Manhattan (1979)

Diane Keaton: Mary

Photos 

Quotes 

• [On her ex-husband] 

  Mary Wilke : I was tired of submerging my identity to a very brilliant, dominating man. He's a genius.

  Isaac Davis : Oh really, he was a genius, Helen's a genius and Dennis is a genius. You know a lot of geniuses, y'know. You should meet some stupid people once in a while, y'know, you could learn something.

• Isaac Davis : It's an interesting group of people, your friends are.

  Mary Wilke : I know.

  Isaac Davis : Like the cast of a Fellini movie.

• Mary Wilke : [reading aloud from Issac's wife's memoir]  "He was given to fits of rage, Jewish liberal paranoia, male chauvinism, self-righteous misanthropy, and nihilistic moods of despair. He had complaints about life but never any solutions. He longed to be an artist but balked at the necessary sacrifices. In his most private moments, he spoke of his fear of death, which he elevated to tragic heights when in fact it was mere narcissism."

• Mary Wilke : Facts?I got a million facts at my fingertips.

  Isaac Davis : That's right, and they don't mean a thing, right? Because nothing worth knowing can be understood with the mind. Everything really valuable has to enter you through a different opening, if you'll forgive the disgusting imagery.

• Isaac Davis : I got a kid, he's being raised by two women at the moment.

  Mary Wilke : Oh, y'know, I mean I think that works. Uh, they made some studies, I read in one of the psychoanalytic quarterlies. You don't need a male, I mean. Two mothers are absolutely fine.

  Isaac Davis : Really? Because I always feel very few people survive one mother.

• Mary Wilke : I'm honest, whaddya want? I say what's on my mind and, if you can't take it, well then fuck off!

  Isaac Davis : And I like the way you express yourself too, y'know, it's pithy yet degenerate. You get many dates?

• Mary Wilke : Well tell me, why did you get a divorce?

  Isaac Davis : Why? I got a divorce because my ex-wife left me for another woman.

  Mary Wilke : Really? God, that must have been really demoralizing.

  Isaac Davis : Well, I dunno, I thought I took it rather well under the circumstances. I tried to run them both over with a car.

• Mary Wilke : Don't psychoanalyze me. I pay a doctor for that.

  Isaac Davis : Hey, you call that guy that you talk to a doctor? I mean, you don't get suspicious when your analyst calls you at home at three in the morning and weeps into the telephone?

  Mary Wilke : All right, so he's unorthodox. He's a highly qualified doctor.

  Isaac Davis : He's done a great job on you, y'know. Your self esteem is like a notch below Kafka's.

• Isaac Davis : You certainly fooled me.

  [crosstalk] 

  Mary Wilke : What do you mean?

  Isaac Davis : I mean, I was shocked. 'cause that's not what - this is not what I expected.

  Mary Wilke : What did you expect?

  Isaac Davis : I don't know. You said you, you know, you had always led me to - I uh - you said that, that he was a great ladies' man.

  [cosstalk] 

  Mary Wilke : Yeah.

  Isaac Davis : And that he opened you up sexually...

  Mary Wilke : So? So?

  Isaac Davis : So I - you know, and then this little homunculus is here.

  Mary Wilke : [sneers] 

  Isaac Davis : Really? Well, see you know

  [shaking head] 

  Isaac Davis : - I, it's, I - It's amazing how subjective all that stuff is.

• Isaac Davis : So what does, what does your analyst say? I mean, did you speak to him?

  Mary Wilke : Well, Donny's in a coma, he had a very bad acid experience.

• Mary Wilke : What are you thinking?

  Isaac Davis : I dunno, I was just thinking. There must be something wrong with me, because I've never had a relationship with a woman that's lasted longer than the one between Hitler and Eva Braun.

• Isaac Davis : I give the whole thing... four weeks. That's it.

  Mary Wilke : I, I can't plan that far in advance.

  Isaac Davis : You can't plan four weeks in advance?

  Mary Wilke : No!

  Isaac Davis : What kind of foresight is that?

• Isaac Davis : The steel cube was brilliant?

  Mary Wilke : Yes. To me it was very textual, you know what I mean? It was perfectly integrated, and it had a marvelous kind of negative capability. The rest of the stuff downstairs was bullshit.

• Yale : You know we have to stop seeing each other, don't you.

  Mary Wilke : Oh, yeah. Right. Right. I understand. I could tell by the sound of your voice on the phone. Very authoritative, y'know. Like the pope, or the computer in 2001.

• Mary Wilke : Isn't it beautiful out?

  Isaac Davis : Yeah, it's really so pretty when the light starts to come up.

  Mary Wilke : Yeah, I know. I love it.

  Isaac Davis : Boy, this is really a great city, I don't care what anybody s-s - it's really a knock-out, you know?

• Mary Wilke : I guess I should straighten my life out, huh? I mean, Donnie my analyst is always telling me...

  Isaac Davis : You call your analyst Donnie?

  Mary Wilke : Yeah, I call him Donnie.

  Isaac Davis : Donnie, your analyst? I call mine Dr. Chomsky, y'know, he hits me with a ruler.

• Mary Wilke : Hey, listen, I don't even wanna have this conversation. I'm really, I'm just from Philadelphia, you know. I mean, we believe in God so... okay?

  Isaac Davis : What the hell does that mean?

• Mary Wilke : You think I have no feelings? Is that it?

