Genius (2016)

Jude Law: Thomas Wolfe

Photos 

Quotes 

• Maxwell Evarts Perkins : Imagine you're a reader. You're wandering through a bookstore and lots of books, and you see a book titled "Trimalchio in West Egg" and you see one titled The "Great Gatsby."Which are you going to pick up?

  Thomas Wolfe : Gatsby!

  Maxwell Evarts Perkins : That's why Scott changed his original title. He knew it needed a bit more meat.

• Thomas Wolfe : Some books are supposed to be long, you know! Thank god Tolstoy never met you. We'd have that great novel "War and Nothing".

• Maxwell Evarts Perkins : To be a novelist, you have to select. You have to shape and sculpt.

  Thomas Wolfe : Why?

  Maxwell Evarts Perkins : Because we've been working for two years and the book's only 100 pages shorter!

• Thomas Wolfe : Who better to talk to? The man who created something immortal. More and more I trouble myself with that. "The legacy." Will anyone care about Thomas Wolfe in 100 years? Ten years? When I was young, I asked myself that question every day.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald : I used to trouble myself like that every day. Now I ask myself, "Can I write one good sentence."

• [last lines] 

  Thomas Wolfe : [Max reading Tom's deathbed letter]  Dear Max, I've got a hunch, and I wanted to write these words to you. I've made a long voyage and been to a strange country, and I've seen the dark man very close. And I don't think I was too much afraid of him. But I want most desperately to live. I want to see you again. For there is such an impossible anguish and regret for all I can never say to you, for all the work I have to do. I feel as if a great window has been opened on life. And if I come through this, I hope to God I am a better man and can live up to you. But most of all, I wanted to tell you, no matter what happens, I shall always feel about you the way I did that November day when you met me at the boat and we went on top of the building and all the strangeness and the glory and the power of life were below. Yours always, Tom.

• Thomas Wolfe : [looking at the books on the shelf in Perkins' office]  Are all these your authors?

  Maxwell Evarts Perkins : Not Tolstoy.

• Thomas Wolfe : I'm sorry I'm not decent enough for your fine dinner parties and your fine friends, but before you drag me out to the wood shed, I think you ought to look at who is giving the lesson. Am I supposed to grow up like you?

  Maxwell Evarts Perkins : No, Tom, but you're supposed to grow up.

• Thomas Wolfe : [grabs his massive manuscript and holds out his hand to Perkins to say goodbye] 

  Maxwell Evarts Perkins : Mr. Wolfe, we intend to publish your book.

  Thomas Wolfe : [looks at him in disbelief]  Ha!

  Maxwell Evarts Perkins : If that is acceptable to you.

• Thomas Wolfe : [to Max Perkins]  Until I met you I never had a friend.

• Maxwell Evarts Perkins : [looking at the three cates containing the manuscript of Thomas Wolfe's new book]  This - is Of Time and the River? Well done. Now go home and get some sleep.

  Thomas Wolfe : I... I...

  Maxwell Evarts Perkins : Let me read it.

  Thomas Wolfe : Read it kindly. Please.

• Thomas Wolfe : To hell with Flaubert and Henry James.

• Thomas Wolfe : [hand on his manuscript like an oath]  My heart bleeds to see any of it go. But I guess it's die dog or eat the hatchet.

  Maxwell Evarts Perkins : You took the words right out of my mouth.

• Thomas Wolfe : So I've disappointed you yet again.

  Maxwell Evarts Perkins : Yes, very much.

  Thomas Wolfe : Well, I'm sorry I'm not decent enough for your fine dinner parties and your fine friends. But before you drag me out to the woodshed, I think you ought to look at who's giving the lesson. Am I supposed to grow up like you?

  Maxwell Evarts Perkins : No, Tom, but you're supposed to grow up.

• Thomas Wolfe : The last time I saw my father, I was standing as a train window, when I went north to college. He just got smaller and smaller as we pulled away, until I couldn't see him anymore. That train carried me to my life; beyond the hills and over the rivers. And always the rivers run. Sometimes they flow away from my father, and sometimes they flow back to his door. I have to prove I can do it by myself.

  Maxwell Evarts Perkins : Then prove it.

• Thomas Wolfe : [showing up unannounced]  Scott! I know it was a while ago but I'm sorry. I was a damn brute. I wouldn't blame you for slamming the door in my face. You don't know how sorry I am for talking to you and Zelda like that. Please, say you forgive me.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald : Believe it or not I've been drunk myself once or twice.

• Thomas Wolfe : They're working girls. That doesn't count.

  Maxwell Evarts Perkins : Yes, it does.