Metropolitan

Jane Clark:
Why should we believe you over Rick? We know you're a hypocrite. We know your "Polly Perkins" story was a fabrication - ...

Nick Smith:
A composite.

Jane Clark:
- -that you're completely impossible and out of control, with some sort of drug problem and a fixation on what you consider Rick Von Sloneker's wickedness. You're a snob, a sexist, totally obnoxious and tiresome. And lately you've gotten just weird. Why should we believe anything you say?

Nick Smith:
I'm not "tiresome."

Tom Townsend:
You don't have to read a book to have an opinion.

Nick Smith:
I've always planned to be a failure anyway, that's why I plan to marry an extremely wealthy woman.

Nick Smith:
It's a tiny bit arrogant of people to go around worrying about those less fortunate.

Nick Smith:
Playing strip poker with an exhibitionist somehow takes the challenge out of it.

Audrey Rouget:
People see the harm in what excessive candor can do.

Fred Neff:
Men are dates, date substitutes or potential dates. I find that dehumanizing.

Nick Smith:
Rick Von Slonecker is tall, rich, good looking, stupid, dishonest, conceited, a bully, liar, drunk and thief, an egomaniac, and probably psychotic. In short, highly attractive to women.

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.

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.

Audrey Rouget:
What Jane Austen novels have you read?

Tom Townsend:
None. I don't read novels. I prefer good literary criticism. That way you get both the novelists' ideas as well as the critics' thinking. With fiction I can never forget that none of it really happened, that it's all just made up by the author.

Tom Townsend:
I've never been this drunk before. The problem is, with Fred no longer drinking, I can't pace myself.

Nick Smith:
The cha cha is no more ridiculous than life itself.

Nick Smith:
I guess you could say it's extremely vulgar, I like it a lot.

Nick Smith:
Playing strip poker with an exhibitionist somehow takes the challenge away.

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.

Nick Smith:
The titled aristocracy are the scum of the earth.

Sally Fowler:
You always say "titled" aristocrats. What about "untitled" aristocrats?

Nick Smith:
Well, I could hardly despise them, could I? That would be self-hatred.

Tom Townsend:
[to Serena Slocum] I haven't been giving you the silent treatment. I just haven't been talking to you.

Charlie Black:
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 go down. I think that's the direction that we're all heading in. And I think that the downward fall is going to be very fast—not just for us as individuals—but for the entire Preppie Class.