Phillip Heffernan: Chandler

Quotes 

• Bond : What did I do wrong, Chandler? That's the second time that you've flown off the handle tonight. The first time is when I wanted to show you that tattoo on my thigh.

  Chandler : I told you at the time that I had no interest whatsoever in looking at a tattoo of a dodo bird.

  Bond : But they're extinct! You can't see them anymore!

  Chandler : I'm well aware of that, Bond, but I think that having one tattooed on your hairy thigh is in extreme poor taste, especially considering that the species has vanished forever.

  Bond : But my thigh isn't hairy.

• Chandler : Bond, I, uh... I find you very attractive. So attractive that I want to throw you out of this car!

  Bond : Well, I don't get it. If you find me so attractive, why the hell would you want to throw me out of the car? I mean, I'm the one that ought to be getting out of this car voluntarily, knowing what's on your mind.

• Chandler : Give me a puff of that cigarette, kid.

  Bond : First it's a pipe. Now it's a cigarette. What's it gonna be next, Chandler? White Owl cigar maybe?

  Chandler : You've got an uncanny way of getting under my skin.

  Bond : Wouldn't it be much nicer if I got into it rather than under it?

• [Willene pounds on the car window] 

  Chandler : Something the matter, officer? Something wrong?

  Willene : Oh, no. I'm nothing like that, I'm just a housewife, that's all I am. See my badge?

  [Willene flashes a badge at him] 

  Willene : That was given to me by my husband. He's the country-rock singer Simon Cassidy. Perhaps you've heard of him?

• Bing : It's not the quadrupeds that are dangerous, it's that gargantuan biped.

  Bond : What the hell is a biped?

  Chandler : You're a biped, dummy.

  Bond : Now look, Chandler, I don't mind you calling me a dummy, but don't be calling me any dirty Italian names!

• Chandler : You're gonna get it. One of these days, you're gonna get it so big, it's gonna turn you black and blue for a week!

  Bond : I give it, Mack, I don't take it.

• Bond : It's just that...

  Chandler : What, Bond? My gazes? My admiring glances at your rather extravagant torso put you ill at ease?

  Bond : Well, no. It's just that that's all you're doing is just looking.

  Chandler : You mean you were expecting me to do something else? Me? Chandler Wilson? Heir to the Wilson fortune? And widower of Sarah Lou Phillips from the House of Phillips Unlimited?

  Bond : You mean the House of Phillips, that big girdle manufacturing plant down in Waco?

  Chandler : Yes. That's exactly what I mean. That big girdle factory in central Texas where everything grows big, especially a middle-age gut.

  Bond : I'm a scared of that.

  Chandler : Scared of what?

  Bond : Middle-aged gut.

• Bond : Didn't your wife pass away recently? I seem to remember reading something about it somewhere.

  Chandler : My wife, Sarah Lou Phillips, daughter of Leland, the creator of the House of Phillips Unlimited, died last year. Died a horrible death.

  Bond : I'm terribly sorry.

  Chandler : For her or for me?

  Bond : For the both of you.

  Chandler : Well, reserve your bleeding heart strictly for her. Our marriage was going up in smoke anyway. It's just that she turned the expression into a reality.

• Chandler : You're very observant, Bond. Is that where you got your good looking body? From chasing fire engines down the street?

  Bond : I work hard to get this body looking the way it does.

  Chandler : Well, I bet you have. And is the investment paying off?

  Bond : Not tonight, it isn't.

• Chandler : It's been a year since I've had any worthwhile sexual encounters.

  Bond : Is that when your wife died?

  Chandler : Oh, to hell with her! When I mentioned Sarah Lou Phillips, heiress to The House of Phillips Unlimited, I'm not talking about worthwhile sex. It wasn't sex that we shared in the dark on that Castro Convertible sofa her mother bought us. No. No, that was infantile perversion!

• Bond : I want you to tell me about it, Chandler.

  Chandler : Why? Why would a clean, good-looking kid like you want to delve into the filth of the rich?

  Bond : 'Cause it's a dark, stormy night and there ain't nothin' but this cigarette and a light on the radio dial and the rain... and your face in that light. You got a nice face, Chandler. You got a real nice face.

• Willene : You're talking like some sort of beatnik.

  Chandler : And supposing I am, what have you got against beatniks?

  Willene : Well, for one thing, their bongo drums. I can't stand all that stupid pounding. It gives me a headache, it does.

