How about best speeches/monologues?

You guys are going to cause Holden to have a nervous breakdown. He must have given you the definition of "monologue" a dozen times.

mon·o·logue n.
1.
-a. A dramatic soliloquy.
-b. A literary composition in the form of a soliloquy.
2. A continuous series of jokes or comic stories delivered by one comedian.
3. A long speech made by one person, often monopolizing a conversation.

Here was me thinking it was the output of a supremely lazy lumberjack....

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

I used to have the entire thing, but this will have to do.
EDIT: I've added a bunch more. I'm not sure this is the entire speech or not. If not, it is real close.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you have heard a lot today, and I'm not gonna go back over it, but you have to go into that room and make some decisions. But before you do, there's something you need to know. I am not trying to suggest that you should like what Larry Flynt does. I don't like what Larry Flynt does, but what I do like is the fact that I live in a country where you and I can make that decision for ourselves. I like the fact that I live in a country where I can pick up Hustler magazine and read it if I want to, or throw it in the garbage can if that's where I think it belongs. Or better yet, I can exercize my opinion and not buy it.

I like that I have that right. I care about it, and you should care about it too. You really should. Because we live in a free country. You know, and we say that a lot, but I think sometimes we forget really what that means, so listen to it again. We live in a free country. And that is a powerful idea. That's a.. that's a magnificant way to live. But there is a price for that freedom, which is that sometimes we have to tolerate things that we don't necessarily like.

Go back in that room where you are free to think whatever you want to think aobut Larry Flynt and Hustler Magazine, but then ask yourselves if you want to make that decision for the rest of us. Because the freedom that everyone in this room enjoys is in a very real way in your hands. And if we start throwing up walls against things that some of us think is obcene, we may very well wake up one morning and discover that walls had been thrown up in all kinds of places that we never expected, and we can't see anything or do anything. And.. and that's not freedom. That is not freedom. So be careful. Thank you" - Edward Norton, in The People vs. Larry Flint

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One of the biggest myths told is that being intelligent is the absence of the ability to do stupid things.

One of my favorite scenes in cinema history is when Ned Beatty's character is explaining how the world works to poor little Howard Beale in Network (1976):


"You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear?! You think you've merely stopped a business deal -- that is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity. It is ecological balance. You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, Reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU WILL ATONE!

Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?

You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen, and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and A T & T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state -- Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable by-laws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale! It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war and famine, oppression or brutality -- one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.

And I have chosen you to preach this evangel, Mr. Beale."

Just saw Clerks and this has my vote as favourite monologue now.

"Oh, f*** you! F*** you, pal! There you go again trying to pass the buck. I'm the source of all your misery. Who closed the store to play hockey? Who closed the store to go to a wake? Who tried to win back his ex girlfriend without even discussing how he felt about it with his present girlfriend? You want someone to blame for today? Blame yourself. "I'm not even supposed to be here today." You sound like an *******! Jesus, nobody twisted your arm to be here today. You're here under your own volition. You like to think that the weight of the world rests on Dante's shoulders. Like this place would fall apart if Dante wasn't here. Christ, you overcompensate for what's basically a monkey's job. You push f***ing buttons. Anybody can just waltz in here and do our jobs. You're so obsessed with making it seem so much more epic and important than it really is. You work at a convenience store, Dante! And badly, I might add! I work at a s****y video store, badly as well. That guy Jay's got it right, man. He's got no delusions about what he does. Us, we like to think that we're so much more advanced than the people that come in here everyday to buy paper, or, god forbid, cigarettes. Well, if we're so f***ing advanced, what are we doing working here? -- Randal Graves, Clerks

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

omg havent you forgotten eric idle's speech during the "Mr Smoketomuch" sketch???

