It's Better To Have Loved And Lost Then Never To Have Loved At All

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Joel: Constantly talking isn't necessarily communicating.

Clementine: This is it, Joel. It's going to be gone soon.
Joel: I know.
Clementine: What do we do?
Joel: Enjoy it.

Joel: Is there any risk of brain damage?
Howard: Well, technically speaking, the operation is brain damage, but it's on a par with a night of heavy drinking. Nothing you'll miss.

Clementine: You know me, I'm impulsive.
Joel: That's what I love about you.

Joel: I can't see anything that I don't like about you.
Clementine: But you will! But you will. You know, you will think of things. And I'll get bored with you and feel trapped because that's what happens with me.
Joel: Okay.
Clementine: [pauses] Okay.

Clementine: My crotch is still here, just as you remembered it.
Joel: Yuck!

Joel: Hi.
Clementine: Hi. Didn't figure you'd show your face around me again. I guess I thought you were... humiliated. You did run away, after all.
Joel: I just needed to see you.
Clementine: Yeah?
Joel: I'd like to, um... take you out, or something.
Clementine: You're married.
Joel: Not yet, not married. No, I'm not married.
Clementine: Look man, I'm telling you right off the bat, I'm high-maintainance, so... I'm not gonna tip-toe around your marriage, or whatever it is you've got goin' there. If you wanna be with me, you're with me.
Joel: Okay.
Clementine: Too many guys think I'm a concept, or I complete them, or I'm gonna make them alive. But I'm just a fucked-up girl who's lookin' for my own peace of mind; don't assign me yours.
Joel: I remember that speech really well.
Clementine: I had you pegged, didn't I?
Joel: You had the whole human race pegged.
Clementine: Hmm. Probably.
Joel: I still thought you were gonna save my life... even after that.
Clementine: Ohhh... I know.
Joel: It would be different, if we could just give it another go-round.
Clementine: Remember me. Try your best; maybe we can.

Joel: I could die right now, Clem. I'm just... happy. I've never felt that before. I'm just exactly where I want to be.

Clementine: Joely? What if you stay this time?
Joel: I walked out the door. There's no memory left.
Clementine: Come back and make up a goodbye at least, let's pretend we had one... Goodbye, Joel.
Joel: ...I love you...
Clementine: ...Meet me in Montauk...

Joel: Look at it out here, it's all falling apart. I'm erasing you and I'm happy!

Clementine: I'm gonna marry you... I know it!
Joel: Ummm... okay...

Clementine: You're not a stalker, or anything, right?
Joel: I'm not a stalker. YOU'RE the one that talked to me, remember?
Clementine: That is the oldest trick in the stalker book.
Joel: Really? There's a stalker book? Great, I gotta read that one.

Clementine: What took you so long?
Joel: I just walked in.
Clementine: Do you miss me?
Joel: Oddly enough, I do!
Clementine: You said "I do" - I guess that means we're married!
Joel: I guess so!

Clementine: I'm a vindictive little bitch, truth be told!

Joel: If only I could meet someone new. I guess my chances of that happening are somewhat diminished, seeing that I'm incapable of making eye contact with a woman I don't know.

Clementine: And in your little brain. You try to figure out, "Did she fuck someone tonight?"
Joel: No, see Clem. I assume you fucked someone tonight. Isnt that how you get people to like you?

Clementine: Joely?
Joel: Yeah Tangerine?
Clementine: Am I ugly?
Joel: Uh-uh.
Clementine: When I was a kid, I thought I was. I can't believe I'm crying already. Sometimes I think people don't understand how lonely it is to be a kid, like you don't matter. So, I'm eight, and I have these toys, these dolls. My favorite is this ugly girl doll who I call Clementine, and I keep yelling at her, "You can't be ugly! Be pretty!" It's weird, like if I can transform her, I would magically change, too.
Joel: [kisses Clementine] You're pretty.
Clementine: Joely, don't ever leave me.
Joel: You're pretty... you're pretty... pretty...



Closer (2004)
Anna: We do everything that people who have sex do!
Larry: Do you enjoy sucking him off?
Anna: Yes!
Larry: You like his cock?
Anna: I love it!
Larry: You like him coming in your face?
Anna: Yes!
Larry: What does it taste like?
Anna: It tastes like you but sweeter!
Larry: That's the spirit. Thank you. Thank you for your honesty. Now fuck off and die, you fucked up slag.