• Bond : We ought to go back. There might be people dying back there.

  Chandler : There are people up ahead who are dying too.

• Chandler : Listen kid, I vowed before embarking on this trip that once I started, I was never looking back. Now, I'm going to Waco, Texas, to that great giant girdle factory that stands like a mammoth mausoleum to the memory of my dead wife, Sarah Lou Phillips.

  Willene : You mean Sarah Lou Phillips of the House of Phillips Unlimited?

  Bond : Yeah. That's what he's talking about.

  Chandler : And I don't intend to water down my mission, the only mission I've got in life, just because some ball of fire lights up the night sky in this godforsaken nowhere land. No, the ball of fire I've got planned is going to rival the sun itself. You mark my words, Bond. It's gonna turn night into day!

• [Chandler and Bond help in the car crash survivors; Sash is bottomless] 

  Willene : Why is that woman partially disrobed? Was it the impact of the crash that did that?

  Sash : My skirt was wet. That witch over there didn't want me to stain the upholstery.

  Roo : I shoulda had you leave the dress on. A wet stain is better than a smelly brown one.

  Chandler : Now cut it out, you two. There's no more upholstery, period.

• Chandler : Do you wanna know how she died, the stupid fool? She died at a garden party one afternoon. She took her girdle off and she held a match to it as a sign of her liberation. But what she didn't know is that the girdle was flammable and 'd' blow up in her goddamn face! It blew up right in her face, and her head was covered with flaming liquid rubber. Everyone at the garden party started screaming. They threw their drinks on her to douse out the flames. Only, they forgot it was alcohol they were drinking. The horror of the moment was so great, to all extents and purposes, we were just staring at this flaming, screaming scarecrow running across the green lawn in a panic. And we all started laughing. I laughed so hard that tears were running down my cheeks! We all roared hysterically until there was this hideous hiss. And then a white column of steam that boiled skyward from the swimming pool where she fell in. Then there was silence. Dead silence.

• Sash : I didn't know that your wife was Sarah Lou Phillips, the daughter of Leland Phillips, creator of House of Phillips Unlimited.

  Roo : In Waco, Texas!

  Chandler : Well, I didn't realize that I'd married into such notoriety.

  Sash : To us, the women of North America, your wife was a martyred saint.

  Chandler : She was a stupid idiot! A sick nitwit!

• Bond : Shut up, Chandler. This isn't the time or the place.

  Chandler : No, it wouldn't be for you! You'd rather I told you at midnight behind the trash cans at a Greyhound bus depot. You cheap, rotten hustler.

  [Bond punches Chandler] 

  Bond : I'm sorry, Chandler, but you tried to cheapen me in front of all these people by suggesting that I'd sell my body to you for money! And that's an outright lie! When I give my body, it's like a gift from God - without any monteary reward!

  Chandler : "Monetary."

  Bond : That's what I said. It's like a gift from God without any kind of monetary reward.

  Willene : Amen.

  Toydy : Well, tell me, O divined one, can I light a candle at your altar sometime and pray that you'll bestow your blessings on me some night?

• Roo : I have a score to settle with this little cellar tramp!

  Chandler : You're talking about the woman I love.

  Bond : You, Chandler, and that woman?

  Chandler : Surprised, muscles? You didn't think I had it in me, huh?

  Bond : I sorta knew you didn't have it in you for a long time. Maybe that's why you were messing with her.

• Chandler : I was sort of edgy. But I'm not edgy anymore. Thanks to Sash.

  Roo : No, of course not. She manages to take the sharp edge off everything, don't you, Sash?

• Bing : What the heck is going on here? Is this some sort of communal therapy group, is that what this is?

  Chandler : Well, I'd have to be speaking only for myself if I said that it was.

  Bing : Well, whose turn is it now? Who's gonna pull their skeleton out of their closet and pull them out of the mothballs?

• Chandler : Well, I guess it's your turn, Bing.

  Bing : My turn to what?

  Chandler : Bare your soul.

  Roo : Oh, phooey! Couldn't he bare something a little more... external?

  Toydy : I'll drink to that!

• Chandler : What is that thing in the jug down there?

  Sash : It's like a man - the remains of a man!

• Chandler : What the hell is all this? All this talk about elephants and lions and hens?

  Roo : You'd better add a gorilla to that list, too.

  Toydy : Well, Chandler, we don't know anything about it either, but there's a herd of dangerous animals out in that rain, and they ain't shoppin' for umbrellas!

