

  Nick Smith : What are you talking about?

  Charlie Black : Downward social mobility. We hear a lot about the great social mobility in America with the focus usually on the comparative ease of moving upwards. What's less discussed is how easy it is to - to go down. I think that's the - the direction that we're all heading in. And I think that the downward fall is gonna be very fast. Not just for us as individuals, but the whole preppy class.

• Charlie Black : Well, I don't think "preppy" is a very useful term. I mean, it might be descriptive for someone who is still in school or college; but, it's ridiculous to refer to a man in his 70s, like Averell Harriman, as a "preppy". And none of the other terms people use - WASP, P.L.U., et cetera - are of much use either. And that's why I prefer the term "U.H.B."

  Nick Smith : What?

  Charlie Black : U.H.B. It's an acronym for Urban Haute Bourgeoisie.

  Cynthia McLean : Is our language so impoverished that we have to use acronyms or French phrases to make ourselves understood?

• Charlie Black : Thanks a lot. We shouldn't be long.

  Cab Driver : Take as long as you like - I'm leaving.

• Charlie Black : It's a bit disappointing. I thought we were better friends than that.

  Fred Neff : I wonder whether we're really friends for them at all. We're just way stations between dates. I mean, for them, men are either dates, potential dates or date substitutes.

• Charlie Black : Hey, look at this.

  Tom Townsend : What is it?

  Charlie Black : Looks like some girl's panties.

  Tom Townsend : Jesus, that bastard.

• Charlie Black : What it shows is that a kind of belief is innate in all of us. At some point most of us lose that after which it can only be regained by a conscious act of faith.

  Cynthia McLean : You've experienced that?

  Charlie Black : Uh, no, I haven't. I-I hope to someday.

• Charlie Black : My point was that the common image of divorce and decadent behavior being prevalent among New York social types is not really accurate. That's more Southampton.

• 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.