Dan: You love her like a dog loves its owner.
Larry: And the owner loves the dog for so doing.
Dan: You'll hurt her. You'll never forgive her.
Larry: Of course I'll forgive her. I *have* forgiven her. Without forgiveness we're savages. You're drowning.

Alice: No one will ever love you as much as I do. Why isn't love enough?


Larry: You're seeing him now? Since when?
Anna: Since my opening last year.
[pause]
Anna: I'm disgusting.
Larry: You're phenomenal. You're so clever.


Larry: I think you owe me for deceiving me so exquisitely.

Larry: A good fight is never clean.

Larry: Of course she enjoyed it. As you know, she loves a guilty fuck.

Dan: I fell in love.
Alice: Oh, as if you had no choice? There's a moment, there's always a moment, "I can do this, I can give into this, or I can resist it", and I don't know when your moment was, but I bet you there was one.


Anna: I'm sorry you're...
Larry: Don't say it! Don't you fucking say you're too good for me. I am, but don't say it.

Dan: I want Anna back.
Larry: She's made her choice.
Dan: I owe you an apology. I fell in love with her. My intention was not to make you suffer.
Larry: So where's the apology? Ya cunt.
Dan: I apologize. If you love her you'll let her go so she can be happy.
Larry: She doesn't want to be happy.
Dan: Everybody wants to be happy.
Larry: Depressives don't. They want to be unhappy to confirm they're depressed. If they were happy they couldn't be depressed anymore. They'd have to go out into the world and live. Which can be depressing.


Dan: And you left him, just like that?
Alice: It's the only way to leave. "I don't love you anymore. Goodbye."
Dan: Supposing you do still love them?
Alice: You don't leave.
Dan: You've never left someone you still love?
Alice: Nope.

Larry: Alice, tell me something that's true.
Alice: Lying's the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off - but it's better if you do.


Dan: You think love is simple. You think the heart is like a diagram.
Larry: Have you ever seen a human heart? It looks like a fist, wrapped in blood! Go fuck yourself! You writer! You liar!

Alice: Where is this love? I can't see it, I can't touch it. I can't feel it. I can hear it. I can hear some words, but I can't do anything with your easy words.

Larry: You don't know the first thing about love, because you don't understand compromise.

Larry: Is he a good fuck?
Anna: Don't do this.
Larry: Just answer the question! Is he good?
Anna: Yes.
Larry: Better than me?
Anna: Different.
Larry: Better?
Anna: Gentler.
Larry: What does that mean?
Anna: You know what it means.
Larry: Tell me!
Anna: No.
Larry: I treat you like a whore?
Anna: Sometimes.
Larry: Why would that be?

Alice: Is it because she's successful?
Dan: No. It's because... she doesn't need me.


Anna: I don't want trouble.
Dan: I'm not trouble.
Anna: You're taken.
Dan: I've got to see you.
Anna: Tough.
Dan: You... KISSED me!
Anna: What are you - TWELVE?

Dan: What's so great about the truth? Try lying for a change, it's the currency of the world.

Dan: I hate that I'm hurting you.
Alice: Then why are you?


Anna: Love bores you.
Dan: No, it disappoints me.

