65
" Clown Laurie,” I begin, “the cosmos exists on credit! It is like a debenture, a draft for material and energy which must be repaid immediately, because its existence is the purest one hundred percent liability both in terms of energy and in terms of material. Then, just what does the cosmologist do? With the help of physicist friends he builds a great ‘chronogun’ which fires one single electron backward ‘against the tide’ in the flow of time. That electron, transformed into a positron as a result of its motion ‘against the grain’ of time, goes speeding through time, and in the course of this journey acquires more and more energy. Finally, at the point where it ‘leaps out’ of the cosmos, i.e., in a place in which there had as yet been no cosmos, all the terrible energies it has acquired are released in that tremendously powerful explosion which brings about the universe! In this manner the debt is paid off. At the same time, thanks to the largest possible ‘causal circle,’ the existence of the cosmos is authenticated, and a person turns out to be the actual creator of that very universe! "
― Charlie Kaufman , Antkind
66
" I do believe you have a wound too. I do believe it is both specific to you and common to everyone. I do believe it is the thing about you that must be hidden and protected, it is the thing that must be tap danced over five shows a day, it is the thing that won’t be interesting to other people if revealed. It is the thing that makes you weak and pathetic. It is the thing that truly, truly, truly makes loving you impossible. It is your secret, even from yourself. But it is the thing that wants to live. It is the thing from which your art, your painting, your dance, your composition, your philosophical treatise, your screenplay is born. "
― Charlie Kaufman
68
" There is something missing now...in me...since I've come out of my coma. There is a hole in me, empty and hungry to be filled."
"Well, I am not a psychologist or a psychiatrist or any of the other psychos. In point of fact, I've been told on more than one occasion that I have a terrible bedside manner, that I am not compassionate, that I am distracted, abrupt, and condescending. So keep that in mind as I proceed, and take my advice with a grain of salt…I should also mention that I am also not a social worker, licensed or unlicensed…but what you describe is what everyone feels — everyone, all the time — according to my limited and anecdotal research. So take my advice: Forget about it. That hole is unfillable. Get on with your life. Go back to work. Get a hobby. Find a nice, achievable woman and settle down. "
― Charlie Kaufman , Antkind
73
" Dear diary, I'm afraid I'm gravely ill. It is perhaps times like these that one reflects on things past. An article of clothing from when I was young. A green jacket. I walk with my father. A game we once played. Pretend we're faeries. I'm a girl faerie. My name is Laura Lee. And you're a boy faerie. Your name is Tita Lee. Pretend, when we're faeries we fight each other, and I say "Stop hitting me I'll die!" And you hit me again and I say, "Now I have to die." And then you say, "But I'll miss you." And I say, "But I have to. And you'll have to wait a million years to see me again. And I'll be put in a box, and all I'll need is a tiny glass of water and lots of tiny pieces of pizza and the box will have wings like an airplane." And you'll ask, "Where will it take you?" "Home." I say. — Sadie Goldstein [Olive] Synecdoche, New York (2008) "
― Charlie Kaufman , Synecdoche, New York: The Shooting Script