  Isaac Davis : Hey, what? You're so sensitive, Jesus! I never said that. I think you're - I think you're terrific. Really, you know. I - I - you're very insecure. I think you're wonderful, really.

• Mary Wilke : Oh, God, was he brilliant. I was so crazy about him. Really opened me up sexually. Taught me everything. Women found him devastating!

• Mary Wilke : [reading aloud from Issac's wife's memoir]  He was given to fits of rage, Jewish liberal paranoia, male chauvinism, self-righteous misanthropy, and nihilistic moods of despair. He had complaints about life but never any solutions. He longed to be an artist but balked at the necessary sacrifices. In his most private moments, he spoke of his fear of death, which he elevated to tragic heights when in fact it was mere narcissism.

• Mary Wilke : [reading aloud from Issac's wife's memoir]  'He was given to fits of rage, Jewish liberal paranoia, male chauvinism, self-righteous misanthropy, and nihilistic moods of despair. He had complaints about life but never any solutions. He longed to be an artist but balked at the necessary sacrifices. In his most private moments, he spoke of his fear of death, which he elevated to tragic heights when in fact it was mere narcissism.'

• Mary Wilke : Don't you see? Don't you guys see? That it is the dignifying of one's psychological and sexual hang-ups by attaching them to these grandiose, philosophical issues? That's what it is.

• Isaac Davis : Bergman's the only genius in cinema today, I think.

  Yale : He's a big Bergman fan.

  Mary Wilke : God, you're so the opposite! I mean, you write that absolutely fabulous television show. It's brilliantly funny and his view is so Scandinavian. It's bleak, my God! I mean, all that Kierkegaard, right? Real adolescent, you know, fashionable pessimism. I mean, the silence. God's silence. Okay, okay, okay. I mean, I loved it when I was at Radcliffe, but, I mean, all right, you outgrow it. You absolutely outgrow it.

• Mary Wilke : They're such schmucks up there. Really mired in Thirties radicalism. What do you do, Tracy?

  Tracy : I go to high school.

  Mary Wilke : Oh, really. Really. Somewhere Nabokov is smiling, if you know what I mean.

• Yale : I think LeWitt's overrated. In fact, he may be a candidate for the Overrated Academy.

  Mary Wilke : Oh, that's right.

  Yale : Mary and I have invented the Academy of the Overrated.

  Mary Wilke : For such people as...

  Yale : For such notables as - Gustav Mahler.

  Mary Wilke : And Isak Dinesen and Carl Jung.

  Yale : F. Scott Fitzgerald.

  Mary Wilke : Lenny Bruce. We can't forget Lenny Bruce, now, can we? How about Norman Mailer?

  Isaac Davis : I think those people are all terrific. Everyone that you mentioned.

• Mary Wilke : Listen, I gotta get my dog. You wanna wait? I gotta walk it. Or, are you in rush or something like that?

  Isaac Davis : Oh, no, sure. What kind of dog you got?

  Mary Wilke : The worst. It's a dachshund. You know, it's a penis substitute for me.

  Isaac Davis : Oh, I would have thought that in your case a Great Dane.

• Mary Wilke : Oh, what is pretty anyway? I mean, I hate being pretty. It's all so subjective anyway. I mean, the brightest men just drop dead in front of a beautiful face. And the minute you climb into the sack, if you're the least bit giving, they're so grateful.

  Isaac Davis : Yeah, I know I am.

• Mary Wilke : Can't you hold me? Does your love for me always have to express itself sexually? What about other values like warmth and spiritual contact? Hotel, right? Jesus, I'm a pushover!

• Mary Wilke : Where would we be without rational thought?

  Isaac Davis : I don't know. You - you - you - you rely too much on your brain. The brain is the most overrated organ, I think.

  Mary Wilke : I know. You probably think I'm too cerebral.

  Isaac Davis : Well, you are, you know, kind of on the brainy side.

• Isaac Davis : Really? You married your - your teacher?

  Mary Wilke : Yeah, of course.

  Isaac Davis : That's very, very...

  Mary Wilke : Well, I listen to that, he failed me and I fell in love with him.

  Isaac Davis : Oh, that's perfect.

  Mary Wilke : Perfect, right? Yeah, I was sleeping with him and he had the nerve to give me an F !

• Mary Wilke : I've got too many problems. I'm just really not the person to get involved with. I'm trouble!

  Isaac Davis : Hey, honey, Trouble is my middle name.

  Mary Wilke : [laughs]  What are you saying?

  Isaac Davis : Trou... Actually, my middle name is Mortimer.

• Mary Wilke : My problem is I'm both attracted and repelled by the male organ. So, you know, it doesn't make for very good relationships with men.

• Mary Wilke : What the hell am I doing in this relationship anyway? My phone never stops ringing. I could go to bed with the entire faculty of M.I.T., if I wanted to. It's just - I don't know. I'm wasting myself on a married man, so I don't know.

• Mary Wilke : Jeremiah, my ex-husband, he was just this oversexed, brilliant kind of animal.

  Isaac Davis : Hey, what am I? Grandma Moses?

• Mary Wilke : It's a no-win situation. It's just - I'm beautiful and I'm bright and I deserve better!

• Mary Wilke : I'm a beautiful woman. I'm - I'm young. I'm highly intelligent. I got everything going for me. The point - the point is that - I don't know, I'm all fucked up. I'm just - shit!