Simon (1980)

Alan Arkin: Simon Mendelssohn

Photos 

Quotes 

• Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : How do you feel about these film?

  Commune members : We love them!

  Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : Yes! And why?

  Commune members : Because it's on the sacred box.

  Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : But, you don't love everything that's on the sacred box?

  Commune members : Yes!

  Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : Celebrity bowling?

  Commune members : Yes!

  Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : Badly dramatized English novels?

  Commune members : Yes!

  Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : The commercial for the vegetable slicer at 3AM?

  Commune members : Yes!

  Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : Everything?

  Commune members : Yes!

  Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : Hmm. You like it when it goes: whooooooo...

  Commune members : Yes!

  Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : You like junk?

  Commune members : Yes.

• Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : Now, you've been watching Uncle Simon on television. And you've been listening *very* carefully to what he's been saying. Right? So, I want you to dig deep into your heart now. And tell me the most wonderful, beautiful thing in the entire world.

  Melody : Disco.

• Dr. Cynthia Mallory : My husband was a psychiatrist. He specialized in contemporary suicide.

  Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : Was a psychiatrist?

  Dr. Cynthia Mallory : Hmm mm. One day he took a bottle of Seconal and jumped off the roof.

  Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : Oh my god, he must have suffered terribly.

  Dr. Cynthia Mallory : No. I feel he was probably sleeping by the time he passed the third floor.

• Simon's mother : They need help, son. I want you to save the world.

  Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : Save the world? I can't even get a regular checking account, Ma!

• Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : What do we do? I tell you what we do. We turn the planet into a spaceship and we move to another solar system were there is food and water and air. It can happen. Anything can happen. Dare to dream. Use the right side of your brains. Intuition. Imagination. Dreams. Uncertainty. Remember, we talked about the Uncertainty principal? Well, Heisenberg is predated a thousand years by the Zen poets! A thousand years. You can change the world with an idea. But, you have to think of the idea first. Listen to this. Wittgenstein said, listen to this, "I do not know what I do not know." Huh? Is that fantastic? "I do not know what -" Yes, Pam, what is it?

  Pam : Is this gonna be on the final?

• Lisa : Are you telling me that you come from out of space?

  Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : Not out of space. Outer space! Out of space doesn't mean anything.

• Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : Good afternoon everybody. I've been doing a great deal of thinking about who I am and why I have been sent here to live with you. And the answer is really very simple. Things here are just not working out very well. Your jobs are boring, your food is bland, your water is polluted and your relationships don't work. Is that not right? And the question is, how have things come to such a sorry state of affairs? I will tell you. There is too much bad suff around. Bad food, bad drink, bad art, bad ideas. Everything's all clogged up. So, what we're going to do is we're going to get rid of all the bad stuff and that will be a very good beginning. Now, I have a list here of things I would like written in the constitution immediately after which I promise you your lives will be less tense and more rewarding: 1. All muzak in elevators, airports, restaurants and other public rooms will cease immediately. 2. No more children or animals may be used to sell products. 3. Lawyers who lose cases will go to jail with their clients. 4. No doctor may write a diet book. Any doctor who does will immediately lose his license and become a dentist. 5. I think we don't really need a House of Representatives and a Senate. The Romans didn't have one, so let's just have a Senate, okay? Which reminds me, I think that it would be a very good idea if from now on all politicians who appear in public wear a cone-shaped party hat. Not bad, huh? 6. Pollution. Anybody who owns a factory that makes radioactive waste has to take it home at night with him to his house. 7. Anybody who says, "I am trying to get centered," "You are invading my space," or "Far out" will be fined $50. Make that $100.

• Simon Mendelssohn : [repated line]  Start using the right half of your brain. You can move the world with an idea but you have to think of it first.

• Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : Forgive if I throw 500 years of science out the window with this. What if its all subjective? I mean the universe contains not one truth; but, an infinite number of truths. Right? Okay. Follow me. Take your black hole, for example. Your black hole is popular now, I submit, because what you got out there is a bunch of depressed scientists. You're not going to get any happy, well-adjusted scientists inventing a big object of a black thing that sucks you not a noodle-shaped object five million miles long and eats you up if you get too close to it. Think about it.

• Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : You deserve justice, you people. Justice and a better way of life. That's what we're talking about, isn't it? Who's in charge around here? Who's responsible for the Hawaiian music in the elevators? And the paper band around the bathroom seats in the motels?

• Lisa : I went to the drug store to buy this test. They have these tests you can buy now. You do it yourself and it turned out positive. And so, I went to the clinic, because, I had them do a test on me and theirs was also positive. It confirmed - that they were both positive.

  Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : Right. So, what's that? You sick or what?

  Lisa : No, I'm pregnant.

  Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : Are you sure?

  Lisa : I guess I'm positive.

• Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : I give my best stuff too. Shakespeare. Pogo. The Prophets.

  Lisa : Maybe they don't want their lives improved. You know, maybe they like their lives the way they are.

  Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : They like that fake music in the elevators? They like those thin, gray hamburgers with the imitation sauce?

  Lisa : Simon, you just can't show up out of nowhere and tell a whole country what to like.

  Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : Emptiness. Emptiness. Ten billion years of evolution. Up from the slime! For what? They call this a culture.

  Lisa : I don't think its so bad. I think we've produced some good things too.

  Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : Oh, yeah? Such as?

  Lisa : I don't know. Fred Astaire. Penicillin. Air Conditioning.

• Simon Mendelssohn : He said I was alienated, of course I'm alienated. I'm an alien!

• Lisa : Do you remember what happened last time with the peyote?

  Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : Nothing happened with the peyote.

  Lisa : You threw up for five days! You were dizzy. You missed your class. You made sounds like a wolf howling.

  Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : Three days is a completely normal side affect.

• Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : Do you or do you not want me to win a Nobel Prize?

• Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : You've given the world something finally to believe in.

  Dr. Carl Becker : Ah, and what is that?

  Prof. Simon Mendelssohn : Me.