Quotes-from-Six-Feet-Under

Quotes from Six Feet Under
put together by Oxymoron
Quotes
from
Six Feet Under
put together by Oxymoron
photography by Oxymoron
first edition, November 2010
2

Quotes from Six Feet Under
put together by Oxymoron
Editor’s note:
The last time I watched every single episode of Six Feet Under, from the Pilot to Everybody’s waiting,
I always did it with pad and pencil on my side. I always thought that many of the dialogs in Six
Feet Under have the value of writing them down and file them. Ranging from a certain kind of
(black) humor to philosophies of life. So on the next 44 pages you’ll find a subjective selection
which doesn’t follow a certain objective pattern.
I am aware that this collection of quotes comes along with some kind of deconstruction since it’s
based on written form which is only a fragment of the initial audiovisual media. Most of the
quotes only make sense in the particular context together with their pictures.
In the end this collection of quotes can serve as an archive for people who already are in love
with Six Feet Under. For people who haven’t watched it, it may be an impact to do so.
If you have any further quotes in mind let me know (mail with time designation to
alltagskunst@yahoo.com) and I consider them for a second edition.
Thanks for downloading and have fun reading,
Oxymoron
Table of contents:
Quotes from episode one
Quotes from episode two
Quotes from episode three
Quotes from episode four
Quotes from episode five
4
11
22
33
40
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Quotes from Six Feet Under
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Pilot
Claire: “Jesus. Put your dicks out and measure them. Let’s get this over with.”
Nate: “I live in a shitty appartement which was supposed to be temporary. I work at a job which
was also supposed to be temporary until I figured out what I really want to do with my life which
apparently is nothing. I have lots of sex but I haven’t had a relationship last more than a couple
of months. I even haven’t had the self-discipline to floss daily. I’ve had four root canals. Four.
I’m 35. I’ve had four root canals. ... I’m gonna be one of those losers who end up in his death
bed saying ‘Where’d my life go?’.”
Claire: “No, you won’t. You’d be saying ‘Where the hell is the morphine?’ ... I’m just trying to
cheer you up.”
Nate: “Nah. I just spent my whole life being cheerful.”
Lady: “I’m sorry about your father. But he’s in a much better place now.”
Nate: “You’re so right about that.”
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Quotes from Six Feet Under
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David: “You want to get your hands dirty? You sanctimonious prick. Talk to me when you’ve
had to stuff formaldehyde soaked cotton up your father’s ass so he doesn’t leak.”
The Will
Brenda: “We are all wounded. We carry our wounds around with us throughout and eventually,
they kill us. Things happen that leave a mark in space, in time, in us.”
The Foot
Nate: “So, in the end, we’re all just Human McNuggets.”
Nate: “My whole life I’ve been a tourist. Now I have the chance to do some good instead of just
sucking up air.”
Ruth: “You both look so happy.”
Guy: “It’s just an act.”
Ruth: “Just enjoy it when it lasts, which isn’t very long.”
Guy: “Excuse me?”
Ruth: “You think you have forever, but you don’t. ... Soon you start to get on each other’s
nerves, then you don’t tell the other person as much as you used to, because really what’s the
point? ... You thought they understand you. But they never did, really.”
Amelia: “Ruth.”
Ruth: “Finally, not only do you not tell him anything real, you actively start lying to him. ... And
then when you think it can’t get any worse, he up and dies. ... No matter what you do, you end up
alone. Not knowing who you are and what you want.”
David: “I don’t understand... kids. When I was her age, I never would’ve taken a foot.”
Keith: “David, I can help. I’m a cop. That’s what I do for a living.”
David: “You find feet?”
Nate: “Fuck. If this isn’t what I’m supposed to be doing with my life, then what is?”
Brenda: “Living it. And you’re doing that, so relax.”
Keith: “When someone sees you as you really are and wants to be with you, that’s powerful.”
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Quotes from Six Feet Under
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Nate: “This is my... uh, my girlfriend, Brenda.”
Brenda: “I prefer the term ‘fuck-puppet’.”
An open book
Brenda: “You don’t really believe in God, do you?”
Nate: “Well, yeah. I mean, I don’t believe in some bearded, old, white man up in a cloud but I
believe in something. Some sort of undefinable creative force.”
Brenda: “I think it’s just all totally random.”
Nate: “Really?”
Brenda: “Yeah. We live, we die. Ultimately, nothing means anything.”
Nate: “How can you live like that?”
Brenda: “I don’t know. Sometimes I wake up so fucking empty I wish I’d never been born, but
what choice do I have?”
The Room
Brenda: “Are you gonna be okay here alone?”
Mr. Jones: “Everybody’s alone. You born alone, you die alone, goddamn it.”
Nathaniel: “That’s one of the perks of being dead. You know what happens after you die... and
you know the meaning of life.”
Nate: “That seems fairly useless.”
Nathaniel: “Yeah, I know. Life is wasted on the living.”
Ruth: “Mr. Jones, see the beautiful flowers for your wife’s viewing?”
Mr. Jones: “I don’t know why you so excited. They’re just gonna shrivel up and die.”
Brotherhood
Teacher: “Algebra forces your mind to solve problems logically. It’s one of the perfect
sciences...”
Claire: “You think the world runs on logic? Come on, open your eyes.”
David: “So why did you decide to be so honest with me?”
Father Clark: “Because I can tell that right and wrong actually matters to you.”
Claire: “Power rests on the kind of knowledge one holds. (quoting Castaneda) So what’s the use of
knowing something useless?”
Claire: “Is that the only option? Go to college, get a job, so you can be a good consumer until
you drop dead of exhaustion? I don’t want that.”
Gary Deitman: “So, what do you want?”
Claire: “I just want something to matter.”
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Quotes from Six Feet Under
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Crossroads
Claire: “I think I really learned something valuable. Everything I think I know is wrong.”
Life’s too short
Nate: “Ok. I feel pretty bad right now. You wanna make it worse. So is it really important to
make me feel worse?”
David: “I don’t care what you feel.”
Nate: “Ah, bullshit. You like it when I feel bad because misery loves company.”
David: “It’s not our job to force someone to something they’re clearly not ready to do, because
we think it’s the right thing. Because it will make us feel better.
Billy: “There are plenty of places in the world where a kid dying is pretty common. But we can’t
deal with it, because a dead child is the greatest failure of a culture that believes it’s reversed the
order of nature.”
Brenda: “You know what I find interesting? If you lose a spouse, you’re called a widow, or a
widower. If you’re a child and you lose your parents, then you’re an orphan. But what’s the word
to describe a parent who loses a child? I guess that’s just too fucking awful to even have a name.”
Brenda: “Everybody dies, we all die, everything we ever care about will disappear, so what’s the
fucking point of living?“
Nate: “You know, sometimes I wish I could be this completely selfish asshole that didn’t give a
shit about anything and I’d just work at some mindless job that paid me a fuckload of money.”
Brenda: (laughs) “No, you don’t.”
Nate: “It would make my life a lot easier.”
Brenda: “You don’t want your life to be easy.”
David: “Now I’ll have to say, ‘sorry, I lost them because I’m this old-guy geek and I’m
completely uncool in this world in which you seem to thrive, you perfect distillation of human
evolution.’”
David: “So, how’d you guys meet?”
Keith: “Eddie’s an EMT. Met on the job. Newly weds in a car crash. He saved the bride right in
front of me.”
David: “What about the groom?”
Eddie: “Didn’t make it.”
David: “Wow, so the bride had eternity with the man she loved right in front of her and then you
go and save her and she ends up left behind, alone.”
Nathaniel: “No tears.”
Ruth: “I miss what we had.”
Nathaniel: “So, find it again.”
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Quotes from Six Feet Under
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Nate: “Everybody dies. Some of us live to be 100, some never make it through the first day.
That’s just the fucking fact of nature, pal.”
Guy: “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Nate: “You can punch as many people as you want. It’s not gonna change the fact that the boy is
dead. And your chance to be in his life is over. Did you use this time well or did you just piss it
away? And you own fucking life is a ticking clock too. Everybody’s is.”
The new person
David: “Please, stop. And you’re wrong. All she told the police was that he was boring.”
Nate: “That’s it? That’s all she said? ... The sick part is I understand it.”
David: “I do too.”
Nate: “Sometimes I’m boring.”
David: “I am too...”
David: “Angela, we’re sort of used to a more professional appearance around here.”
Angela: “Gimme a break, David. They’re just nipples. I mean, we’ve all seen them, we’ve all
touched them, we’ve all sucked on them! And it’s not like this guy’s lying in the casket, and
people are gonna be saying, ‘Oh, my God, the enbalmer’s nipples were hard!’. They’re gonna be
saying, ‘Oh my God, how did they put his face back together after he went through the
goddamned windshield?!’ “
Nate: “We didn’t have a fight. She just pulls away from me at the weirdest times.”
Angela: “Hmm, well, maybe she senses that you’re pulling away. So she just does it first.”
Ruth: “Sometimes people are hard to take. But only because the first side they present to you is
annoying or aggressive because they’re nervous, and it’s only after you spend some time with
them you realize that, maybe, there’s another side to them that’s worth knowing. ... Or not. I
have no idea what I’m talking about.”
Keith: “People should be with people.”
David: “Yeah, sometimes people are just too stupid to know it.”
Claire: “No. Just... he needs me. For the first time in my life, I felt important. Like someone
needed me, you know, like not just like some annoying extra person lumped in with everyone
else. No one’s ever needed me.”
Nate: “I need you.”
Claire: “Right. I felt this really intense connection, and now it’s just gone, and I want it back. I
want him back. Is there something wrong with me? Is there something bad about me that makes
me deserve something like this?”
Nate: “Deserve what?”
Claire: “Just feeling really close to someone and then having them just disappear, like I mean
nothing!”
Nate: “Claire, Gabe just went to visit his father for a day. I think you’re talking about Dad. Look,
we never talk about him, and that’s OK. That’s what you want. But, at some point, you’re gonna
have to deal with how you feel.”
Claire: “Oh, God, can’t I just get upset without having to focus on what’s really making me
upset?”
Nate: “Well, it worked for me for 34 years.”
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Quotes from Six Feet Under
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The trip
Guy: “You’re a lot nicer on-line.”
David: “Yeah, well, people aren’t always who they seem to be.”
Guy: “Tell me about it.”
David: “It might help if you think of it less as a funeral and more as a way of saying goodbye to
him.”
Dillon’s Mother: “I don’t wanna say goodbye. You know, he just barely got here.”
David: “Of course, it’s difficult for anyone to come to terms with something as unexpected as
this, but...”
Nate: “It’s not just difficult. It’s not even remotely possible. Some babies are just too good for
this world. We’ll fix things so you can spend as much time with him as you need.”
A private life
Claire: “Who gives a fuck what these people think? Everyone is too obsessed with what everyone
else thinks about them to think about anyone else!”
Billy: “Oh, no, it’s just plain fun. You know, if you mix up the letters in ,funeral’, you get ,real
fun.’ “
Claire: “Well, isn’t that comforting to know that being miserable is still better than being an
idiot?”
