Adaptation.

John Laroche:
Who's gonna play me? I think I should play me.

Donald Kaufman:
You are what you love, not what loves you.

John Laroche:
I'm probably the smartest person I know.

Susan Orlean:
I suppose I do have one unembarrassed passion. I want to know how it feels to care about something passionately.

Charlie Kaufman:
I don't want to cram in sex or guns or car chases or characters learning profound life lessons or growing or coming to like each other or overcome obstacles to succeed in the end. The book isn't like that, and life isn't like that, it just isn't.

Charlie Kaufman:
The script I'm starting, it's about flowers. No one's ever done a movie about flowers before. So there are no guidelines...

Donald Kaufman:
What about "Flowers for Algernon"?

Charlie Kaufman:
Well, that's not about flowers. And it's not a movie.

Donald Kaufman:
Ok, I'm sorry, I never saw it.

Charlie Kaufman:
To begin... To begin... How to start? I'm hungry. I should get coffee. Coffee would help me think. Maybe I should write something first, then reward myself with coffee. Coffee and a muffin. So I need to establish the themes. Maybe a banana nut. That's a good muffin.

Donald Kaufman:
Listen, I need a cool way to kill people. Don't worry, for my script.

Charlie Kaufman:
I don't know that kind of stuff.

Donald Kaufman:
Oh, come on, man, please? You're the genius.

Charlie Kaufman:
Here you go. The killer's a literature professor. He cuts off little chunks from his victims' bodies until they die. He calls himself "the deconstructionist".

Donald Kaufman:
I'm putting in a chase sequence. So the killer flees on horseback with the girl, the cop's after them on a motorcycle and it's like a battle between motors and horses, like technology vs. horse.

Charlie Kaufman:
And they're still all one person, right?

Donald Kaufman:
I'm pitching my script today.

Charlie Kaufman:
Please don't say pitch.

Donald Kaufman:
The killer, the girl, and the cop all have split-personalities. They're all the same person. Isn't that f***ed up?

Charlie Kaufman:
Mr. McKee? I'm Charlie Kaufman. You yelled at me this morning.

Robert McKee:
I need more.

Charlie Kaufman:
You and I share the same DNA. Is there anything more lonely than that?

Robert McKee:
Nothing happens in the world? Are you out of your f***ing mind? People are murdered every day. There's genocide, war, corruption. Every f***ing day, somewhere in the world, somebody sacrifices his life to save someone else. Every f***ing day, someone, somewhere makes a conscious decision to destroy someone else. People find love, people lose it. For Christ's sake, a child watches her mother beaten to death on the steps of a church. Someone goes hungry. Somebody else betrays his best friend for a woman. If you can't find that stuff in life, then you, my friend, don't know crap about life. And why the F*** are you wasting my two precious hours with your movie? I don't have any use for it. I don't have any bloody use for it.

Charlie Kaufman:
Ok, thank you.

Amelia Kavan:
I love you too, you know.

Donald Kaufman:
A little push, push in the bush.

Susan Orlean:
It's over. Everything, I did everything wrong. I want my life back. I want it back before everything got f***ed up. I want to be a baby again. I want to be new. I WANT TO BE NEW.

Susan Orlean:
Uh, John? Can I ask you a personal question?

John Laroche:
What? We're not lost.

Susan Orlean:
YOU FAT PIECE OF SH*T. He's dead.

Charlie Kaufman:
Shut up.

Susan Orlean:
YOU LOSER. You've ruined my life, YOU FAT F***.

Charlie Kaufman:
F*** YOU LADY. You're just a lonely, old, and pathetic DRUG ADDICT.

John Laroche:
Darkness falls, bad things happen.

John Laroche:
Then one morning, I woke up and said, "F*** fish." I renounce fish, I will never set foot in that ocean again. And there hasn't been a time where I have stuck so much as a toe back in that ocean.

Susan Orlean:
But why?

John Laroche:
Done with fish.

Charlie Kaufman:
Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

Charlie Kaufman:
Today is the first day of the rest of my life

Susan Orlean:
Change is not a choice.

Donald Kaufman:
McKee says we all have to realize we write in a genre, so we must find originality within that genre. Did you know that there hasn't been a new genre since Fellini invented the mockumentary...? My genre's thriller, what's yours?

John Laroche:
Darling, I don't know what's come over you.

Susan Orlean:
You came all over me.

John Laroche:
My goodness.

John Laroche:
Point is, what's so wonderful is that every one of these flowers has a specific relationship with the insect that pollinates it. There's a certain orchid look exactly like a certain insect so the insect is drawn to this flower, its double, its soul mate, and wants nothing more than to make love to it. And after the insect flies off, spots another soul-mate flower and makes love to it, thus pollinating it. And neither the flower nor the insect will ever understand the significance of their lovemaking. I mean, how could they know that because of their little dance the world lives? But it does. By simply doing what they're designed to do, something large and magnificent happens. In this sense they show us how to live - how the only barometer you have is your heart. How, when you spot your flower, you can't let anything get in your way.

Donald Kaufman:
Is like technology versus horses.

Charlie Kaufman:
The only idea more overused than serial killers is multiple personality. On top of that, you explore the notion that cop and criminal are really two aspects of the same person. See every cop movie ever made for other examples of this.

Donald Kaufman:
Mom called it "psychologically taut".

Charlie Kaufman:
...But a little fantastic and fleeting and out of reach.

Robert McKee:
Then what happens?

Charlie Kaufman:
That's the end of the book. I wanted to present it simply without big character arcs or sensationalizing the story. I wanted to show flowers as God's miracles. I wanted to show that Orlean never saw the blooming ghost orchid. It was about disappointment.

Robert McKee:
I'll tell you a secret. The last act makes the film. Wow them in the end, and you've got a hit. You can have flaws, problems, but wow them in the end, and you've got a hit. Find an ending, but don't cheat, and don't you dare bring in a deus ex machina. Your characters must change, and the change must come from them. Do that, and you'll be fine.

Matthew Osceola:
I can see your sadness. It's lovely.

Susan Orlean:
I'm just tired, that's all. That's my problem. So, maybe we could chat a little bit, and, you know, get some background for...

Matthew Osceola:
I'm not going to talk to you much. It's not personal. It's the Indian way.

Susan Orlean:
There are too many ideas and too many people. And too many directions to go. I was starting to believe that the reason it matters to care passionately about something, is that is whittles the world down to a more manageable size.

Marty:
See her? I f***ed her up the ass.

Marty:
I'd f*** her up the ass!