25th Hour

**** me? **** you! **** you and this whole city and everyone in it. **** the panhandlers, grubbing for money, and smiling at me behind my back. **** the squeegee men dirtying up the clean windshield of my car. Get a ****ing job! **** the Sikhs and the Pakistanis bombing down the avenues in decrepit cabs, curry steaming out their pores, stinking up my day. Terrorists in ****ing training. SLOW THE **** DOWN! **** the Chelsea boys with their waxed chests and pumped up biceps. Going down on each other in my parks and on my piers, jingling their dicks on my Channel 35. **** the Korean grocers with their pyramids of overpriced fruit and their tulips and roses wrapped in plastic. Ten years in the country, still no speaky English? **** the Russians in Brighton Beach. Mobster thugs sitting in cafés, sipping tea in little glasses, sugar cubes between their teeth. Wheelin' and dealin' and schemin'. Go back where you ****ing came from! **** the black-hatted Hasidim, strolling up and down 47th street in their dirty gabardine with their dandruff. Selling South African apartheid diamonds! **** the Wall Street brokers. Self-styled masters of the universe. Michael Douglas, Gordon Gecko wannabe mother ****ers, figuring out new ways to rob hard working people blind. Send those Enron ******** to jail for ****ING LIFE! You think Bush and Cheney didn't know about that ****? Give me a ****ing break! Tyco! Worldcom! **** the Puerto Ricans. 20 to a car, swelling up the welfare rolls, worst ****in' parade in the city. And don't even get me started on the Dom-in-i-cans, 'cause they make the Puerto Ricans look good. **** the Bensonhurst Italians with their pomaded hair, their nylon warm-up suits, their St. Anthony medallions, swinging their, Jason Giambi, Louisville slugger, baseball bats, trying to audition for the Sopranos. **** the Upper East Side wives with their Hermes scarves and their fifty-dollar Balducci artichokes. Overfed faces getting pulled and lifted and stretched, all taut and shiny. You're not fooling anybody, sweetheart! **** the uptown brothers. They never pass the ball, they don't want to play defense, they take fives steps on every lay-up to the hoop. And then they want to turn around and blame everything on the white man. Slavery ended one hundred and thirty seven years ago. Move the **** on! **** the corrupt cops with their anus violating plungers and their 41 shots, standing behind a blue wall of silence. You betray our trust! **** the priests who put their hands down some innocent child's pants. **** the church that protects them, delivering us into evil. And while you're at it, **** JC! He got off easy! A day on the cross, a weekend in hell, and all the hallelujahs of the legioned angels for eternity! Try seven years in ****in' Otisville, J! **** Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and backward-ass, cave-dwelling, fundamentalist ******** everywhere. On the names of innocent thousands murdered, I pray you spend the rest of eternity with your seventy-two whores roasting in a jet-fueled fire in hell. You towel headed camel jockeys can kiss my royal Irish ass!

Good Will Hunting
So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, "once more unto the breach dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. And look at you... I don't see an intelligent, confident man... I see a cocky, scared ****less kid. But you're a genius Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my ****ing life apart. You're an orphan right? You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally... I don't give a **** about all that, because you know what, I can't learn anything from you, I can't read in some ****in' book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I'm fascinated. I'm in. But you don't want to do that do you sport? You're terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief.

Adaptation
Do I have an original thought in my head, my bald head? Maybe if I were happier, my hair wouldn’t be falling out. Life is short; I need to make the most of it. Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I’m a walking cliché. I really need to go to the doctor and have my leg checked. There's something wrong. Oh well. The dentist called again, I'm way overdue. If I stopped putting things off, I would be happier. All I do is sit on my fat ass, if my ass wasn’t fat, I would be happier. I wouldn’t have to wear these shirts with the tails out all the time; like that’s fooling anyone. Fat ass. I should start jogging again. Five miles a day; really do it this time. Maybe rock climbing; I need to turn my life around. What do I need to do? I need to fall in love. I need to have a girlfriend. I need to read more; improve myself. Maybe I should learn Russian or something. Or take up an instrument. I could speak Chinese. I could be the screenwriter who speaks Chinese and plays the oboe. That would be cool. I should get my hair cut short; stop trying to fool myself and everyone else into thinking I have a full head of hair. How pathetic is that? Just be real. Confident. Isn't that what women are attracted to? Men don’t have to be attractive. But that's not true, ''specially these days. There's almost as much pressure on men as there is on women these days. Why should I be made to feel like I should apologize for my existence? Maybe it's my brain chemistry. Maybe that’s what's wrong with me. Bad chemistry... all my problems and anxiety can be reduced to a chemical imbalance or some kind of misfiring synapses. I need to get help from them; but I'll still be ugly though. Nothing is going to change that.