Robbie: “A child knows what his parents need him to be.“
Brenda: “Everyone was jealous of Trevor. He was ridiculously gifted. One of those people
everybody secretly hates because he’s good at everything and always gets what he wants.”
Nate: “Well, he didn’t get you.”
Brenda: “No, please, he could do better.”
Gary: “Right. Relating to another person is a way that we relate to a part of ourselves.”
Claire: “This isn’t about me.”
Gary: “That’s not a very good start, is it?”
Gabe: “I’m scared that you are too good for me.”
Knock, knock
Billy: “And inside I feel like tears are streaming down my cheeks. But there’re not, are they?
(Brendas eyes start to well up) Don’t cry. Please don’t cry just because I can’t. You be happy. I want
you to be happy. I’ll be happy if you are.”
Billy: “I’m so lost inside. I wish that I could get out. I don’t think I ever will.”
Nathaniel: “Maybe some of that attention you never got will motivate you to get off your lazy
and do something interesting with your life.”
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Quotes from Six Feet Under
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Nikolai: “Because you are the kind of woman who needs a good lover.”
Ruth: “Oh, and why is that?”
Nikolai: “Because you’re so scared of feeling. You are scared of your own heart. (he stands up) You
should have a man who can touch you there, who sees your beauty. I’m hoping he is this man for
you.”
Tracy: “[...] Why do people have to die?”
Nate: “To make life important. None of us know how long we’ve got, which is why we have to
make each day matter, and it sounds like your aunt Lillian did exactly that.”
Tracy: „Yes, she did.“
Nate: “Then you can be happy for her... for a life well-lived. That’s the most any of us can hope
for.”
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Quotes from Six Feet Under
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In the Game
Nate: “You know, sometimes you’ve just gotta force yourself to be active when you’re...”
Brenda: “When you’re what? You think I’m depressed?”
Nate: “Are you?”
Brenda: (quietly laughs) “Yeah. Doesn’t mean I want to talk about it.”
Nate: “Okay.”
Claire: “Did you get high?”
Gabe: “Yeah. I’m 18 years old, living in fucking California. I’m not allowed to get high?”
Ruth: “Nate, I’d like you to invite Brenda. Claire, I’d like you to invite Gabriel Dimas. And
David, if you’ve got a special friend, I’d like for him to come as well.”
David: “Why is my friend special?”
Ruth: “Alright. If you’re having sex with anyone, I’d like to meet him. Is that better?”
David: “Not really.”
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Quotes from Six Feet Under
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Ruth: “Do you have a headache?”
Nate: “No, I read somewhere that you should take an aspirin a day. It keeps the blood thin.”
David: “Please, if our blood were any thinner, we’d evaporate.”
Ruth: “What’s that supposed to mean? Was supposed to be some sort of insult, we’re thinblooded?”
David: “Mom, no, it was a joke. I’m more thin-blooded than any of us, probably.”
Nate: “I miss you.”
Brenda: “You just saw me.”
Nate: “I know. I’d just really like to be with you this moment in time. Right now.”
Nate: “Sure. ... So, cardboard box, huh? Classy.”
Rico: “Well, she obviously didn’t think her life was worth anything, so it makes sense to me. [...]”
Nate: “It’s kind of sad.”
Rico: “It’s not. She threw her fuckin’ life away. It’s not sad. It’s pathetic.”
Nate: “Uh. Shouldn’t I wait for you to start a new game?”
Life: “This game ain’t never gonna end.”
Death: “You’re either in the game or you’re out.”
Nathaniel: “All that lives lives forever. Only the shell, the perishable, passes away. The spirit is
without end. Eternal. Deathless.”
Claire: “This is really boring.”
Manager: “How very, very brightly indeed!”
Gabe: “No, it’s hilarious, is what it is.”
Claire: “Gabe, a girl died.”
Gabe: “So what? Everybody dies.”
Brenda: “Not tonight, okay? I’m having enough trouble just being with myself right now. I’m
sorry, it’s not you. It’s me. I’m fucked up. You can’t fix it.
Out, out brief candle
Brenda: “That’s the thing about depression: if you really allow yourself to feel it, it gets very
boring very fast.”
Dave: “Don’t you watch the news?”
Nate: “Not if I can help it. It’s too depressing.”
Mitzi: “You’re a runner, huh? It’s bad for your knees.”
Nate: “Yeah, well, everything’s bad for something.”
Josh: “I was so young. Why me?”
Nate: “Well, why the fuck not you?! What?! Did you think you were immune to this?! Everybody
dies! Everybody! What makes you so fuckin’ special?!”
Guy: “I realized I really like me. So you don’t have to!”
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Quotes from Six Feet Under
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Brenda: “Okay. Tell me I look beautiful.”
Nate: “You are beautiful.”
Brenda: “Wow. (smiles) You even mean that. Okay.”
Brenda: “I was watching Trevor and Dawn tonight, thinking they’re just so--so--so complete.
Like they have something that I will never have, ever. Either I wasn’t born with it, or it was
beaten out of me, or maybe, maybe I made myself into a self-fulfilling prophecy, and I really am a
borderline personality. Now, wouldn’t that be ironic?”
Gabe: “Fuck! Everything I touch turns to shit! Everything is shit!”
Eileen: “I’m a psychic, so, you know...”
Nate: “Wow.”
Dave: “That must be very interesting for you.”
Eileen: “It’s just more information.”
The Plan
Claire: “You know, it’s polite for the first person downstairs to make the coffee, even if that
person has a penis.”
Nate: “Well, you know, it’s also polite for the first person who uses the bathroom to spend less
than 45 minutes in there, even if that person has a vulva.”
Ruth (enters in a rush, all ready to leave): “Oh, goodness, everybody’s here.”
Dave: “With all their genitalia.”
Ruth: “Excuse me?”
Claire: “[...] and I really just thought he needed, like, I don't know...”
Gary: “You?”
Claire: “No. But someone, maybe, you know, some person on the planet who gives a fuck about
him, for once in his life. Yeah, I did think that maybe that would matter.”
Gary: “Well, it does matter. No one can ever solve someone’s life.”
Nate: „[...] It’s everywhere! When corporations try to squeeze out all the competitors, the further
management gets from labor, the more alienation there is in the workplace, and the more
meaningless all our lives become!”
Brenda: “Listen, Nate, you’ve never been with anyone long enough to know this, but there is a
certain ebb and flow that happens.”
Nate: “Well, not for everybody.”
Brenda: “It does. There will be times when you’re not attracted to me at all. It’s just a normal
ebb.”
Nate: “Well, how long does a normal ebb last?”
Brenda: “I don’t know, but I think that’s the kind of question that prolongs the standard ebb.”
Alma: “Waiting only gives you more time just to make excuses.”
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Quotes from Six Feet Under
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Nate: “You don’t think that that’s possible? What about you saying that things happen that leave
marks in people, in places, in time?”
Brenda: “That’s physics. Energy affecting matter. Talking to dead people is delusional.”
Nate: “So you definitely don’t believe in any kind of life after death?”
Brenda: “I think people live on through the people they love, and the things they do with their
lives. If they manage to do things with their lives.”
Nate: “But that’s it? That’s it? That’s all there is? There’s nothing more? There’s nothing, like,
bigger?”
Brenda: “Just energy.”
Nate: “But there isn’t a plan?”
Brenda: “No, there is definitely no plan. Just survival. Should I have ordered the salmon?”
Nate: “Uh, I don’t know. How can you live like that? I mean, what if you found out you were
going to die tomorrow?”
Brenda: “I’ve been prepared to die tomorrow since I was six years old.”
Nate: “Really?”
Brenda: “Yeah, pretty much. We never got butter.”
Nate: “Well, why since you were six?”
Brenda: “Because I read a report on the effect nuclear war would have on the world, and it was
pretty clear to me at that point that this was definitely gonna happen.”
Nate: “When you were six?”
Brenda: “And I wake up every day pretty much surprised that, uh, everything is still here.”
Nate: “Well, I don’t understand how you can live like that.”
Brenda: “Well, I thought we all did.”
Driving Mr. Mossback
Claire: “Yeah, well, sometimes coming in here talking about my life gets in the way of me having
one.”
Ruth: “[...] I’m beginning to think you don’t ever want to talk to me again, and if that’s the case,
well, we really need to talk! [...]”
Margaret: “No, no, wait, wait, wait, I’m not angry. I’m not gonna make a scene. I just need to
personalize the experience and humanize the situation. It’s for all of us.”
Margaret: “For your information, Miss High-and-Mighty, this is life. People have crises. They
push each other’s buttons. They inflict pain on one another. And once in a fucking blue moon,
they bring out the best in each other. But mostly, they bring out the worst.”
Margaret: “What life? You’ve spent 32 years being your little brother’s nursemaid...”
Brenda: “Oh, fuck you!”
Margaret: “...to avoid having any emotional life of your own. And now that he’s been put away,
you’re gonna have to face your own demons, and, sweetheart, they’re legion.”
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Quotes from Six Feet Under
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The Invisible Woman
Claire: “Your mom’s life coach?! Parker, do you have any idea what a parody of yourself you
are?”
Letters on Brendas screen: “Go ahead, write
What exactly do you have to say, that hasn’t been said before?
All you do is observe yourself.
You are incapable of anything real.”
Dave: “Try her high school. It’s on the form. Everyone has friends from high school.”
Claire: “No, they don’t. Maybe they have people they talk to, or even do things with, but they’re
not really friends. They’re just filler. ... What? It’s true.”
Dave: “Maybe Emily Previn was autistic. I read an article once about a high-functioning autistic
person who didn’t need people. She just had a job designing these big cattle slaughterhouses, and,
at night, she came home and sat in this little machine that made her feel like she was being
hugged. And that was all the intimacy she needed.”
Nate: “That’s really upsetting.”
Claire: “I don’t see why this person has to be mentally ill just because she had a life that doesn’t
conform to some familiar image we have in our heads. I mean, maybe she was living the life she
wanted. A life without the hassle of other people.”
Keith: “Then you’ll lie awake for hours and hours, wondering why life is so hard! That’s what the
rest of us do.”
Taylor: “That sounds boring.”
Keith: “You get used to it.”
Brenda: “[...] You know, it’s just so sad that you can love somebody so much and have absolutely
no idea what’s going on in their head. Relationships are fucked.”
Ruth: “I hope so. But what if some nights she wanted to talk to someone and she picked up the
telephone and realized she didn’t have anyone she could call, what then?”
Gary: “Because I see you getting your life together and it scares you, so you want to slip into the
old, familiar habit of focusing on someone else’s drama, instead of concentrating on yourself.
You need to stop doing that.”
Father Jack: “[...] Everyone comes into our life for a reason, and it is our responsibility to learn
what they have to teach us. [...]”
Nate: “Strange, but somehow I feel like Emily won. She remains a fucking question mark right
up to the bitter end. [...]”
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Quotes from Six Feet Under
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In Place of Anger
Sarah: “I met Vollhoffer at a party once, and he came on to me. But I’d just dropped acid for the
first time and I thought he was some Mayan death priest who wanted to cut out my heart and
throw it into a pit. So I blew him off.”
