John Patrick Shanley Monologues

“You accept what you got to accept and you work with it. … Well he’s got to be somewhere, maybe he’s doin’ some good too … Well maybe some of them boys want to get caught. … That’s why his father beat him. Not the wine. … I’m talkin’ about the boy’s nature, nun. Not anything he’s done. You can’t hold a child responsible for what God gave him to be. … But then there’s the boy’s nature … Forget it then. Forcing people to say things. My boy came to your school ‘cause they were gonna kill him in the public schools. His father don’t like him. He come to your school, kids don’t like him. One man is good to him, this priest. And does a man have his reasons? Yes. Everybody does. You have your reasons but, do I ask the man why he’s good to my son? No. I don’t care why. My son needs some man to care about him. And to see him through the way he wants to go. And thank God this educated man, with some kindness in him, wants to do just that.”

FLYNN: It’s me that cares about that boy, not her. Has she ever reached out a hand to that child or any child in this school? She’s a block of ice! Children need warmth, kindness, understanding! What does she give them? Rules. That black boy needs a helping hand or he’s not going to make it here! But if she has her way, he’ll be left to his own undoing. Why do you think he was in the sacristy drinking wine that day? He’s in trouble! She sees me talk in a human way to these children and she immediately assumes there must be something wrong with it. Something dirty. Well, I’m not going to let her keep this parish in the Dark Ages! And I’m not going to let her destroy my spirit of compassion!

(SISTER JAMES: I’m sure that’s not her intent.)

FLYNN: I care about this congregation!

(SISTER JAMES: I know you do.)

FLYNN: Like you care about your class! You love them, don’t you?

(SISTER JAMES: Yes.)

FLYNN: That’s natural. How else would you relate to children? I can look at your face and know your philosophy: kindness.

(SISTER JAMES: I don’t know. I mean, of course.)

FLYNN: What is Sister Aloysius’ philosophy do you suppose?

(SISTER JAMES: I don’t have to suppose. She’s told me. She discourages… warmth. She’s suggest I be more… formal.)

FLYNN: There are people who go after your humanity, Sister James, who tell you the light in your heart is a weakness. That your soft feelings betray you. I don’t believe that. It’s an old tactic of the cruel people to kill kindness in the name of virtue. Don’t believe it. There’s nothing wrong with love.

(SISTER JAMES: Of course not, but… )

FLYNN: Have you forgotten hat was the message of the Savior to us all? Love. Not suspicion, disapproval and judgement. Love of people. Have you found Sister Aloysius a positive inspiration?

“DONNA: Alright. [a long pause] Tommy an me … When he loves me. In bed. When he puts his arms around me, and I can feel his skin, his heart beating, his breath, and I smell him, it’s like Africa. It’s like, I get scared because all of my guts shake … Sometimes I press my hands against myself because I think things are coming loose inside. He just touches me, starts to barely touch me, and I’m so frightened because it’s so much, it’s so hot, it’s so close to losing my mind. It’s beyond pleasure. It’s … he takes me over. Like there’s a storm, I get caught in this storm with electricity and rain and noise and I’m blind I’m blind. I’m seeing things, but just wild, wild shapes flying by like white flyin rain and black shapes. I feel I feel this this rising thing like a yell a flame. My hair I can feel my hair like slowly going up on its toes on my skull my skull. Everything goes up through me from my belly and legs and feet to my head and all these tears come out but it can’t get out that way, so it goes down against my throat swells an through down to where it can get out GET OUT GET OUT. But it doesn’t go out, so I, I EXPAND. Like to an ocean. To hold the size of it. An then it’s maybe something you could speak of as pleasure, since then somehow I can hold it. I’m this ocean with a thousand moons and comets reflecting in me. And then I come back. Slowly. Slowly. From such a long way. And such a different size. And I’m wet. My body my hair. The bed is just soaked, torn up and soaked. There ain’t a muscle left in me. I’m all eyes. My eyes are the size of like two black pools of water in the middle of an endless night. And Tommy’s there. And he did it to me. He took me completely. I wasn’t me anymore. I was just a blast a light out in the stars. What could be better than that? What could be better? It’s like gettin to die, an get past death, to get to the universe, an then come back. In the world where we talk and fight and he fucks me over, it all just seems so unimportant after that. I don’t understand how he can do that for me an then turn around an be such a, well, smaller. It is a small world this world, in comparison to where we go in bed. And I guess we gotta be smaller in it.”

“DONNA: An Mona. A really lousy picture, self-picture. But it scared me. I think more than anything that’s ever happened to me. I heard the fuckin Twilight Zone music. Cause here I am, goin along, thinkin things are one way, that I’m choosin an goin my own way, an maybe doin a terrible fuckin botch a that, but doin it. An then I see this picture. And I think, Do I really know what’s goin on in my life? Or am I just a complete molecule or some shit. If this guy Tommy is turnin into you, then I’m in some kinda car I don’t even know I’m in, and some guy inna scary mask is drivin, an he’s had the route the map since the doctor smacked my ass. Where am I? I’m in love with this guy Tommy. He’s drivin me crazy, yeah. He’s tearin my heart out an steppin on it, yes. The whole thing I’m doin looks to be a total fuckup, but I can deal with that I can live with that. But what I wanna know gotta know is IS THIS MY LIFE OR WHAT? Is this my pain? My love? Or if what’s goin on here like history? You treated my mother like shit. You cheated on her. You lied to her. You humiliated her in public. When you had money, you wouldn’t give her any. When she had money, you took it. You walked on her face with muddy shoes. When she was in the hospital, you didn’t visit her. And then finally she just fuckin died. Now I hate your fuckin guts for that, but I decided a long time since that I wasn’t gonna spend my whole life wishin you dead or different, cause I didn’t want my life bossed by your life. I even thought, Maybe she deserved it. I knew I didn’t know the whole story and never would an what was it my business anyway? But that was before. Today, I saw that picture on Tommy’s wall, an it was writin on the wall to me, an the writin said, Watch Out. You could be in the middle of somebody else’s life. So that’s why I’m here. Because before I thought I didn’t have to know about you to do my life, and now I see I better find out a few things. It’s like medical history.”