Swordfish
You know what the problem with Hollywood is? They make ****. Unbelievable, unremarkable ****. Now I'm not some grungy wannabe filmmaker that's searching for existentialism through a haze of bong smoke or something. No, it's easy to pick apart bad acting, short-sighted directing, and a purely moronic stringing together of words that many of the studios term as "prose". No, I'm talking about the lack of realism. Realism; not a pervasive element in today's modern American cinematic vision. Take Dog Day Afternoon, for example. Arguably Pacino's best work, short of Scarface and Godfather Part 1, of course. Masterpiece of directing, easily Lumet's best. The cinematography, the acting, the screenplay, all top-notch. But... they didn't push the envelope. Now what if in Dog Day, Sonny REALLY wanted to get away with it? What if - now here's the tricky part - what if he started killing hostages right away? No mercy, no quarter. "Meet our demands or the pretty blonde in the bellbottoms gets it the back of the head." Bam, splat! What, still no bus? Come on! How many innocent victims splattered across a window would it take to have the city reverse its policy on hostage situations? And this is 1976; there's no CNN, there's no CNBC, there's no internet! Now fast forward to today, present time, same situation. How quickly would the modern media make a frenzy over this? In a matter of hours, it'd be biggest story from Boston to Budapest! Ten hostages die, twenty, thirty; bam bam, right after another, all caught in high-def, computer-enhanced, color corrected. You can practically taste the brain matter. All for what? A bus, a plane? A couple of million dollars that's federally insured? I don't think so. Just a thought. I mean, it's not within the realm of conventional cinema... but what if?

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

Now that we have somebody who understands that mono = one, if a mono moderator could add TheUsualSuspect's post into HERE and then close this one, that'd be peachy.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

Yee-Haw...I'm on it!

Thanks, yet again, for doing the search for me.

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"Today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."

my bad, I gues I should search the forums more.

DON CORLEONE
I forego my vengeance for my dead
son, for the common good. But I
have selfish reasons. My youngest
son had to flee, accused of
Sollozzo's murder, and I must now
make arrangements so that he can
come home with safety, cleared of
all those false charges. That is
my affair, and I will make those
arrangements.

But I am a superstitious man...and
so if some unlucky accident should
befall my youngest son, if some
police officer should accidentally
shoot him, or if he should hang
himself in his cell, or if my son
is struck by a bolt of lightning,
then I will blame some of the
people here. That, I could never
forgive, but...aside from that, let
me swear by the souls of my
Grandchildren that I will never be
the one to break the peace we have
made.

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"Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others."- Groucho Marx

From On the Waterfront

TERRY

It wasn't him!

It was you, Charley. You and Johnny. Like the
night the two of youse come in the dressing
room and says, "Kid, this ain't your night— we're
going for the price on Wilson." It ain't my night.
I'd of taken Wilson apart that night! I was ready—
remember the early rounds throwing them combinations.
So what happens— This bum Wilson
he gets the title shot— outdoors in the ballpark!
– and what do I get— a couple of bucks and
a one-way ticket to Palookaville.
(more and more aroused as he relives it)
It was you, Charley. You was
my brother. You should of looked out for me.
Instead of making me take them dives for the
short-end money.

Magnolia

Respect the cock! And tame the ****! Tame it! Take it on headfirst with the skills that I will tech you at work and say no! You will not control me! No! You will not take my soul! No! You will not win this game! Because it's a game, guys. You want to think it's not, huh? You want to think it's not? Go back to the schoolyard and you have that crush on big-titted Mary Jane. Respect the cock. You are embedding this thought. I am the one who's in charge. I am the one who says yes! No! Now! Here! Because it's universal, man. It is evolutional. It is anthropological. It is biological. It is animal. We...are...men!


American History X
It's 5:40 am and in about one minute I'm going to watch the sun come up. I don't know if I've ever done that. Anyway, we're going to try to pick things up, and start over. It won't be easy but we're all together again. And I feel good. I'm not sure if this paper is what you wanted, if I hit the social significance or whatever you're looking for. But, for what it's worth, thanks a lot. So I guess this is where I tell you what I learned. My conclusion, right? Well, my conclusion is: hate is baggage. Life's too short to be pissed off all the time. It's just not worth it. Derek says it's always good to end a paper with a quote. Says someone else has already said it best so if you can't top it, steal from them and go out strong. So I picked a guy I thought you'd like. "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic cords of memory will swell when again touched, as they surely will be, by the better angels of our nature."

American Psycho

I live in the American Gardens building on West 81st street. My name is Patrick Bateman. I'm 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself, and a balanced diet and a rigorous exercise routine. In the morning, if my face is a little puffy, I'll put on an ice pack while doing my stomach crunches. I can do a thousand now. After I remove the ice pack, I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower, I use a water activated gel cleanser. Then a honey almond body scrub. And on the face, an exfoliating gel scrub. Then apply an herb mint facial mask, which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an aftershave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion. There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me. Only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our life styles are probably comparable, I simply am not there.

