Beginners (2010)

Hal: Well, let's say.
Oliver: Arthur, down.
Hal: ...let's say since you were little, and... and you... you always dreamed of... of someday getting a lion, and you wait and you wait and you wait and you wait, and the lion doesn't come. Then along comes a giraffe. You can be alone, or you can be with the giraffe.
Oliver: I'd wait for the lion.
Hal: That's why I worry about you.

Oliver: I've always wanted to have a phone call with someone who doesn't talk.

Arthur: We knew it wouldn't work, even before we met her.

Georgia: Black music's the deepest 'cause they suffered the most. Them and the Jews.

Oliver: You re-wrote Jesus' death?
Hal: Ah, it was far too violent. We need new stories.

Elliot: You're thinking about her all the time.
Oliver: And you know that because.
Elliot: Because you're not talking about it. I know you.

Oliver: Well, I'm gonna have to kill you now.
Anna: Hm... why?
Oliver: Because I'm falling in love with you.

Anna: You look so unhappy.
Oliver: Well are you happy? Here?
Anna: Maybe I'm not perfect at it. I don't really know what I'm doing, but I want to be here.

Oliver: What did you do with my father? He was so polite.
Hal: Well, I invited him but he never returns my calls.

Anna: Why do you leave everyone? Why did you let me go?
Oliver: Maybe because I... I don't really believe that it's gonna work, and then I make sure that it doesn't work.

Anna: Well, my name is Anna. You're worried you can't trust me because you don't know who I am. I get it. That makes sense to me.

Oliver: We didn't know how we learned the stories in our heads, but sometimes they stopped running, and I can really see Anna's eyes in 2003. Her ears. Her feet. This is what it looks like when she says, 'I love you, ' in 2003. This is what it looks like when she cries. When she tells me there's always a new empty room waiting for her. They used to make her feel free. Now they make her feel the opposite of free.

Oliver: We didn't go to this war. We didn't have to hide to have sex. Our good fortune allowed us to feel a sadness that our parents didn't have time for and a happiness that I never saw with them.

Anna: You can ask me anything.
Oliver: Anything? What's that there?
Anna: That's a tree.
Oliver: Yeah.
Anna: And Cars.
Oliver: Uh-huh.
Anna: Another building like this one.
Oliver: Right.
Anna: People in the building like us. Half of them think things will never work out. The other half believe in magic. It's like a war between them.
Oliver: How do you know so much about people?
Anna: Oh. Well, you have to learn how to read their faces.

Hal: I don't want to be just theoretically gay. I want to do something about it.