Sarah: “You’re an artist, Claire.”
Claire: “Oh, please.”
Sarah: “I’m not saying you’re any good... yet. But if you focus and live fully, you could become
something. If you’re lucky and don’t self-destruct.”
Claire: “Right.”
Sarah: “You’ve got an eye. You see through the veil. Oh, it’s a blessing and a curse.”
Sarah: “[...] She needs feedback, even if it’s just so she can learn to ignore it. [...]”
Nate: “You know, I keep thinking it’s going to get easier, but it just doesn’t.”
David: “No, it doesn’t. It just gets more familiar.”
Nate: “Can you imagine hating someone that much and staying with them for 20 years?
Brenda: “What makes you think people stay together because it makes them happy?”
Back to the Garden
Melissa: “Okay, please don’t tell me you’re one of those couples that likes to bicker in front of
the company until it gets uncomfortable and I have to leave and you guys fuck?”
Rabbi Ari: “You must be really scared.”
Nate: “Yeah, I’m going to die.”
Rabbi Ari: “Yeah, me too.”
Nate: “Really, what do you have?”
Rabbi Ari: “A body.”
David: “You can’t be perfect all the time, Keith.”
Keith: “That’s what life’s about... striving for perfection.”
David: “And when that fails, accepting ourselves for being imperfect.”
Keith: “Not in my book.”
Nate: “Hey, I don’t even know what a soulmate is, do you?”
Rabbi Ari: “The person that makes you be the most ‘you’ that you could possibly be. ... Maybe
your soulmate is the person who forces your soul to grow the most. Not all growth feels good.”
Sarah: “You know, I think she hides inside of herself because she’s so afraid we’ll reject her… so
let’s don’t, okay? She’s had enough heartache for one lifetime.”
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It’s most wonderful time in this world
Ruth: “David?”
David: “You can put me down for one.”
Ruth: “But what about Keith? Aren’t the two of you, uh...”
David: “Yes, we’re having healthy, affection-based sex on a regular basis. Twice a day
sometimes!”
Claire: “Okay, if you were a gay mortician, what would you want for Christmas?”
Toby: “Um, a new life?”
Marilyn: “Jesse never liked to have a fuss made over him. He always said that when his time
comes, just set him out by the curb on trash day.”
Claire: “I know. And you can’t even go anywhere that isn’t decked out with like candy canes and
Santa heads and shit. It’s all so phony! I think in hell it’s always Christmas!”
Nathaniel, Sr.: “Me neither. Not many people can say that, you know? And mean it.”
Nate: “Yup. I guess we’ve got a lot to be thankful for.”
Nathaniel, Sr.: “Either that or we’ve lowered our expectations so much we’ve given up on
anything better than this.”
Saleswoman: “Anything I can help you with?”
Brenda: “Yes, I’m looking for clothes so expensive only an idiot would buy them. Oh, there they
are!”
Melissa: “Does this mean you have, uh, maybe some mixed feelings about marrying Nate?”
Brenda: “No. No, seriously, that’s not it at all. I think it’s just natural biological drive at work.
The need to sample as diverse a selection of people as possible before settling down with one
mate. It's normal.“
Nate: “Then why do you treat me like shit all the time?”
Brenda: “Because I had a really fucked-up life and I use sarcasm to hide how ridiculously
vulnerable I really am, okay? Come on, Jesus, you know that.”
Nate: “So, I guess you’re happy to be home.”
Billy: “Oh, ‘happy’’s a concept I try not to buy into. It just gets me into trouble.”
Billy: “I love it when people who really should get married do. Doesn’t happen that often, you
know?”
Nate: “You’re probably wishing he treated himself as carefully.”
Marilyn: “Oh, honey, it just wasn’t in his blood. If he were a careful man, he might have lived
longer, but... would he have enjoyed his life as much? Would I have enjoyed his life as much?”
Brenda: “[...] Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
Nate: “I didn’t want to be a burden.”
17

Quotes from Six Feet Under
put together by Oxymoron
Someone else’s eyes
Brenda: “I’m marrying you because I love you. Because you’re the first man that I thought I
could actually stand to spend the rest of my life with... or the rest of your life, if it’s tragically cut
short or whatever. You’re not some car I want to trade in because it has faulty transmission.
Jesus, do you really think I’m that shallow?”
Nate: “Of course not.”
Brenda: “All we have is this moment. Right here, right now. The future’s just a fucking concept
that we use to avoid being alive today. So, be... here... now.”
Nate: “It’s a marriage, it’s a sacred occasion. You’d rather have just some fucking civil servant
there?”
Brenda: “Well, personally, I think the two of us should be enough to make it sacred.”
David: “Maybe you should talk to your doctor about medication.”
Keith: “Yeah, drugs, that’s the answer.”
David. “You’re right, choosing to suffer when you don’t have to, that’s much more constructive.
Idiot.”
Claire: “Oh, we made up. I figured it was better to have a total loser for a friend than to have no
friends at all.”
Ruth: “I pity you, Claire. You are under the mistaken impression that life owes you something.
Well, you are in for some very harsh surprises.”
Louis: “Of all the lies we’re fed on which we gorge in our comfort-addicted world, none is more
insidious than the lie of romance, the seductive but infantile notion that somewhere there exists
someone to complement us in every way. Someone who will make us complete. Of course, this
illusion keeps us from ever being complete in and of ourselves, and eventually encourages us to
despise our shortcomings, our flaws, everything in which our humanity lies. Our humanity,
without which, of course, we are nothing.”
Billy: “What you don’t know is you’re going to be 18 for the rest of your life.”
Billy: “[...] And I think it really is impossible for somebody to see themselves. You need someone
else’s eyes. I need somebody else to see me.”
Billy: “[...] That’s the thing about Narcissus. It’s not that he’s so in love with himself, because he
isn’t at all. Fucking hates himself. It’s that without that reflection looking back at him, he doesn’t
exist.”
Brenda: “[...] It’s about... it’s about me not being outside myself, for once. Not watching, not
analyzing every goddamn moment as it happens. Not holding back. Just becoming... just
becoming pure sensation. Becoming energy. Just becoming nature!”
18

Quotes from Six Feet Under
put together by Oxymoron
The Secret
Lisa: “When I die, I want to be one big mess. That’s what life is, messy.”
Dr. Michaelson: “I don’t know how much you know of this issue, but obviously it involves the
sublimation of emotions that are too painful to address. It’s the root of all addiction, really.”
Nate: “You know, I’ve read all this stuff about Buddhism, but it never stays with me. I just know
that everything is nothing.”
David: “Is that it? I thought it was nothing is everything.”
Nate: “That’s the same thing, isn’t it?”
David: “Because, if you aren’t, things come up, and you have no idea how big the thing’s gonna
be. It’s like this constant negotiation. You can never just relax. Is that just a phase or is it always
going to be like that?”
Nate: “Don’t ask me. Look, I have no fucking idea. Maybe that’s just what a relationship is.
Constantly doing things you have absolutely no desire to do.”
David: “You can’t just schedule things without asking me first. That’s not what couples do.”
Keith: “How would you know what couples do?”
David: “I watch TV. Or at least I used to when I had a comfortable chair to sit in!”
Brenda: “[...] Anyway, they invited me, you know, to go with them, and I thought, now, this
would be crossing a line. Which I seem to be doing more and more these days, because you know
what? The lines are only in our heads. In actuality, there are no lines at all, which is really fucking
terrifying, if you think about it.”
Claire: “I’m not really, like, want-to-go-to-sleep tired. I’m just sort of like sick and tired of
everything.”
Ruth: “What do you mean?”
Claire: “Just like all the lies we’re fed. And the bullshit we’re supposed to care about, and how
like everybody is so scared of anything that’s different from like everything else. [...]”
The Liar and the Whore
Claire: “Let me sleep late. It’s the last enjoyment I’ll know before I become another cog in the
wheel making mocha lattes for the people who have a life.”
Brenda: “Okay. Can I just say that I think total honesty is not always the best thing? You know,
what about privacy? What about trying to maintain the mystery of a relationship? And sometimes
truth is irrelevant.”
Gary: “She’s the kind of person that needs her life to be meaningful. I’m sure you know this
better than I do.”
Ruth: “No, I don’t feel as though I do. ... And by the way, who doesn’t need their life to be
meaningful?”
Gary: “You’d be surprised.“
Rabbi Ari: “All of our actions have consequences. We may not even be aware of them, but they
exist nevertheless.”
19

Quotes from Six Feet Under
put together by Oxymoron
Nate: “The funeral is really for the people you leave behind to help them come to terms...”
Aaron Buchbinder: “What if you’re not leaving anybody behind? ... What if your whole fucking
life has been one big waste of time for everybody, including yourself?”
Nate: “You don’t know that.”
Aaron Buchbinder: “Hey. I’m all for thinning out the human race. There are just too many
fucking people.”
Karla: “People don’t change. They just get older. That’s all.”
Claire: “See, if we live our lifes the right way then every single thing we do becomes a work of art.
[...] And that’s the whole fucking problem with the world right now. It’s that we don’t try to be
creative with every single thing we do.”
Keith: “Look, I am not ambivalent about wanting kids.”
David: “Then you’re ambivalent about wanting kids with me.”
Keith: “Of course not. I just want to be ready.”
David: “Life doesn’t work that way. It just dumps things in your lap and then you try to make the
best of it.”
Ruth: “Well, maybe it’s for the best.”
Nate: “Or maybe it’s not for the best. Maybe it just is. And now I just have to live with it.”
I’ll take you
David: “Letting her know that we love her for who she is builds trust.”
Aaron: “I mean, yeah, I had girlfriends. Relationships. But I’d be in something for whatever, like
two months, two years and then it would just get too... too... Nothing. Just ‘too’. I’d start
thinking, ‘I don’t like this about her, and I don’t like this about her.’ And then I would start to
feel this thing on the back of my neck, just like one of those SuperBalls, and it would just throb
with the word ‘Leave. Leave. Leave.’ And so I would. And the second I got my life back, the ball
would disappear. ... I suffer from that American thing big time. You know, always looking around
for someone better. Shopping.”
Nate: “I think a lot of people go through that.”
Aaron: “No, they don’t, man. Okay? They don’t. Most people just pick someone.”
Social Worker: “I’ll need to have a conversation with your supervisors about your work and so
forth.”
David: “Well, I’m my own supervisor. I’m a business owner.”
Social Worker: “Okay.”
David: “And, as my supervisor, I’d like to say that David Fisher is a great person and great to
work with.”
Bernard Chenowith: “I say, if life offers you a new beginning, take it.”
20

Quotes from Six Feet Under
put together by Oxymoron
Claire: “You’re looking at me weird... What?”
Billy: “You are so... That I just wanna reach over and... But I also want to do nothing... because I
wanna make sure I know you for as long as I possibly can without fucking it up... which is, like,
my special superpower. That’s why I don’t want to touch you... And that’s pretty much verbatim,
moment for moment, what I was thinking when I was looking at you with the weirdness. ... I’m
sorry I made you uncomfortable. ... You’ll never be able to see yourself the way other people see
you. The way I see you. Which is a shame. Because you are... I really think you have no idea how
beautiful you are.”