I was gonna post this yesturday but I couldn't bring myself to do it. That holiday was messing me up inside. It was way too honest about many of my feelings and a thorough break down of resentment and bitterness inside. So today I'm gonna take another crack at it. I think these are two movies are the best in depth real relationship movies, they deserve some words on their behalf. I think I can do them justice. When I saw Closer I thought it was the ugliest movie I'd ever seen. It had 2 academy award nominations but where the story goes at the time I just thought it was foul. How could these relationships get so fucked up? I'd never let it get that bad. ANd until recently I've been able to keep with that. But i think it's very hypocritical of me. I used to say I'd always be there. And I wasn't and I question, whether or not it would get as bad as the events in closer. I thought it would get more savage cause in closer the Dan and Larry for example are really hella civilized to each other, I couldn't see that being the case here. I'd be more likely to see an all out brawl with lots of blood and broken bones and shit. Which to tell u the truth is still prettier than the conversations in closer. I can't help but ponder how someone could live with these kind of situations. I think I know myself well enough to say I'm not strong enough to deal with infidelity well. And I don't want to adapt to deal with it ever. That's a choice not out of weakness but out of strength I believe. A decision on my own well being. If I was to put things into perspective I understand the need or lack there of labels, so u know where u stand but in retrospective that excitement of not knowing gradually goes away and feeds into routine and who wants that. But I don't think I could ever bring myself to believe I'm capable of loving two people at the same time. There has to be closure. Even if it's 100% personal. When it comes to my greatest love relationships, there are 3, there's always been closure. The first it was it's time to die we were changing and growing into our own and way too young for it to even be thought as a reasonably adult relationship. The second, had a reality check of what priorities were too important to sacrifice for it. And as for that one I still think about her but I won't go back, cause I've been slapped in the face with the harsh reality that feelings or love isn't enough to make it work. And the third relationship I'm still coming to terms of what the hell went wrong and my feelings about it. There's nothing to clear up, I mean there might be, but when alls said and done I'm still mad at myself for staying. And maybe it's a good experience so if I get into another relationship when I say something like I don't want to share you or theres no competition for my love, even if that other person can't make up their mind, I can make it up for them instead of letting it eat me up inside. After this experience Closer doesn't seem so ugly. Instead it seems harshly real. So real that I could see myself if I didn't get out asking these hard fucked up questions, cause at the time I just didn't want to know like ignorance is bliss and shit. It ain't bliss. It's just easier to handle if you think you don't know but the possibilities still run through your head like wildfire. You tell yourself your strong but you ain't really strong, your just not fully and completely hurt. "Dan: I hate that I'm hurting you.
Alice: Then why are you?" Key phrases. I'd say something like I'm not going to let you hurt me anymore and the relization that if she still existed on the level of someone I was romantically interested in I am still hurting. And I have a deep suspicion that that bound of intamacy isn't going to disappear. It'll disappear in the sense that out of sight out of mind. But not in the sense that I loved and could always love. Cause even though I'd like to be capable of unconditional love I'm not. There is one condition. So in conclusion I don't think there's anything beautiful about closer. I think it's a bunch of insecure, childish, immature people that never knew what they wanted and instead of being grateful for what they had they pursued what was on the otherside of the fence with complete disregard for others and maliscious purposes. After reading this over, it's not really that much better than the first draft. Oh well..

Now as for Eternal Sunshine, this is my favorite. Is it better to love and lost then never to have loved at all? Yes, yes it is. And you will never get the oppertunity to face what was there as it's fleeting from your memory. Such a brilliant idea. And the lines are just perfect. When they're on the ice looking at the stars and joel says I've never been this happy, this is exactly where I wanted to be. This last time that's how it felt, that's how I knew I was in love. The other times it was such a process like courting and falling. I wanna get back to that. To the simplisity of being in love innocently. It'll happen. Life is becoming less serious again which is how I've gotten to meet people again and be clever and funny. Always a good sign that times are changing for the better. I think I'm at the point where Joel was and he's relizing that almost all of his memories of clemintine have vanished and he's got a couple of killer memories that he really doesn't want to let go of so he tries to hide them or her in someplace that they wouldn't find her. That's how I feel about the little contact I have with her. Like I'm pushing away as far away as I can but I still don't want to let go completely. Even though it seems done, I want it to be done, like "Look at it out here, it's all falling apart. I'm erasing you and I'm happy!" But it ain't like that at all. There's a watch that for a month was in my closet but it's a good watch and it looks good on me and I'm attached to it and the eyes that gave it to me, and the rocks of a beach where thinking and feeling became knowing and believing. So with that said and conveyed and commemorated and commiserated and everything. Joel succeeds with wiping his memory of Clemintine. Even the best places he has to hide her like embarassment memories (or the internet) still become erased. But they find each other after they've been erased by each other and fall for each other again. And even after wiping all the memories out a tape of the worst shit that they hate about each other comes and love turns to hate in a heartbeat. I believe they have the strength to forgive and move on and stay and grow.