The Four Seasons (1981)
Alan Alda: Jack Burroughs
Photos
Quotes
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Jack : Are you mad at me?
Kate Burroughs : You got it!
Jack : You picked a helluva time to get irrational.
Kate Burroughs : Oh, I'm not irrational. Rational people get angry. Irrational people pretend they don't.
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Danny : [talking about Nick] He's been having affairs all along. Dozens.
Jack : [disbelief] You're kidding.
Danny : How could you not know? They even slept at your place once.
Jack : Where was I?
Danny : You gave him the key to water your plants and feed the cats while you were away. Didn't you notice the funny expression on the cats' faces?
Jack : He told you all of this?
Danny : Most of it... some of it came out when he was under gas.
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Jack : Danny is driving me crazy. He has to be the expert on everything. What's the matter with him?
Kate Burroughs : He's very needy, that's all.
Jack : Needy? He's hypochondriacal, stingy, bossy, selfish, compulsive, and paranoid. He's the Muhammad Ali of mental illness.
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Jack : OK, that's a problem I have. When I get angry, I overanalyze. You know why I do that?
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Nick : I don't understand. I've hurt you in some way?
Jack : I happen to know you betrayed your wife dozens of times.
Nick : If I did, that's what I did to her. What did I do to you?
Jack : You didn't tell either of us.
Nick : Hey, wait a minute. Let's take you one at a time. You can understand my not telling her, right?
Jack : I can't understand you saying on the one hand that you could tell me anything. And on the other hand not telling me a goddamn thing except what suits you. I feel as betrayed as she does.
Nick : Jack, all I've ever gotten from you is judgment and disapproval and you expect me to come and tell you every time I've had an affair with a hatcheck girl?
Jack : That's who you were having affairs with? Hatcheck girls?
Nick : No! They were all intelligent, worthy women. The top people in their field. I can't tell you all their names but two of them were Margaret Thatcher and Indira Gandhi.
Jack : When you wanna talk intelligently, I'll talk. Otherwise, forget it.
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Danny : [talking about Nick and Ginny] I don't find them all that adorable. They're making this trip very difficult.
Jack : They're not even *on* this trip! They walk around mooning all the time, making goo-goo eyes - my God, if one of them farts, the other thinks it's Guy Lombardo!
Claudia Zimmer : I think it's kind of nice.
Jack : I don't know, I - I want us all to feel like we did before.
Claudia Zimmer : I want to feel like them.
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Jack : [calmly, but icily] I'm sorry to have to tell you this.
Kate Burroughs : What?
Jack : You're making me angry.
Kate Burroughs : You're angry? Right now?
Jack : [again, calmly] I'm enraged.
Kate Burroughs : How was I supposed to know? Maybe you can stamp your foot next time. Or try this.
[shrieking]
Kate Burroughs : WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
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Ginny : [about Anne] You know, I don't want to talk her down, but she is unreliable. I mean Nick has made three appointments to meet her down at his lawyer's office and she's never shown up. She hasn't even called.
Claudia Zimmer : Now wait a minute. No offense, Ginny, but 21 years ago Nick said he would be there on the other side of the bed every morning and for the last six months he hasn't kept his appointment either!
Jack : [flustered] OK, look. All right, all right. Let's calm down. It's not all that bad. It's just a little embarassing.
Nick : I don't see what the big problem is. We're all adults. We'll just say hello and uh...
Danny : Have a nervous breakdown.
Claudia Zimmer : [approaching Ginny] Ginny, I'm sorry. There is a lot of strain in the situation and I get passionate sometimes.
Ginny : [crying and sniffling] That's OK. I know you're just trying to be fair to everybody.
[Ginny walks away]
Claudia Zimmer : [to Nick] You're the one I wanted to make cry.
[Nick goes after Ginny]
Danny : [to Claudia] Well, you had to open up your mouth again.
Claudia Zimmer : Danny, it's over and done with, please.
Danny : Let's have a nice quiet time... a nice vacation.
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Danny : Let me tell you something, Jack, I'm 10 years older than you, right?
Jack : Yeah.
Danny : All right, I just hope that when you get to be my age, you don't smell the foul breath of death and disintegration hanging over your shoulder the way I find it hanging over mine. I mean, I go to sleep at night on an ache so bad that it simply will not go away. I wake up in the middle of the night sweating, hearing my own bones decay. I have shifted into a state of entropy that's progressing geometrically.
Jack : You see. Entropy. Progressing geometrically. You talk like a bad textbook. Why don't you just speak English?
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Jack : Why do you think we love this boat so much?
Kate Burroughs : I don't know.
Jack : You know why I think we like this boat so much?
Kate Burroughs : I knew it! I knew it. He only asked us so that he could tell us his theory. Go ahead. Go ahead, sweetheart. Tell us. Why do we love this boat so much?