Nate: “Life doesn’t have to be miserable just because you are. I know, weird shit happened to
you. You know what? It happened to all of us. And I am sick to death of you using it as an
excuse to act like some fucking cunt from hell.”
Brenda: “Wow. ... How long have you hated me like this, Nate?”
Nate: “I don’t need to hate you. You do a pretty damn good job of hating yourself.”
Brenda: “[...] The truth is, you’d run from real love if it ever came at you.”
Nate: “Real love? What the fuck do you know about real love?”
Brenda: “Yeah, real love. With the shit and the neediness and the ugliness and the responsibility.
[...]“
The Last Time
Brenda: “I don’t wanna be one of those horrible people that walks around in pain all the time.”
Scot: “What about when you are in pain?”
Brenda: “I choose not to be.”
Scott: “What’s so bad about a little pain?”
Brenda: “I feel like it’ll kill me.”
Scott: “It won’t.”
Nate: “Is Father Jack doing your service?”
David: “No, but that’s just because I don’t want to give him the wrong idea.”
Nate: “What kind of idea is he going to get when you’re dead?”
David: “I don’t know, I just don’t want him cruising me in the afterlife.”
Claire: “And everyone says you get out of college what you put into it, anyway, so...”
Nate: “I just didn’t want to worry you.”
Ruth: “You’re not supposed to protect me. I’m supposed to protect you.”
Nate: “But you can’t. You can’t protect me from this.”
Ruth: “I know. But I can try. That’s what a mother does. She tries to protect you, and most of
the time, she fails, but it’s the trying that makes you feel loved.”
21

Quotes from Six Feet Under
put together by Oxymoron
Perfect Circles
Nate: “Would you hurry up? I don’t wanna be late for my funeral.”
Nathaniel, Sr.: “Relax, you’ve got plenty of time. Hell, you’ve got nothing but time! Which
doesn’t exist anyway, so…”
Brenda: “Oh, great, he’s got the hiccups again!”
Nate: “So shake him and scream in his face! ... What? The world is a hostile and terrifying place.
He needs to learn that.”
Man: “So. The universe has split in two.”
Woman: “Two? Try two billion!”
Woman: “What’s gonna happen to us?”
Man: “There, there.”
Man: “We always end up a universe in which we exist. Remember Copenhagen?”
Women: “Ah, yes! The Eigenvalues in bloom!”
Man: “You just keep telling yourself everything that can happen, does…somewhere.”
22

Quotes from Six Feet Under
put together by Oxymoron
Nate: “Just tell me. Am I dead? Yes. Or No.”
Nathaniel, Sr.: “Yes. ... And no. ... Some places you’re dead, some places you’re alive. Some
places you never even existed. Possibly, theoretically. Or who knows, this could just be the
anesthesia talking.”
Nate: “[...] Look, I swear, when you live with a baby, you get to see the world as being totally new
all over again. They’re just so pure and uncorrupted. It’s a fuckin’ privilege. [...]”
Carol: “You really amaze me, Lisa.”
Lisa: “Why?”
Carol: “Your energy, it’s boundless. You should be bottled as an alternative energy source. You
would save the world, I’m serious.”
Nate: “Yeah, I mean, it’s just about a year ago I got engaged. Remember that? You know, I
thought I loved Brenda, or maybe I thought I could just make it work out of sheer will. But, you
just never know. You have no fucking idea what life has in store for you.”
Nate: “It’s just…I don’t know.”
Lisa: “What?”
Nate: “I don’t like knowing that my whole existence is any accident. It’s just too
fucking…random.”
Lisa: “Yeah, but that’s the way it happened. Things happen the way they’re meant to, Nate.”
Nate: “See, there’s a kind of fatalism in that that I just don’t buy.”
Lisa: “Well, what’s the alternative?”
Nate: “We make choices.”
You never know
Claire: “I got a bottle of champagne with my friend, Parker, and we climbed the fence to school,
and we just sat in the quad, and got drunk, and said good fucking bye to high school.”
Phil: “Nice!”
Claire: “Then we both totally started crying.”
Phil: “Why?”
Claire: “I don’t know. I guess we were like saying goodbye to our childhood, or whatever. It just
seemed sad.”
Phil: “Yeah?”
Claire: “I mean, I hated fucking high school, but still, it was my life. And it was all I knew, and it
was just over. [...]”
Claire: “[...] You keep distracting me.”
Phil: “I keep distracting you?”
Claire: “Yeah, my hands are like magnetically drawn to your dick!”
Russell: “That’s cool. Not even my imaginary friends understand me. ... Or maybe they do. They
just don’t like me.”
Claire: “I think you need better imaginary friends.”
Russell: “No. I think they’re the best I can do.”
23

Quotes from Six Feet Under
put together by Oxymoron
Claire: “Well, I hope it could go both ways. If you’re dating anyone, you can totally talk to me.”
Russell: “Thanks, but, no, I’m not dating. No dating. Um, I think I’m kind of allergic, actually. I
start itching and swell up and bleed profusely. ... But no, it sounds really nice, having somebody
in your life that makes you hate yourself less. I could use that.”
David: “Even so, I would think having a baby adds so much stress.”
Nate: “No, actually, having a baby helps put everything in perspective.”
David: “Jesus Christ, Federico! I’m really getting sick of all this moral superiority! Everything is
so goddamn black and white for you.”
Rico: “You know what? I just think...”
David: “You can’t ever really know a person. If you think you can, you’re living in a fucking
dream world.”
The Eye inside
Bettina: “Lucky, unlucky. I don’t know. I’m unlucky I ran through three husbands. I’m lucky I
got to retire early off the insurance. I’m unlucky my son set fire to the house. I’m lucky I never
had a urinary tract infection. I don’t even care if it works out fair in the end. I’m sure it doesn’t. I
still have to haul my own ass out of bed in the morning.”
Ruth: “[...] How long would you wait to call the person to set up another date?”
Phil: “Who called who first?”
[...]
Ruth: “[...] I did originally.”
Phil: “Wait. It’s his turn. It’s really bad to be, like, begging for it.”
Olivier: “[...] But go now, so we don’t have to deal with ambivalence in this room. Ambivalence
is poison for art. [...]”
Olivier: “Because you’re using Kandinsky’s language here. It’s the same with most of these
drawings. We despise ourselves so much that we consider our own point of view as trivial, but
that’s bullshit! [...]”
Olivier: “Okay, that’s exactly what I’m saying. She sees 50 paintings by Hopper, she starts to
draw like him, because it’s easier than drawing from the eye inside.”
Russell: “Yeah, but artists get influenced by art. That’s part of the process.”
Olivier: “Until you locate the inside eye, it’s all bullshit. It’s like a coloring book. Every work you
make has to be a surprise to the Earth, a seeing that never happened before. Because it’s what
happens when exactly what is inside of you confronts exactly what is outside of you.”
David: “Well, I’m sorry, but sometimes I just get exhausted by the running commentary in my
head all day long about how to be. ‘Is this shirt too tight?’ ‘Is that gesture too flamboyant?’ ‘Who
am I offending just by being here?’ Maybe you’re beyond all that, but I would’ve thought you’d at
least understand.”
24

Quotes from Six Feet Under
put together by Oxymoron
Olivier: “Can you see why this is good?”
Russell: “Because it’s in her own language.”
Olivier: “Yes, but the way I tell if something is good is…does it make me want to throw up? ...
This drawing instantly makes me feel nauseous. You can tell if something is truthful, even if you
don’t understand it, if it affects your body. Your liver and your bowels are more important as an
artist than your eyes, because they are so far away from your brain.”
Claire: “I don’t know. I think it seems kind of obvious.”
Olivier: “Because you’re embarrassed by yourself. In the beginning, if you hate something, it’s
good, because you don’t recognize the beauty of your own truth. You’re used to being a normal,
pathetic human who does only what other people want. But what the other people really want is
to fuck you and to make money off of you and to hang you in the living room with the fancy
security system. [...]”
Nobody sleeps
Kevin: “It was cardiomyopathy. Enlarged heart. His heart was too big. We used to joke about it.
It was caused by a severely leaking heart valve. We used to joke about that too. Bleeding heart.”
Bettina: “So why didn’t you?”
Ruth: “I don’t know. I was afraid.”
Bettina: “I think if you’re afraid of something it probably means you should do it.”
Rico: “Yeah, right! You know what I’ve been noticing a lot lately? A lot of guys coming in with
their balls shaved. What’s that all about?”
David: “Actually, it makes them more sensitive. You know, for oral stimulation? ... Besides, no
one likes getting pubic hair stuck in their teeth. ... Do you want to ask me if I shave my balls?”
Rico: “Uh, no, not really.”
David: “No, I’m happy to tell you. I am. And I do…shave. Have to. Lotta hair down there. Keith
doesn’t…have to. Anything else you want to know? Now is the time.”
Rico: “Nope. I’m good.”
Olivier: “Why don’t you two join us?”
Claire: “Seriously?”
Olivier: “Claire, an artist never questions her right to experience everything the world has to
offer. Never.”
Olivier: “And why are you an artist?”
Claire: “Um, because…because I have, um…a lot of pain.”
Olivier: “Good. Good. Pain is good for an artist.”
Olivier: “And why are you an artist?”
Russell: “Because I don’t have a fucking choice. If I can’t create art, I don’t want to live.”
Nate: “Does this party seem a little weird to you?”
David: “On a scale of 1 to 10? 90!”
25

Quotes from Six Feet Under
put together by Oxymoron
Olivier: “Would I lie to you? I might. But who gives a fuck? The world is gonna love you. That’s
why, no matter what, you cannot care what other people think.”
Russell: “No, I don’t. I don’t care what other people think.”
Olivier: “Phony baloney, ka-ka shit! Everybody your age cares what other people think. You
don’t even know what you think yourself.”
Olivier: “And God created beauty, and then he retired.”
Claire: “It’s so weird.”
Russell: “What?”
Claire: “I mean, every single person at our school thinks they’re gonna be successful, right?
Otherwise they wouldn’t even be doing this.”
Russell: “Yeah.”
Claire: “But I mean…what is success? Is it just money? Or fame? Or is it, like, the critics, loving
you? Or is it…is it you knowing that you’ve done good work? Or what?”
Claire: “God. I feel like such a phony.”
Russell: “No, you’re fucking brilliant.”
Claire: “Because I can’t imagine ever being this dedicated or this consumed by anything.”
Russell: “Maybe you just haven’t found whatever it is that’s worth cutting off an ear for.”
Claire: “I would never cut off my fucking ear! Never!”
Russell: “Van Gogh did it for love.”
Claire: “He did it because he was totally insane!”
Russell: “Well, it’s only an ear. You know, it’s not like he couldn’t hear out of it. I mean, there
was still a hole there!”
Kevin: “I never thought that I’d be in a relationship… at all. I thought I didn’t have what it takes,
that no one could possibly love me enough to… stick around. ... But Bob did. He stuck around.
