Vision Quest Quotes

Louden Hey, Carla? I'd do it all again.

Carla So would I.

Carla Don't you ever try that again! I choose who I'm going to be with and what I'm going to do. I'll never be with any foulmouthed kid jock who thinks a stiff cock is the height of romance. Part of being a man, asshole, is knowing what a woman wants and respecting that.

Mr. Tanneran Well, what do you think? Does anybody understand a word of it? Huh? Louden? This poem mean anything to you at all?

Louden Yeah, kind of. I figure the girl in the poem's about my age. She's feeling sad about the leaves falling from the trees, and the poet, he tells her that what she's really sad about is that she's beginning to realize she's going to die someday, too. The thing is, she's already dying.

Mr. Tanneran Is that a good thing to realize, or do you think maybe we'd be better off not thinking about it?

Louden I don't know. Nobody likes to think about it. I don't like to think about it. But if you don't, you might go through life thinking you've got plenty of time. You put off the really important stuff until later, and pretty soon, before you know it, there's no more time left, you've blown it.

Mr. Tanneran That's not bad, Louden. Not bad at all.

Louden Can 800 million Chinamen be wrong?

Mr. Tanneran Frequently.

Otto If you're on some kind of ego trip, man, that's your problem. You're not a team player and you never were.

Louden I got a bulletin for you, Otto: wrestling is not a team sport! When you're out there on the mat with another guy who's quicker and faster than you, there's not a whole helluva lot a team can do for you.

Mr. Tanneran I think you're dehydrated.

Louden No, I'm just the victim of a screwed-up nitrogen imbalance. Plus, I think I've contracted ].

Mr. Tanneran What's priapism?

Louden It's a disease of a constant erection. I read about it in my rare diseases book.

Louden It's not funny, believe me! The girl of my dreams lives under my own roof, but she thinks I'm just a kid, a dumb jock, all of which is more or less true. I'm dying, Mr. Tanneran, just like that girl in the poem... only quicker, and with a hard-on.

Carla Hey, Louden? Kick his ass.

Louden Swain My name's Louden, Louden Swain. Last week I turned 18. I wasn't ready for it. I haven't done anything yet. So I made this deal with myself. This is the year I make my mark.

Carla First time I've ever went to a wrestling match. It wasn't what I expected. I guess I expected some macho violence trip, but it was all right, you know? Guess I just didn't understand.

Louden Droppin all the way down to 168. Gonna take on Shute.

Kuch SHUTE? Shute's a monster, man! A genuine teratoid! Get real! His own father has to use a livewire to keep him from fuckin the fireplace!

Louden Hey, Elmo.

Elmo Yeah?

Louden What do you know about the clitoris?

Elmo Well, I don't know what it looks like exactly, but I kind of know where it's at... sort of.

Referee Let me take a look at you. Coach, we got a bloody nose here.

Coach Come here. You're doing fantastic, fantastic!

Kuch You're beating Shute. I'm shitting in my pants. You're killing him.

Coach Shut up, Kuch! Have you done everything you came to do?

Louden Not yet.

Coach Then do it, boy. You've got 27 seconds left, you're down 4 points. Forget your nose, forget about everything. You've gotta go out there and stick him! Now go on back there and do it!

Louden I was at the hotel. They told me you took the night off. I thought you were sick or something.

Elmo Of course I took the night off, dummy. Isn't this the night you wrestle Shute?

Louden You took the night off for that?

Elmo Yeah. Shaved and got a haircut and everything.

Louden You never took a night off to see me wrestle before. They're gonna dock you for that.

Elmo Hey, kid - money ain't everything.

Louden Yeah, it's not that big a deal, Elmo. I mean, it's six lousy minutes on the mat, if that.

Elmo You ever hear of ]?

Louden Yeah, he's a, a soccer player.

Elmo A very famous soccer player. I was in the room here one day... watchin the Mexican channel on TV. I don't know nothin about Pelé. I'm watchin what this guy can do with a ball and his feet. Next thing I know, he jumps in the air and flips into a somersault and uh, he kicks the ball in - upside down and backwards... I mean the goddamn goalie never knew what the fuck hit him. Pelé gets excited and he rips off his jersey and starts running around the stadium waving it around over his head. Everybody's screaming in Spanish. I'm here, sitting alone in my room, and I start crying. Yeah, that's right, I start crying. Because another human being, a species which I happen to belong to, could kick a ball, and lift himself, and the rest of us sad-assed human beings, up to a better place to be, if only for a minute... Let me tell ya, kid - it was pretty goddamned glorious. It ain't the six minutes... it's what happens in that six minutes.

Elmo What the fuck is this?

Louden What? You don't recognize it?

Elmo Wait a minute! This is cooze!

Louden Yeah, I'm thinking very seriously of becoming a gynecologist

Elmo A cooze doctor in outer space? Man, you're flippin out!

Louden I want to be able to look inside women, find the power that they have over me.

Carla Want to know what turns me on?

Louden If you don't mind.

Carla Hands. Really big hands. The kind that when they hold you, you really feel held. Like nothing can sneak up on you.

Louden Swain She's got all the best things I like in girls and all the best things I like in guys.

Coach Now, I remember the first time you walked in here and asked me to let you wrestle. You still had hay in your hair. What a surprise you turned out to be, darn near going the distance your first year.

Margie Epstein What a blast to the First Amendment! The first thing they do is shut down the press and imprison the intellectuals. I LOVED YOUR PIECE ON THE CLITORIS! I SHOWED IT TO MY MOTHER!

Margie I'm speechless. You've broken new ground here, Louden! This is professional stuff! We're gonna draaaggg this dinky school paper right into the twentieth century! I mean, where do you get your ideas?

Louden Well, I've been thinking a lot about that stuff lately.

Margie Oooohhh, we're gonna make history here!

Carla I heard you fainted.

Louden Oh. I had kind of a temporary nitrogen imbalance, kind of a sodium depletion syndrome, maybe some general light-headedness, maybe one or two other things.

Carla Will you live, or what?

Louden I'm just trying to cut weight, you know, trying to get down to 168.

Carla I don't get it. Why do you want to get smaller and wrestle a small guy? Why not get bigger and wrestle a big guy?

Louden Big guys aren't better. 168 happens to be the toughest division in the state - maybe in the whole god damn world.

Louden Swain But all I ever settled for is that we're born to live and then to die, and... we got to do it alone, each in his own way. And I guess that's why we got to love those people who deserve it like there's no tomorrow. Cause when you get right down to it - there isn't.