#2
Howard! It's Bateman, Pat Bateman. You're my lawyer, so I think you should know I killed alot of people! Some escort girls in an apartment uptown...some homeless people, maybe 5 or 10! Ummm...Some girl I met at an NYU party. I left her body in the parking lot behind some old donut shop! My old girlfriend Beverly with a nail gun. Some man, some old ****** with a dog! I killed another girl with a chainsaw. I had to, she almost got away. There was someone else there, I can't remember...maybe a model or something. But, she's dead too. And, uh, Paul Allen! I killed Paul Allen with an axe in the face! His body is dissolving in a bathtub in Hells Kitchen. I don't want to leave anything out, now. I guess I killed maybe...twenty people. Maybe forty! I've got tapes of alot of it. Some of the girls have seen the tapes. I even...I even ate some of their brains. And I tried to cook a little. Tonight...I just HAD TO KILL ALOT OF PEOPLE! And I don't think I'm gonna get away with it this time. So...I guess...I guess I'm a pretty sick guy. Well...if you get back tomorrow...I'll meet you up at Harry's Bar so...keep your eyes open. Bye.

The Big Lebowski

Donny was a good bowler, and a good man. He was...he was one of us. He was a man who loved the outdoors, and bowling, and as a surfer he explored the beaches of southern California from La Holla to Leo Carillo, and up to Pismo. He died.. he died as so many young men of his generation before his time, and in your wisdom, Lord, you took him. Just as you took so many bright, flowering young men at Khe San, and Lan Doc, and Hill 364. These young men gave their lives, and so did Donny. Donny who loved bowling. And so, Theodore Donald Karabotsos.. in accordance with what we think your dying wishes might well have been....we commit your final mortal remains to the bosom of the Pacific Ocean, which you loved so well. Goodnight, sweet prince.

Damn, Suspect snagged my Bateman monologue I was coming in to post. Love that one, and watched the film recently.... I have been quoting the thing for a couple weeks now....

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In "Traffic"

GENERAL LANDRY
When Kruschev was forced out, he sat
down and wrote two letters and handed
them to his successor. He said "When
you get into a situation you can't
get out of, open the first letter
and you'll be saved. And when you
get into another situation you can't
get out of, open the second." Soon
enough this guy found himself in a
tight place. So he opened the first
letter. It said, "Blame everything
on me." So he blamed the old guy
and it worked like a charm.

He got into another situation he
couldn't get out of, so he opened
the second letter, which read, "Sit
down and write two letters."

Lucky i found the script in Saint Google.

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CHE PILLIN

Pulp Fiction

Performed by Samuel L. Jackson

There's this passage I got memorized, Ezekiel 25:17. "The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you." I been sayin' that s*** for years. And if you heard it, that meant your ass. I never gave much thought to what it meant. I just thought it was some coldblooded s*** to say to a mother f***er before I popped a cap in his ass. But I saw some s*** this mornin' made me think twice. See now I'm thinkin', maybe it means you're the evil man. And I'm the righteous man. And Mr. 9mm here, he's the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or it could mean you're the righteous man and I'm the shepherd and it's the world that's evil and selfish. Now I like that. But that s*** ain't the truth. The truth is you're the weak. And I am the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin’ Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be the shepherd.

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Reservoir Dogs
Harvey Keitel as Mr. White

When you're dealing with a store like this, they're insured up the ass. They're not supposed to give you any resistance whatsoever. If you get a customer, or an employee, who thinks he's Charles Bronson, take the butt of your gun and smash their nose in. Everybody jumps. He falls down screaming, blood squirts out of his nose, nobody says f*cking sh*t after that. You might get some bitch talk sh*t to you, but give her a look like you're gonna smash her in the face next, watch her shut the f*ck up. Now if it's a manager, that's a different story. Managers know better than to f*ck around, so if you get one that's giving you static, he probably thinks he's a real cowboy, so you gotta break that son of a bitch in two. If you wanna know something and he won't tell you, cut off one of his fingers. The little one. Then tell him his thumb's next. After that he'll tell you if he wears ladies underwear. I'm hungry. Let's get a taco.

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"Like all dreamers, Steven mistook disenchantment for truth."

GOOD WILL HUNTING:

Wood drastically underestimates the impact of social distinctions predicated upon wealth, especially inherited wealth. You got that from Vickers. "Work in Essex County", page 98, right? Yeah, I read that too. Were you going to plagiarize the whole thing for us? Do you have any thoughts of your own on this matter? Or do you, is that your thing, you come into a bar, you read some obscure passage, and then pretend, you pawn it off as your own, as your own idea just to impress some girl and embarrass my friend? You see, the sad thing about a guy like you is that in 50 years, you're gonna start doing some thinking on your own and you're gonna come up with the fact that there are two certainties in life. One: don't do that. And two: you dropped 150 grand on a f****** education you could have gotten for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library.

Everytime I leave a conversation and someone asks where I'm going I say

"I have to return some video tapes"