And so did I. And for 22 years, we shared our hearts, our bodies, our souls. ... It wasn’t always
easy, it wasn’t always fun. But it was always worth it. I don’t know what I did in a previous life,
but to quote Julie Andrews as Maria Von Trapp, ‘it must have been something good’, because
I’ve been rewarded a thousand fold in this life.”
Claire: “We went out afterwards, me, Russell, and our teacher, and then this artist, and I’m not
even sure what happened, but I just had this, like, glimpse of what might be possible, and for
whatever reason, the world just seemed like really open and interesting and not totally screwed
up. And I don’t know. I don’t know. I just felt really happy.”
The Trap
Arthur: “My Aunt Perl gave up everything for me. She home-schooled me.”
Rico: “Yeah, yeah, you seem a little... home-schooled.”
Brenda: “Being alone is the prison. Just thinking about yourself, just being trapped in this fucking
vortex of always watching yourself, which I suppose is okay, if you’re interesting. The truth is,
nobody’s that interesting.”
26

Quotes from Six Feet Under
put together by Oxymoron
Olivier: “No, no, no, no. I had had my first real success and all eyes were on me, what was I
going to do next? I was a coward. I focused on another person. I could have been great. So can
you. If you get lonely, have sex. But if you meet somebody who you think means something to
you, you’re doomed.”
David: “I don’t know why things should have to be so hard for people.”
Terry: “I think just because we make them that way.”
Tom: “Don’t give me that shit. You are so fucking trapped.”
Nate: “Yeah?”
Tom: “Yeah.”
Nate: “Well, who isn’t? The only way not to be trapped is to not have anything.”
Tom: “You look me in the eye and tell me sometimes you don’t want to get in your car and just
start driving and never look back. Come on. I dare you.”
Making Love work
Todd: “But realizing, you know, everything has happened in my life, so I could be ready for this.”
Nate: “Yeah, it’s like your heart is outside your body and you can see it for the first time.”
Todd: “And knowing that all of it, all of it, it’s all been about her.”
Nate: “Yes. God Yes. I feel the exact same way about Maya.”
Todd: “No, I was talking about Dana.”
Russell: “[...] I mean, how can you grow as an artist if you don’t have the freedom to fail now and
then?”
Claire: “I failed.”
Russell: “No, he likes yours.”
Claire: “Really? Because that wasn’t that clear to me.”
Russell: “Fuck it. What difference does it make? The world’s gonna be blown to smithereens any
day now.”
Olivier: “And why do you even give a shit?”
Russell: “Because you’re my teacher and I respect you.”
Olivier: “Don’t you fuckin’ respect me. I’m an idiot, see? I’m not God. Don’t you ever respect
anyone except your fuckin’ self.”
Claire: “That’s gross.”
Ruth: “It’s just a hanky.”
Claire: “I know, and hankies are gross. I mean, first of all, the word is gross. ‘Hanky’.”
Ruth: “It’s just a word.”
Claire: “And second of all, hankies themselves are gross. A snot-covered rag that sits in your
pocket all day.”
Ruth: “That could be fine.”
Claire: “Take it out, don’t know where the snot is, it could be anywhere. Put it back in your
pocket and save it for later. I mean, Mom, not all progress is bad. There’s Kleenex, hello.”
27

Quotes from Six Feet Under
put together by Oxymoron
Timing and Space
Nate: “So how about it, can you watch Maya for me today? Twenty bucks.”
Claire: “I can’t.”
Nate: “Well, why not?”
Claire: “Russell and I are going to the art store.”
Nate: “Claire?”
Nate: “Nate? You know this isn’t the matrix. The rest of us who don’t have babies, we’re real.”
Marvin: “So let it be said of me when I am gone. He lived by the light of the ten thousand things.
His heart, starry sparks, was thus sustained. Love and meaning passed through him and fled to
carry joy from dark to dark, was joy enough for him. The man is dead.”
Billy: “I just have some pictures. This first one is of Dad and me in the backyard standing next to
my hole to China. I was five years old, trying to dig a hole to China. He never ever told me I
couldn’t actually get to China. He just kept digging with me until I got bored. It was a good day.”
Brenda: “Watching him die.”
Nate: “Yeah.”
Brenda: “Was like watching somebody get washed out to see, only they’re sitting right there in
bed. A wave comes, takes them a little away. Another wave comes, takes them a little away. Every
wave is a day. Little by little, off they... off they go. Can I tell you something?”
Nate: “Sure.”
Brenda: “I don’t want to put you in a weird position.”
Nate: “I’m already in a weird position. I live my whole life in a weird position.”
Brenda: “I missed you. Through this.”
Nate: “I missed you too. I mean, it’s not I don’t know how much being with you changed me.
How much you woke me up as a person. I wouldn’t be who I am today if I’d never met you. [...]”
Brenda: “You changed me too.”
Nate: “Yeah, how so?”
Brenda: “You’re the first person I’ve lost, where it really cost me something. That’s why I haven’t
been with anyone since.”
Nate: “No one?”
Brenda: “It’s too scary, that I’ll go screwing it all up again.”
Nate: “Yeah, you’ll find somebody.”
Brenda: “That is so not the answer. You know what I think?”
Nate: “About what?”
Brenda: “I don’t know, about life.”
Nate: “What?”
Brenda: “I think it’s all about timing. I think timing is everything.”
Nate: “I think you might be right.”
Russell: “[...] I have a theory that every now and then a person should get what they want when
they want it. It keeps you optimistic.”
Claire: “Good theory, but I’ve never been optimistic, so.”
Russell: “Well, maybe it’s time to start.“
28

Quotes from Six Feet Under
put together by Oxymoron
Tears, Bones & Desire
Olivier: “There isn’t one person in this country who knows how to fuck. Cause real fucking
would overthrow your government, real fucking would sent Americans screaming into the
streets.”
Olivier: “Bullshit. You’re 18, what’s wrong with you? Where’s sexuality? Ha? You should be
consumed with sex. Everything that happens should make you wanna fuck. Your flesh should be
on fire all the time.”
Brenda: “I was working on your hara. That’s the seat of mind-body power. [...] There are placed
we store trauma, tension. Our selves know what we go through. Our bodies remember.
Sometimes just a little pressure then tears.”
Lisa: “[...] You look sad.”
Brenda: “I’m not so lucky. Not lately. But I wouldn’t change anything.”
Lisa: “No?”
Brenda: “No. Well, if you change one thing, that changes everything. And some things are the
way should be.”
Woman: “And this is what Daddy wants us to know: ‘I depart as air. I shake my white locks at
the runaway sun. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love. If you want me
again, look for me under your boot soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean but I
shall be good health to you nevertheless. Missing me one place? Search another. I stop
somewhere. Waiting for you.’”
The Opening
Claire: “Olivier, do you think I should have priced my photograph higher?”
Olivier: “You two with the price tag and the placement. It’s disgusting. 20 years old, you should
wanna give your work away. Nobody in this country is born with a soul. It has to be beaten into
you.”
Rico: “Was she depressed?”
Husband: “For years, yeah.”
Rico: “What was she like? [...]”
Husband: “It was like those tribes or whatever, they think if you take their picture, they’ll lose
their spirit. It was like her spirit got stolen, and all that was left was this body that she didn’t even
want any more.”
Billy: “How you doing?”
Brenda: “OK. ... I’m sick of being so fucking conscious all the time. It’s like I’m this incredibly
boring, watered-down version of myself.”
Claire: “Wasn’t that sort of a fucked-up power dynamic, though?”
Billy: “There’s always a fucked-up power dynamic in sex, isn’t there?”
Nate: “That sounds like an improvement.”
Brenda: “Yeah. It’s my new thing. I won’t take care of anyone else so I’ll be forced to take care of
myself. Theoretically.”
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Rico: “She did it because he left her.”
Nate: “Yeah. It’s depressing how deluded people are about what love is.”
Brenda: “I can’t believe how much money I’ve spent fucking up my life.”
Everybody leaves
Claire: “I wonder how much of art really is accidental.”
Olivier: “He could have at least made the effort to slam the door. Young people have absolutely
no commitment today.”
Arthur: “I love intimacy. Intimacy is my best friend.”
Russell: “Claire, I need to tell you something.”
Claire: “The words every woman longs to hear.”
Billy: “We’re so damaged, Bren. We can go about our lives and pretend everything’s gonna be
OK, but it never will be, ever.”
Brenda: “That’s not true. We’re getting better, both of us.”
Billy: “You are. I’m not.”
Brenda: “Come on, you know you are.”
Billy: “I really don’t feel like I am.”
Brenda: “Those are just feelings.”
Ruth: “I miss him too. There will never be another man who will love me when I’m young and
pretty and always have that picture of me somewhere in his heart.”
Ruth: “But the real question is, why do you like them?”
Claire: “It’s like I’ll fall for any guy who shows any interest in me.”
Ruth: “I guess we all wanna be loved. It’s hard to say no to that, no matter who it’s coming
from.”
Nate: “It’s scary to hope things will turn out good because then you’re taking the risk of being
disappointed of they don’t.”
Death works overtime
Olivier: “You sit in such judgement of the world. How do you expect to ever be a part of it?”
Claire: “I don’t wanna be part of your world, where you get to be a manipulative loser who fucks
his students.”
Olivier: “What do you wanna be, Claire, ha? An uptight puritan who’s not even in her own body?
Or a brilliant artist with blood and a heart and a cunt?”
Olivier: “And when are you going to get over the fact that if you take a chance, you might fall flat
on your face? But that’s the best thing that can ever happen to you, as an artist and as a human
being.”
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Twilight
David: “You don’t really like me. You’re not for me. I look at you, Keith, and all I think about is
how I can help you be whatever it is you wanna be between now and the day that you die. You
look at me and all you see are problems.”
Keith: “That’s not true.”
David: “I’m so fucking sick of it. God! Why should I stand for this? Why should this constant
abuse be what I call love?”
Ruth: “Get the cordless. I’ll help you make sure it stays charged.”
George: “It’s a deal.”
Nurse: “I see you chose Twilight.”
Claire: “I don’t know.”
Nurse: “The sedation.”
Claire: “Oh. Yeah.”
Nurse: “That’s Twilight. You’re not really gone but you’re not really here.”
Claire: “That sounds good.”
David: “I’m so bored of this kind of unhappiness. I think I’m ready for some new unhappiness.”
David: “So, I don’t know, shouldn’t my life be, better?”
Father Jack: “Truth and relationships don’t make life better, David, they make life possible.”
David: “So do you think I should stay with Keith?”
Father Jack: “I think you should do whatever brings you deeper into the reality of your life.”
David: “The reality of my life.”
Father Jack: “Yes, but not the life you think you can have, the life you’ve got.”
Nate: “I wanted to love you, I did love you. And I just felt like we were beginning to... I know we
were, I know it, I know it in my heart. And I just feel like I had this once-in-a-lifetime chance and
I fucked it up.”
Lisa: “Nate, I’m not a chance, I’m a person.”
I'm sorry, I'm lost
David: “Mom, maybe with Lisa and everything...”