Jack : Because it represents our primeval desire to control water.
Kate Burroughs : See.
Jack : Now, think about it. All our beginnings are wet. Sloshing around in the womb. Baptism. The first life that came out of the warm soup of the ocean. From the moment we rose from the slime as alligators, we've been trying for dominion over water. You know?
Kate Burroughs : Jack loves ideas. And he can do so much with them. I have seen him take one idea at a dinner party and bring the conversation of a dozen people to a complete halt.
Nick : Ladies and gentlemen, Clams Casino.
Claudia Zimmer : Oh, my God, I love them! I have this insatiable need to have dominance over the clams.
Jack : It so happens that Venus rose from the sea on a clam shell. Sexuality was born in wetness.
Danny : It's easier that way!
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Jack : You handle everything like three of the most efficient people I know. Uh, nobody can do what you do. My God, you're perfect!
Kate Burroughs : How dare you call me that?
Jack : How dare I call you perfect?
Kate Burroughs : Yes. Yes, isn't that what I heard?
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Nick : She might fall down! I can't let Ginny just wander around in the snow like that.
Jack : Why not?
Nick : Because she's pregnant.
Jack : Pregnant? You're 43 years old! You're gonna start having babies now?
Nick : Oh, there's some real heartwarming acceptance. I have to check everything with you? As a matter of fact, I told you I wanted to start a new family.
Jack : With babies?
Nick : What, with Airedales?
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Danny : [all are preparing to dive into baguette sandwiches, in Danny's new Mercedes] Don't eat!
Jack : Why?
Danny : The crumbs go down into the upholstery. One loaf of French bread and the resale value goes down five-hundred dollars.
Jack : Can't I just eat the insides
[of my sandwich]
Jack : for a hundred?
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Jack : [toast to Nick and Anne] To the reason we're here tonight. Not just to celebrate your anniversary, but to that deeper thing that brings us all close together. To what bonds us, and... and makes us huddle against the cold winds of divorce that have blown through the lives of our friends.
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Kate Burroughs : Did anyone sleep last night?
Claudia Zimmer : You're kidding, right? With all those mating calls coming from the master bedroom?
Jack : All night long.
Claudia Zimmer : I mean, who could have guessed that it would be so distressing to listen to other people humping?
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Danny : Claudia thinks she's seasick.
Jack : Are you?
Claudia Zimmer : No. I'm just trying out this new green makeup.
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Kate Burroughs : I can't believe he brought her. How could he do that to Anne? How could he do it to us?
Jack : But she's really nice, you know. I mean, I like her.
Kate Burroughs : She's wonderful! I can't even enjoy hating her. Who the hell needs that?
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Jack : [to Danny] Come on, Ollie.
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Claudia Zimmer : [trying to ignore observing Ginny and Nick skinny dipping] Okay, Danny, we've all got something to do.
Danny : What's everybody getting so crazy about? You can't see anything.
Jack : Then what are you standing there for?
Claudia Zimmer : He's hoping she'll turn over and do the backstroke.
Danny : I was just enjoying their playfulness. They're like a couple of porpoises. It's a pure animal pleasure of having fun, that's all.
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Kate Burroughs : Enjoy your fantasies.
Jack : I don't have any fantasies about her.
Kate Burroughs : Yeah?
Jack : Well, no serious fantasies.
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Jack : Well, now that we all know we're fine, is there anything else we ought to talk about?
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Kate Burroughs : Jack, don't, uh, don't try to get to the heart of things, just let it lay there.
Jack : Why are we all pretending we're not embarrassed? Why don't we just say how we feel?
Anne Callan : I feel, uh, like I wish you would just sort of shut up.
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Jack : I think we should get to the heart of this.
Kate Burroughs : The heart of this - is that you wish you had some blonde *nymph* adoring you like he does. So go on! Go find one! Christ, how long you going to hang on to these fantasies? The reality is you're married to a middle-aged woman with a good sense of humor and dry skin. And if you don't like it then go find yourself a nymph. Just do me the courtesy of telling me. In other words, and I mean this in the most loving way: shit or get off the pot!
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Kate Burroughs : Don't you ever feel like going someplace alone with me?
Jack : You want to take a vacation without them?
Kate Burroughs : I have this perverse desire to be married to one person at a time. I don't know, it excites me!
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Jack : Goddamn it. Goddamn it! I am - I'm standing here bleeding! Blood is running down my leg and we're talking about daffodils!
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Ginny : Okay, come on. Danny, let's dance. Come on.
Danny : No. No, thanks. No. I don't want to dance.
Claudia Zimmer : Danny dance.
Ginny : Come on.
Jack : Go ahead, dance. Go on.
Kate Burroughs : Go boogie.