• Chandler : Well, for your information, there's a corpse down there in the wine cellar floating in a jug of liquid!

• [Chandler and Sash find Gert's husband pickled in mason jars] 

  Chandler : He was all eaten away as if something had been gnawing away at his bones.

  Sash : Didn't your mother ever teach you the proper way to pickle something?

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : I pickled him right! That was the way he looked when he died. They didn't leave much flesh on him, did they?

  Chandler : Who's "they?" Who are you talking about?

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : I'm talking about that buzzin' cloud that came down from the Rockies on that awful Friday.

• Chandler : I'll go get the wine... if Bond comes with me.

  Bond : I don't like cellars, Chandler. They smell funny.

• Chandler : Mrs. Hammond, is there a light down in the basement?

  Gert : No, but there's a large flashlight over by the window.

  Toydy : Well, that's real good. In case you can't get it up, Chandler, you got something to fall back on.

• Chandler : You make me sick! You make me sick! That's what you make me!

  Toydy : When I put the make on you, Chandler, you may choke and gag a little, but you're not gonna feel sick!

• Chandler : We're not alone here. You're forgetting about Mrs. Hammond's husband.

  Sash : He doesn't count. He's lifeless and limp.

  Chandler : Well, I'm afraid there's something else that you'll find in the same condition, so don't be getting your hopes up too high.

  Sash : I don't wanna get my hopes up high, it's just something else I'm trying to raise.

  Chandler : Well, knowing the way that I am, good luck.

  Sash : Luck is supposed to be a lady, so that cuts the odds down just a bit.

• Chandler : Leland Phillips is said to have a heart of gold - and it's true. But they fail to mention that he's also got lungs of silver, a stomach of copper and kidneys made out of tungsten. There's not an authentic human organ in his entire decrepit body. The man is a maniac living off the energy of the U.S. treasury, created by corporate capitalism.

  Sash : Chandler, he sounds like a menace to the sisterhood of women.

  Chandler : Oh, he's more than that. He's a fiend that robbed me of my manhood.

• Chandler : Why do you think I deviate toward men?

  Sash : Some experts say that it's an imbalance in hormones.

  Chandler : No. It's because practically every woman I undress is wearing a House of Phillips girdle.

  Sash : Oh God, no!

  Chandler : Yes. They just stand there by the edge of the bed, waiting for me to pull the rest of their clothes off. And then they ask me what the hell am I staring at, as if I've never seen a girdle before.

  Sash : Oh, Chandler!

  Chandler : Do you know how it feels to relive the most hideous moment of your life again and again? And then those half-naked women wonder why my face turns white and why my eyes pop out of my head instead of something else popping out of my shorts. But it doesn't pop out. Not anymore.

• Chandler : Can you blame me for turning my back on women and giving what I have up front to men?

  Sash : No, darling, no, but what can free you of this crippling disorder?

  Chandler : The destruction of The House of Phillips Unlimited.

• Chandler : You and I've got some unfinished business to take care of later.

  Bond : Don't hold your breath. I'd hate to see that nice face turn blue.

• [Chandler's and Toydy's altercation resulted in the destruction of Gert's lamp] 

  Chandler : Sorry about the lamp. Look, I'll give you six bucks for it. Will that be enough?

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : I don't want your money! You people have lit up my life more brightly than that lamp could ever have done!

• Sash : Chandler, let me go down Highway 135 with you.

  Chandler : To Waco, Texas?

  Sash : To the House of Phillips Unlimited, with its red neon sign branding the Texas sky with the mark of death.

  Chandler : Do you wanna help me shatter that sign until it reads "The House of Phillips Limited?" And then just "The House," until finally there's no sign at all, just a mass of flaming debris?

  Sash : Your mission in life is my mission. I love you.

• [Chandler hands Bing a drink] 

  Chandler : Here you are, my friend. You're gonna need this.

  Bing : To what, bare my soul?

  Roo : Consider it a form of psychological enema.

  Toydy : Shhh! Don't say that word! Old Gert'll come runnin' in with a rubber garden hose!

• Bing : The lion's named Samson. He had the strength of ten men until, like the biblical hero, they clipped his toenails.

  Chandler : And his teeth. You said they took out his teeth.

  Sash : That's a terrible thing to do!

  Roo : Sometimes men wish mine were gone, but that's another story. A dirty one.