Ruth: “Life doesn’t stop, all right? We didn’t die. We have this precious gift of life and it’s so
terribly fleeting and that is precisely why it’s important to keep on living, to not give up hope.”
Ruth: “George, I don’t wanna wait. I feel like I’ve spent my entire life waiting.”
George: “Then let’s not wait.”
David: “The day after tomorrow? They don’t even know each other. Although maybe that’s the
best time to marry someone, otherwise you’d never do it. ... How are you holding up through all
this?”
Claire: “Not that good.”
David: “How wanna talk about it?”
Claire: “How can I? With Lisa just gone and Nate’s like totaly losing it. I feel like I don’t really
have a right to have my own problems.”
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Joe: “Well, we could do dinner, later tonight. There’s a Korean barbecue nearby just opened up.”
Brenda: “I don’t really think that’s...”
Joe: “Think of it as lunch in another time zone.”
Claire: “I wish I could have helped you more.”
Gabe: “Claire, c’mon, there was nothing anybody could do. Life just ... wasn’t the right
environment for me.”
Claire: “But don’t you miss it?”
Gabe: “No, not really. Actually, I like it better here.”
David: “I believe we should do the right thing but not because we’ll gonna be rewarded in
heaven. It’s just like bravery.”
Keith: “No, we should do the right thing because we can do the right thing and we choose to do
the right thing, even if it’s gonna make life harder, which it often does.”
Brenda: “The oddest part is that I actually returned with the intention of reconnecting with my
family, and then within a matter of months I’m in this place where, without saying too much
again and scaring you...”
Joe: “Say whatever you want.”
Brenda: “I, I actually have no one. I don’t think I’ve ever been so by myself. But, believe it or
not, I’m not lonely.”
Keith: “I mean, you were born in this business. He actually chose it.”
David: “See, you’re picking on me again.”
Keith: “I was not, I was picking on him.”
David: “And me, adjacently.”
Keith: “Adjacently is not a word.”
David: „See, that’s picking“.
Keith: “I was not picking, I was teasing. It’s my style. You’re picking on my style.”
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Falling into place
George: “Look. You’ve lived your life one way, I’ve lived mine another. The costs are different.
But I can tell you this: Every day when I wake up, I’m glad that I’m alive, and if people don’t like
the way I’ve done things, that’s their business. But right now, I’m so very happy I’ve found you.
And I’m looking forward, not back.”
Lisa: “When I die, I don’t want any of that stuff in me.”
Nate: “Yeah, I don’t blame you.”
Lisa: “No, I’m serious. I don’t want to be chemicalised and boxed up. I just want to be taken out
to some open space in the forest somewhere, buried right in the ground. Nothing between me
and the earth that made me.”
Nate: “You don’t want to end up in a graveyard.”
Lisa: “Nate, the whole world’s a graveyard.”
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Claire: “What have you been up to?”
Russell: “Not much. Making bad art. Saying stupid things. Continuing implementation if my
master plan to be completely forgotten when I’m gone, and totally forgettable while I’m here.”
David: “Then why do we...”
Keith: “Keep fuckin’ it up?”
David: “Yeah.”
Keith: “Because we’re human?”
David: “If there was a way to start over, if there was actually a way to start over, I’d do it, I really
would. But is there even really a way to start over? Really? Just even in general?”
Keith: “I don’t know.”
David: “I mean, I was talking to Claire and she’s trying to see in this new way, you know, for her
art. I don’t know how it happens. I don’t know where the new comes from. You know, the
genuinely new.”
In case of rapture
Ruth: “You’re up early.”
Nate: “I’m always up early. Every day’s a new adventure.”
Edie: “Your penis is kinda nice. Too bad you’re attached to it.”
Claire: “But I haven’t picked up my camera in months.”
Edie: “Why not?”
Claire: “I don’t know. I went through a tough time for a while.”
Edie: “That’s the best time to work. I mean, that’s when your guts are all raw and you don’t to
have to waste too much time thinking about it.”
Claire: “Yeah, I just feel like anything I do is going to be shit.”
Edie: “So? What’s the worst that can happen? I mean, some asshole make fun of you?”
Anita: “Like you made fun of poet guy?”
Edie: “Yeah, exactly. I mean, I’m sure there are plenty of people here right now making fun of
me.”
Claire: “Yeah. I guess I’m just waiting for the right time, you know.”
Edie: “Well, none of us may be here tomorrow. I mean, you of all people should know that,
right?”
Nate: “I quit my job.”
Nathaniel Sr.: “I quit my whole fucking life.”
Nate: “You didn’t quit, you got fired.”
Nathaniel Sr.: “I guess maybe I did, yeah. May not’ve been the best thing that ever happened, but
it was right up there. Getting married, becoming a father, getting creamed by a bus, those are
some of life’s big moments.”
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Parallel Play
Claire: “This always happens. I get stoned and then I’m locked in this prison.”
Edie: “What, you’re paranoid?”
Anita: “Oh, God, please, no one thinks anything bad. You’re like the beautiful, fair-skinned,
untouchable art princess.”
Claire: “No, I’m not so much paranoid. More like I’d rather choose to just be this observer.
Cause for one, I know that if I feel any vibe about any guy, I should know it means red flag, red
flag! Beyond that, basically I hate everyone. I hate her... and her. And that guy with the fucking
Boy Scout jacket. Like, is that supposed to be ironic?”
Edie: “Yeah, I would say more misanthrope than paranoid.”
Claire: “Yeah, but I’m also so tired of hating everything, you know? I mean, truly.”
Lawrence Mason: “I’m sorry.”
Young Woman in Elevator: “No, it’s my fault.”
Lawrence Mason: “Nothing is anybody’s fault.”
Can I come up now?
Joe: “Parenthood is such a huge responsibility. You’re ever, you know, terrified?”
Nate: “Yeah, but, you know, I just remind myself that some things in my life, I just don’t have
any power over, and I never will. You know, because fear is no good. You know, fear can take
over your life.”
Margaret: “Art is a just a sentimental construct to alleviate our fear of death.”
Olivier: “No, there’s no way to even determine what it is that makes art art, much less to teach it.
It’s a goddamn illusion that anyone can be taught anything. I mean, yes, we can all be conditioned
up the wazoo, but, you know, to really learn something, something important, that always comes
from within.”
That’s my dog
Alice: “Dead. That’s what I like about them. This girl, who’s like, dead and beyond everything.
Beyond hunger, beyond sex, beyond boredom. And, really, it’s so beautiful to be in that state.
Like, nothing can reach her. Nothing can get to her.”
Nate: “[...] And now I have a, I have a two-year old daughter who doesn’t have a mother and so
she, she has to get everything from me because I’m all there is, but I don’t know what to do with
that. ... You know, most of the time, I just, I just feel numb. ... And then sometimes I feel just...
just terrified. ... And then sometimes, I just feel so angry, but then I don’t want to be this bitter
guy, so I try to deal with it because I don’t want my daughter to have to live with that poison. ... I
try and be thankful. I try so hard to be thankful. And I am thankful. Thankful I have a beautiful
child that Lisa gave me. ... Yet some days, some days I just feel like I’m going crazy, like I’m
literally losing my mind. (the fire alarm goes off)
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Terror starts at home
Claire: “It’s like, how many evildoers do you have to kill before you become one yourself, you
know?”
Brenda: “I just, I can’t become this totally different person living this simple, happy little life.”
The Dare
Edi: “What are you hiding?”
Claire: “Oh. Nothing. It’s just one of my photos. ... It’s one of those I took of you.”
Edi: “OK, so it’s bad.”
Claire: “It’s not. It’s really good.”
Edi: “Then why can’t I see it?”
Claire: “It’s too good. It’s like I can'’ believe this actually came out of me. It’s so good, I don’t
even want anyone to see it. I’m not even gonna show it at my crit tomorrow because, I don’t
know. It’s just for me.”
Teacher: “The woman in the photograph looks at us like she wants us to come closer. But we
don’t. She teases us, almost like she’s daring us. But what is the dare? Is it to touch her? She looks
like she knows we’re scared. But what’s so scary about this beautiful woman? What’s so scary
about getting close to someone? Because we don’t quite know the answer to any of these
questions, the photo haunts us.”
Sarah: “Maybe it’s true what they say. We all pick the same person over and over again. There’s
something nice about that.”
Coming and Going
Brenda: “I know what you said. But I can’t just surgically remove you from my life. It doesn’t
make sense.”
David: “I have to get control of myself.”
Claire: “No, David. If you were any more controlled, you’d be a sculpture.”
Claire: “It’d be so much easier to be gay.”
David: “Oh, no.”
Claire: “Yeah, I’d have a really defined sub-culture.”
David: “Overrated.”
Claire: “And we’re both women. I’d have some idea of what she was thinking and feeling.”
David: “Not necessarily.”
Claire: “I wouldn’t have to deal with unfamiliar sex organs.”
David: “They’re all unfamiliar unless they’re yours.”
Joe: “Here’s a question for you? What do you call a person without character, without integrity,
without loyalty, without respect? I call that person a fucking waste of my time.”
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Grinding the Corn
David: “You’re serious? You slept with Celeste?”
Keith: “It was just once. It was an accident.”
David: “You were walking by and just happened to fall into her vagina?”
Ruth: “I made a terrible decision and brought us to a horrible place.”
Bettina: “Oh, come on, it’s Rosarita. And we’re in a foreign country, Fisher. Horrible and terrible
are two of the most underrated qualities when travelling in a foreign country. Horrible and
terrible often lead to fun and adventure.”
Ruth: “Really and truly?”
Bettina: “You know the saying, ‘you can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit’?”
Ruth: “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard that one.”
Bettina: “Well, I’m here to tell you, you can and I have.”
Billy: “[...] What’s going on with you?”
Claire: “I don’t know. I guess I’m depressed. I don’t think it’s clinical, but... I just can’t seem to
have a normal, healthy relationship with another person.”
Billy: “Right. Get in line. Nobody has normal, healthy relationships. ... My theory, which I yet to
put into practice, is to pick someone slightly less crazy than you.”
Claire: “Yeah. Society like propagates this vision of people hooking up and staying together
forever. In reality, how often does that actually happen? I think it comes down to basic animal
chemistry. If you get the chemistry wrong, it’s like bleach and whatever that shit that makes
bleach explode.”
Billy: “Right. I think it’s ammonia.”
Claire: “Ammonia.”
Billy: “Yeah, I hear you.”
The Black Forest
David: “Please.”
Roger Pasquese: “Excuse me, did you say something? ... What did you just say?”
David: “Nothing.”
Roger Pasquese: “Bullshit. You said something. What did you say?”
David: “I said, ‘please’.”
Roger Pasquese: “To me?”
David: “No, for you. Somebody had to.”
Roger Pasquese: “Who the fuck do you think you are? Seriously.”
David: “I think I’m a member of the human race which makes me wanna treat my fellow humans
with a certain amount of respect. That’s who I think I am. Seriously.”
Bomb Shelter
Billy: “You know, Jean Baudrillard once said, ‘every possible art form has already been explored.
All that’s left is to deconstruct and play with the pieces’.”
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Brenda: “I can’t compete with a dead woman.”
