Rocket Science Quotes
Looking for answers to life's big questions, a stuttering boy joins his high school debate team.
Ginny Ryerson: Coach Lumbly, with the pilgrim hat, she teaches Patterns of Adult Living. On her third husband, name of Wallace Lumbly, Wallace the third. That's a particular pattern she doesn't lecture us on in class. Well, she came up to me after a presentation on egalitarianism and said that although my argumentative skills were at the fetal stage she sensed, somehow she intuited, my potential and invited me onto the team and, so, two years later, here I am doing the same with you. Recruiting. Ferreting out the debating talent from the masses. That's you. I've ferreted you.
Narrator: Eventually all of this would pass, and the memory of it would give way to embellishment and fantasy and... outright distortion. Until it was hard for Hal Hefner to remember what he was really like back then, when he still carried in his head the sound a of a made-up perfect voice. A voice that could speak its heart. A voice he used wish he had, until the day he stopped wishing he sounded like anyone else and just started talking as he was.
Earl Hefner: [Hal is taking a bath with the bathroom door locked; Earl is trying to break in] I hate you! Mommy and Judge Pete hate you! Daddy hates you! Melody, daddy's new girlfriend, hates you. That bottle was reposado, you doofus dunce! Uncle Chaz spent big bucks on that. Uncle Chaz hates you!
[Earl breaks into the room]
Earl Hefner: That's all I wanted to say. There's pineapple cake in the fridge. If you're late, I'll eat the whole cake, so don't be late.
[Earl breaks into the room]
Earl Hefner: That's all I wanted to say. There's pineapple cake in the fridge. If you're late, I'll eat the whole cake, so don't be late.
Ben Wekselbaum: It's all so pointless. That's the realization I came to at States last year. Life is nothing but repetition, the same thing over and over. Somebody might give you a trophy and that's supposed to mean you're making progress but there's no such thing. The fights you fight today are the fights you fight untill you die.
Hal Hefner: Yeah, be that as it may.
Ben Wekselbaum: Sure, be that as it may...
Hal Hefner: Wait! It is not some college application bullshit that is, that is like the driving force here or any bullshit.
Ben Wekselbaum: I'm sure.
Hal Hefner: Yeah, be that as it may.
Ben Wekselbaum: Sure, be that as it may...
Hal Hefner: Wait! It is not some college application bullshit that is, that is like the driving force here or any bullshit.
Ben Wekselbaum: I'm sure.
Hal Hefner: Um... but I'll have a slice of the, of your, one of your, um, a slice of, the, the p-p... the... the the pizza.
Pizza Server: [puts one slice of pizza on a plate] You can pay me when you're through.
Hal Hefner: You know why don't I make it not just on... not jus not o-one not of the not one slice of the but uh I'll uh I'll have uh not one.
Pizza Server: I'm gonna close up in a bit, why don't you just take all three. Otherwise they're gettin' trashed.
[puts two more slices on the plate]
Hal Hefner: [raises hands in triumph] Yes...
Pizza Server: [puts one slice of pizza on a plate] You can pay me when you're through.
Hal Hefner: You know why don't I make it not just on... not jus not o-one not of the not one slice of the but uh I'll uh I'll have uh not one.
Pizza Server: I'm gonna close up in a bit, why don't you just take all three. Otherwise they're gettin' trashed.
[puts two more slices on the plate]
Hal Hefner: [raises hands in triumph] Yes...
Hal Hefner: You know, Ginny said I won't be her real partner for months. And until then, I'm, like... the mascot. The disfluent mascot. The disfluent mascot who's not getting a BJ.
Heston: Like an aardvark.
Hal Hefner: No, that was a joke, Heston... there isn't a debate mascot.
Heston: I, for some reason, was convinced that it was an aardvark.
Hal Hefner: No.
Heston: C'est la vie.
Heston: Like an aardvark.
Hal Hefner: No, that was a joke, Heston... there isn't a debate mascot.
Heston: I, for some reason, was convinced that it was an aardvark.
Hal Hefner: No.
Heston: C'est la vie.