Untitled
Kenneth’s Ex-Wife: “The way he died, oh God, it’s awful. I can’t stop thinking about it. If there
was anyone who deserved to go on their sleep, it was Ken.”
Rico: “Well, it’s the way Ken lived that’s important.”
Kenneth’s Ex-Wife: “We weren’t close anymore.”
Rico: “He was your husband once.”
Kenneth’s Ex-Wife: “15 years ago. Honestly, when I got the call, I had to think, ‘Ken? Ken who?’
… And then I remembered. Every minute we spent together, I remember everything. I’m going
to bury him with the rest of my family. That’s the way it should be, don’t you think?”
Rico: “Yes, yes I do.”
Kenneth’s Ex-Wife: “Even if I marry again, when I’m dead, I want Ken there, too.”
Rico: “Family’s family. Divorce doesn’t change that.”
Kenneth’s Ex-Wife: “Not divorce, not death, not anything. When people... get in your heart...”
Rico: “They stay for good.”
Billy: “None of your pieces have names. How come?”
Claire: “Ah, I couldn’t think of any.”
Billy: “Come on, don’t bullshit me. I’m actually interested.”
Claire: “Well, I feel like when you give something a name people take your word for it. Which is
OK for some things, but not these. I didn’t want to tell anybody what to see.”
Billy: “It’s like music that’s called Opus 15 or Three-Part Invention in a Minor. … What’s that
about?”
Claire: “Well, I want you to really look at it and deal with it on your own. You know, it’s like life.”
Billy: “It’s, ah, it’s kinda scary. … With no guide, I don’t know where I’ll end up.”
Claire: “You know what? I have no fucking idea what these pictures mean.”
Billy: “I know. Isn’t it great?”
Olivier: “And so it all begins. With the first success, corruption.”
Claire: “It’s corrupt to feel like I finally did something right?”
Olivier: “Actually, yes, it is. You’ll see. But so what? Who wants to be a saint, right?”
Claire: “Not me.”
Olivier: “No, no one does. And the work suffers.”
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David: “I thought it would set me free but it didn’t change anything, except now I know he really
is insane.”
Nathaniel Sr.: “You’re missing the point.”
David: “There is no point. That’s the point. Isn’t it?”
Nathaniel Sr.: “Don’t give me this phoney existential bullshit. I expect better from you. The
point’s right in front of your face.”
David: “Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t see it.”
Nathaniel Sr.: “You’re not even grateful, are you?”
David: “Grateful? For the worst fucking experience of my life?”
Nathaniel Sr.: “You hang onto your pain like it means something, like it’s worth something. Well,
let me tell you, it’s not worth shit. Let it go. … Infinite possibilities and all he can do is whine.”
David: “What am I supposed to do?”
Nathaniel Sr.: “What do you think? You can do anything, you lucky bastard. You’re alive. What’s
a little pain compared to that?”
David: “It can’t be so simple.”
Nathaniel Sr.: “What if it is?”
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A Coat of White Primer
Keith: “So, have you found her?”
David: “I can’t do this, Keith. I’m sorry. I can’t just rent out some woman’s uterus like it’s a
storage locker.”
Margaret: “I’m telling you, more women have miscarried than they have masturbated with a
dildo. They just don’t talk about it.”
Lisa: “Oh, please. Every time you try to have a nice normal life, you fuck it up. You’re never
gonna have your happily-ever-after moment, no matter how many white veils you put on, honey.
You’re just too fucked up for all that. Maybe you should just accept that, instead of trying to be
something you’re not.”
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Dancing for me
Tom: “[...] It’s just... it’s that... that young... all that energy, you know? It’s like she reminds me of
this part of me that I’d forgotten even existed. You know?”
Nate: “No, I don’t know.”
Tom: “Really, Nate? Don’t you ever lie awake in bed at night and just think, ‘Jesus, fuck. I’m
gonna be 40 fucking years old. 40.’?”
Nate: “No, I don’t. I lie in bed awake at night thinking, ‘thank you, God, thank you, for letting
me live this long.’”
Tom: “Are you, like, Christian or something?”
Nate: “No. ... I’ve just had a lot of serious shit happen to me in my life. Then I really get it now,
that this doesn’t last and I’m no different from anybody else. Yes, indeed this will happen to me.
It is happening to me a little bit each day. And that doesn’t freak me out. If anything, it’s
liberating.”
Tom: “OK, so I guess it comes with the territory? I mean, your job.”
Nate: “No, I don’t think it’s the job, really. It’s just... The job allows me to practice being OK
with it.”
Tom: “Yeah, OK, so there. You have to practice. So, you’re not really OK with it.”
Nate: “Well, of course you have to practice.”
Tom: “Yeah, but, Nate... it’s just so fucking big. I mean, it’s just all going by so fucking fast.”
Nate: “Well, would you change anything?”
Tom: “Like what?”
Nate: “Like who you’re with, what you do or what kind of person you are. Because if you would,
do it now.”
Tom: “Whoa, dude. That’s really harsh.”
Nate: “Well, look. This is it, Tom. This is all we have. Right here, right now.”
Hold my hand
Roger: “Here’s to children. May they be wanted and loved just as they are. Because anything less
is hell, as we all know.”
Angela: “I think it’s great that you still talk to each other. I mean, I guess with kids you have to.”
Rico: “What happened with your divorce?”
Angela: “I don’t know. It was like the relationship got cancer. The fast kind where nothing helps
and now... we’re both dead to each other. I kind of forgot what he looks like.”
Mary: “Let me tell you a secret: A pregnant woman is the most beautiful woman in the world.
Everybody talks to her. Everybody wants to touch her. It’s like having a magical power to make
people happy.”
Billy: “Do you think it’s helping?”
George: “I think that, as Emile Coué used to say, ‘every day in every way, I am getting better and
better’. But not everyone agrees.”
Billy: “Yeah, it’s hard to get your shit together with someone watching all the time.”
George: “Yeah, it is. But when no one’s watching, then where you are? Where the fuck are you
then?”
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Quotes from Six Feet Under
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Maggie: “Good birthday?”
Nate: “Ha, yeah, it’s OK. I feel like all I can get out of this birthday is that life is really fucking
lonely.”
Maggie: “You have this wonderful family. And a baby on the way.”
Nate: “I know. And it’s really fucking lonely. … I just feel like all I do all day long is manage
myself, try to fucking connect with people. … But it’s like no matter how much energy you pour
into... getting to the station on time or getting on the right train, there’s still no fucking guarantee
that anybody’s gonna be there for you to... pick you up when you get there. … You know what I
mean?”
Maggie: “Well, I know if you think life’s a vending machine, where you put in virtue and get out
happiness, then you’re probably gonna be disappointed. I know that.”
Nate: “Is that how I sound?”
Maggie: “A little.”
George: “I am so lucky. I hate that I’m the lucky one. No one’s ever lucky to have me. Nobody’s
ever been lucky to have me.”
Time Flies
Nate: “Time flies when you’re having fun, huh?”
Nathaniel Sr.: “No. Time flies when you’re pretending to have fun. Time flies when you’re
pretending to love Brenda and that baby she wants so much. Time flies when you’re pretending
to know what people mean when the say ‘love’. Face it, buddy-boy, there’s two kind of people in
the world – there’s you and there’s everybody else, and never the twain shall meet.”
Eat a peach
George: “I just think it’s very provocative and disturbing. And beautiful.”
Claire: “Yeah...”
George: “Isn’t that what art is supposed to be about?”
Claire: “Yeah. Just, right now, with all this shit going on in the world, art seems kind of beside the
point, you know?”
George: “Yeah, I do know.”
Claire: “Plus, I’m just not, like, inspired.”
George: “If the muse isn’t with you, the muse isn’t with you.”
The rainbow of her reasons
Sarah: “Was I frothing like an idiot last night? Something in red wine doesn’t agree with me. I
don’t even remember what I said.”
Ruth: “You were blaming yourself.”
Sarah: “I don’t know why I do that. It’s so narcissistic, you know. I am the asshole at the center
of the universe, forgetting how vaste the universe is, and how nothing is in our control. An idea
both terrifying and beautiful as spirit itself.”
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Quotes from Six Feet Under
put together by Oxymoron
Marianne: “What’s the matter, Claire? It is Kirsten? Is she being a butt?”
Claire: “Oh, no. It’s not that. It’s just... it’s just these pantyhose.”
Marianne: “Oh, do you have a run? Cause I have a little clear polish you can put on...”
Claire: “No, no, it’s not that. It’s just they’re like squeezing against my entire torso and I feel like I
can’t even breathe. I mean, none of this work would even seem that hard if I didn’t feel like I was
sitting here inside of a torture chamber all day.”
Marianne: “Maybe you should try a different brand. Mine energise me.”
Claire: “No, it’s not the brand. I mean, they’re all the same. I mean, I don’t understand, how
having your legs sheeted in this like smooth plastic Barbie leg, like encased in a sausage casing,
would help you do your job better. I mean, doesn’t it seem sexist that it’s a regulation only for
women?”
Marianne: “Men have to wear ties.”
Claire: “Right, but they don’t suffocate you. And it’s not on their penis.“
Nate: “Nah, you know, love isn’t something you feel, it’s something you do. And if the person
you’re with doesn’t want it, you know, do yourself a favour and save it for someone who does.”
Sarah: “What’s the matter, honey?”
Claire: “I just got rejected for my grant.”
Sarah: “Those dicks. Let me see that. … Oh, well, there will be another one.”
Claire: “Shit.”
Sarah: “Maybe you’re not an artist.”
Claire: “Why would you say that?”
Sarah: “Did it hurt your feelings when I said it?”
Claire: “Yeah.”
Sarah: “Maybe I’m right. Maybe if you were an artist, you’d have laughed when I said that. Like if
you told me I was purple I would laugh because I know I’m not purple. But when I said you
weren’t an artist, you felt bad, maybe there’s a grain of truth in it.”
Claire: “You were the one who took me by me shoulders and looked me in my eyes and told me
that I was an artist.”
Sarah: “Maybe you were. Maybe you are. Maybe you aren’t. I don’t know. ... No one else can tell
anyone what to do, least of all me.”
George: “I loved you. ... You loved me. ... That was a good thing. ... Now it’s changed. So...
consider yourself free.”
The Silence
Claire: “I want to try to do some work tonight.”
Ruth: “Oh, what are you working on now?”
Claire: “Actually nothing. I am totally dry. I haven’t even been to my desk in weeks, because
every time I sit down and try to think how I want to express myself, I just come up empty. It’s
like this giant abyss with total stillness. It’s... it’s kind of the loneliest feeling in the entire world.”
Ruth: “Oh... Well, you’d better hurry up and change. Dinner will be ready soon.”
George: “I think we should get a quicker divorce. I’ve been doing some research, and if one of us
flies to, say, Haiti, for the weekend, we can take care of this a lot sooner.”
Ruth: “Is this really necessary?”
George: “I think it will be healthier for our psyches if we just, you know, move on.”
Ruth: “You want to fly to Haiti for a quickie divorce just for our psyches?”
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Quotes from Six Feet Under
put together by Oxymoron
Cindy: “You look so forlom standing here all alone. Let’s circle and see if we can find some nice
quirky guy for you.”
Ruth: “Thanks, Cindy, but I don’t think so.”
Cindy: “Oh, come on, Ruth. It’ll be fun.”
Ruth: “No, it won’t be fun. I am seven million years old. And I have this emptiness that won’t go
away. I’ve gone everywhere and done everything. I even went to the stupid Skirball Center. And I
am still all alone. Everyone else gets to find someone just like that. So I’m done, that’s it. I just
want to be left alone so I can shrivel up in peace. Please.”
Keith: “Fine, then you go by yourself tomorrow, because I think you it’s the wrong thing to do.”
David: “Don’t you feel anything for these poor kids? Don’t you have a soul?”
Keith: “Of course I have a soul. That’s a terrible thing to say about your partner.”
David: “Yeah, well, it’s a terrible thing to feel about your partner.”
Claire: “You know, I was an artist before I started working here. [...] I was in art school, I mean.
But I dropped out cause I was sick of it. And I thought I would have more time to just create.
Except I’ve been just a little uninspired, so I haven’t do much of anything. And now it feels like
maybe that’s over, which is kinda scary, because that’s how I’ve always defined myself. But then
maybe it’s kind of freeing, in a strange way.“
Singing for our Lives
Durrell: “You look like a witch.”
Ruth: “I assure I’m not.”
Durrell: “I didn’t say you were. I said you look like one.”
Nate: “It was just nice, Bren. It was really nice to be around some people who didn’t think they
know everything... and who thought there might be something more to life what they can see and
feel and then be right about.”
Brenda: “Well, I feel sorry for you that you have such emptiness inside you that you need to fill it
with something so... ridiculous.”
Nate: “You really don’t believe in anything?”
Brenda: “You know I don’t.”
Nate: “Well, I feel sorry for you, then. And I don’t understand where you draw the line. I mean,
the service is basically silent meditation. You meditate.”
Brenda: “Yes, but I’m not waiting for some mythical, historical ghost with his shaming bloodsacrifice
bullshit to come and save my soul. I meditate to see the world as it is. To accept the
world, to... just feel alive.”
Nate: “[...] There is no real reason for most of what we do. We don’t need to embalm bodies.”
Rico: “Well, there is a little problem of smell.”
Nate: “So what? That’s a part of death. And I think that’s where this business went wrong. We
tried to disguise it, make it look pretty and neat, and someone else’s problem.”
Claire: “This is Jimmy’s. He’s sort of the star of our class.”
Ted: “Why?”
Claire: “Well, his use of gigantism... sculpting these little cultural tokens but on such heroic scale.
It sort of forces us to look differently at the things that... surround us.”
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Quotes from Six Feet Under
put together by Oxymoron
Olivier: “She smiles. Do you know how long it’s been since I saw that smile? Where’s your selfrighteousness?”
Claire: “I guess I lost it.”
Olivier: “So, who’s this young man you’re with tonight?”
Claire: “I’d introduce you but I don’t want you to fuck him.”
Olivier: “There’s your self-righteousness, Claire.”
Olivier: “We all go through fallow periods when we must let the soil rest to prepare for new
growth.”
Claire: “Really? You think that’s true?”
Olivier: “Oh, God, please let it be true, otherwise I’m doomed.”
Nate: “Lately, the whole business just seems unnecessary... I just feel useless.”
Maggie: “Nate, you are far from useless.”
Nate: “I don’t just mean at work. I mean everywhere. We may have this handicapped child, right?
And there is not a damn thing I can do about it. I can’t make the baby healthy. I can’t make
myself feel any more ready to deal with it. I can’t even make myself want to deal with it. I can’t
do anything.”
Maggie: “You’re allowed to be scared. Life is scary.”
Nate: “Yeah, it’s fucking terrifying.”
Ecotone
Ruth: “I’d like to see life clearly, but that’s the first thing to fly out the window when I get
romantic. I wonder if there’s a way to do it where that doesn’t happen.”
Vanessa: “You’re not supposed to love someone who cheats on you. It’s stupid. It’s weak. I
know, because I work with these women. They get their hearts broken every Saturday night and I
won’t be like them. I fucking refuse.”
Rico: “It will never happen again.”
Vanessa: “But then here I am in the same house with you and I’m so scared because you’re closer
to me than my skin. That’s how much you’re part of me, Rico. I can’t ever stop loving you.
That’s why I treat you like shit.”
Nate: “I’m not sorry for anything. You’re making love with somebody and your head explodes.
That’s a good sign.”
Rico: “[...] There’s an intake. This guy got mauled by a cougar.”
Nate: “No shit.”
Rico: “Yeah, right here in L.A.. He was walking in the canyon.”
Nate: “The ecotone.”
Rico: “Mh?”
Nate: “Ecotone. It’s the area where two ecological worlds overlap. You know, like wilderness and
civilization.”
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Quotes from Six Feet Under
put together by Oxymoron
All Alone
Brenda: “What is this? Some sort of Quaker thing? You fuck someone’s husband to death and
then you bring them a quiche?”
Ruth: “But why would God take someone’s son at the one moment they were ever, in their
whole lives, not able to be with him? What kind of message is that?”
Father Jack: “I don’t think it’s helpful to see it as a message to you.”
Ruth: “Then why would it happen that way? Unless there really is no God.”
Father Jack: “It’s natural to be angry but maybe it’s best to view God as a light through this dark
time, as opposed to seeing him as the cause of it.”
Ruth: “God is an asshole.”
Sarah: “Yes, God is a huge asshole. And I fucking hate Him for this.”
David: “You could have dressed.”
Claire: “I couldn’t.”
David: “The rest of us managed.”
Claire: “The rest of you win.”
Sarah: “From the Mystic Odes of Rumi.
‘Our death is our wedding with eternity.
What is the secret? 'God is One.'
The sunlight splits when entering the windows of the house.
This multiplicity exists in the cluster of grapes;
It is not in the juice made from the grapes.
For he who is living in the Light of God,
The death of the carnal soul is a blessing.
Regarding him, say neither bad nor good,
For he is gone beyond the good and the bad.
Fix your eyes on God and do not talk about what is invisible,
So that he may place another look in your eyes. [...]’”
Nate: “Curt Kobain died today.”
Claire: “Oh.”
Nate: “He killed himself. He was just too pure for this world.”
Claire: “Well, his music will live on.”
Nate: “Yeah. Yeah, it will.”
Sarah: “[...] ‘It is the eternal light which is the Light of God,
The ephemeral light is an attribute of the body and the flesh.
Oh God, who gives the grace of vision.
The bird of vision is flying toward You with the wings of desire.’”
Nate: “You could’ve married Joe, if you wanted to be with somebody who really wanted to be
with you. But deep down you know that anybody who really wants to be with you is a fucking
idiot.”
Brenda: “Shut up.”
Nate: “Because just like everybody else in your psychotic family you have to destroy everything
and everyone you love.”
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Quotes from Six Feet Under
put together by Oxymoron
Ruth: “I forget how anyone ever gets over anything.”
Bettina: “You don’t, really.”
Sarah: “Don’t say that. You do.”
George: “It’s just time.”
Sarah: “And remembering love, really.”
Ruth: “What the hell does that mean?”
George: “Slowly, you fall back in love with whatever really mattered to you.”
Sarah: “Yes. And maybe you find a way to make sense of what you’ve lost.”
Ruth: “That doesn’t seem possible.”
Static
Nate: “I’m just saying, you only get one life. There’s no God, no rules, no judgments, except for
those you accept or create for yourself. Then once it’s over... it’s over. Dreamless sleep forever
and ever. So why not be happy while you’re here? Really. Why not?”
Brenda: “I used to think that I’d have more people in my life as time went on.”
Billy: “Mh, it doesn’t work that way.”
Brenda: “I’m starting to realise that.”
Billy: “It’s almost like as we get older, the number of people that completely get us shrinks.”
Brenda: “Right. Until we become so honed by our experiences... and time and...”
Billy: “Nobody else understands.”
Claire: “You know how I always used to tell you you weren’t Dad after Dad died?”
Nate: “Yeah.”
Claire: “It was such a waste of time thinking that way.”
Nate: “No, it was just part of how you dealt with it, that’s all. It kept you from missing Dad so
much.”
Claire: “No, it kept me from ever knowing you, like, as much as I really could have. And now you
are so completely fucking gone. It’s... it’s just...”
Nate: “Claire.”
Claire: “What? It sucks.”
Nate: “Stop listening to the static.”
Claire: “What the fuck does that mean?”
Nate: “Nothing. It just means that everything in the world is like this... transmission making its
way across the dark. But everything – death, life, everything, it’s all completely suffused with
static. (imitates the sound of static) You know? But if you listen to the static too much, it fucks you
up.”
Claire: “Are you high?”
Nate:” I am actually, yeah. I’m quite high.”
David: “Keith, I feel like my face is coming off. ... I keep trying to hold it on, but I can’t. It keeps
coming off. What’s underneath is just...”
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Quotes from Six Feet Under
put together by Oxymoron
Everybody’s waiting
Ted: “(message on the answering machine) I hope you’re OK. And I hope you will please call me and
let me know you are. I know you’re mad about me taking the keys, but don’t be stupid, Claire.
Yeah, the world is fucked up, but you ending up in a wheelchair isn’t gonna make it any better.
You’re too smart. You’re too good. Don’t waste that.”
Ted: “(on the next massage) OK, I just turned into my father. Like, exactly. That was my father. This
is what you do to me. Call me, please.”
Claire: “God, I feel like I’m trapped underwater. And it’s not just Nate dying. I mean, I have
absolutely no idea what I am supposed to do with my life.”
Ted: “Don’t you still wanna be an artist?”
Claire: “[…] Yeah. ... But I’m scared that maybe I’m not good enough.”
Ted: “Is that true?”
Claire: “Might be.”
Ted: “So get better.”
Claire: “I really don’t wanna go back to school. And even though it’s art, I still feel like I’m just
being programmed.”
Ted: “Just take pictures. If you’re good enough, you’ll find out. And if you’re not, you’ll get good
enough. Or you’ll find out that you can’t. ... But I bet you are, though.”
Margaret: “You leave your door open like that?”
Ruth: “We were just outside picking flowers.”
Margaret: “Ruth, it isn’t the ‘50s anymore, no matter how you dress.”
Claire: “I can’t play it tonight at my big farewell dinner? That you won’t even come to.”
Ted: “Everybody’s gonna want a piece of you. I’m sorry but... I don’t wanna share you.”
Claire: “That’s sweet. And strangely possessive.”
Claire: “Oh, I wanna take a picture of everyone.”
Nate: “You can’t take a picture of this. It’s already gone.”
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Quotes from Six Feet Under
put together by Oxymoron
Ruth: “Mr. Jones, see the beautiful flowers for your wife’s viewing?”
Mr. Jones: “I don’t know why you so excited. They’re just gonna shrivel up and die.”
Contact: alltagskunst@yahoo.com
Web: http://alltagskunst.blog.com
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