“I was in my car outside this place over the weekend. I hadda couple a drinks and I was a little fuzzy, so I was waitin till I cleared. It was dark. I was sittin there. And this unknown girl got in. She just got in the car. And she started talkin to me. She started rappin to me about the Soviet Union. Yeah. ’bout their economy. Housin. How they feel about China bein’ right there. Everything. Everything about the Soviet Union. She musta talked for two hours. Russian paranoia. Tass. The Gulag. I’m sittin there an’ I’m takin’ this in. The Trans-Siberian Railroad. hat kinda tanks they got in Eastern Europe. Why they need American wheat. And then she was finished. She’d told me everything she knew. So I took her in the back seat and I banged her. And do you know something? It was the best. It was the best I ever had. And it whadn’t cause she knew a lotta tricks or like that. It was ’cause she’d told me about the Soviet Union. And then she left. Now here’s the thing. She was very ugly. I don’t even wanna talk about how she looked. Mucho ugly. I didn’t think I could ever be with a woman like that. But it came about outta whatever, happpenstance, and I was. And it turned out to be better than what I went after. Do you see what I mean? Do you see what I’m comin’ towards? I always went for the girl like you. And what finally fuckin’ come to me, what finally fuckin’ penetrated the wall here, was that there was somethin’ else. Somethin’ I never even thought about, didn’t have a clue about. When I talked to you, I called it ugly girls. I don’t know what to call it. There’s other people. Like in science fiction. Another dimension right there but you can’t see it. I got into it for a minute by accident. Through a crack. I caught a flash. The dimension a ugly girls. I’m like one a those guys inna factory and they bring in all new machines. That’s what I feel like. Like I gotta retrain or I’m gonna lose my place. Some girls you look at some girls you don’t. I wanna see the things I didn’t see before an let the stuff I was lookin at go by. I’ve done the fuckin thing we’re in. Linda. I’ve been with you, I talked to you. I know what that is. That’s what I meant when I said you didn’t know nothin, but I whadn’t sayin it right. You look at what I look at. You know what I know. I wanna look at somethin else. I wanna know somethin else. I’m thirty-two years old. I wanna change.”

“I feel strong. Like I’m wearin chains and I could snap ’em any time. I feel ready. I go to work and I feel like I could take over the company, but I just type. I go home and I see my mother in her chair and I feel like I could pick her up with one hand and chuck her out the window and roll up the rug and throw a big party. Everybody’s invited. I go to the library and I wanna take the books down off the shelves and open all the books on the tables and argue with everybody about ideas. I wanna think out loud. I wanna think out loud with other people. You know what’s wrong with everybody? Too smart. I know it sounds crazy. I know. But it’s true. Everybody’s too smart. It’s like everybody knows everything and everybody argued everything and everything got hashed out and settled the day before I was born. It’s not fair. They know about gravity so nobody talks about gravity. It’s a dead issue. Look at me. My feet are stuck to the fuckin floor. Fantastic. But no. That’s gravity. Forget it. It’s been done it’s been said it’s been thought, so fuck it. It’s not fair. I’ve been shut outta everything that mighta been good by a smartness around that won’t let me think one new thing. And it’s been like that with love, too. You’re a little girl and you see the movies and maybe you talk to your mother and you definitely talk to your friends and then you know, right? So you go ahead and you do love. And somethin a what somebody told ya inna movie or in your ear is what love is. And where the fuck are you then, that’s what I wanna know? Where the fuck are you when you’ve done love, and you can point to love, and you can name it, and love is the same as gravity the same as everything else, and everything else is a totally dead fuckin issue?”

“That’s what it is. There’s boats right up by Westchester Square. What’s that, twenty blocks? Look sometime, you’ll see ’em. Not the real big ones, but big. Sea boats.I met a sailor in the bar one time. In the outfit, you know? I was all over him. But he turned out to be nothin but a pothead. He giggled a lot. It was too bad because … Well, it was too bad.

When we got married, me and Billy, that was my husband, we smoked a ball of opium one night. It really knocked me out. I fell asleep like immediately. And I dreamed about the ocean. It was real blue. And there was the sun, and it was real yellow. And I was out there, right in the middle of the ocean, and I heard this noise. I turned around, and whaddaya think I saw? Just about right next to me. A whale! A whale carne shootin straight outta the water! A whale! Yeah! And he opened up his mouth and closed it while he-was up there in the air. And people on the boat said, Look! The whales are jumpin! And no shit, these whales start jumpin outta the water all over the place. And I can see them! Through one a those round windows. Or right out in the open. Whales! Gushin outta the water, and the water gushin outta their heads, you know, spoutin! And then, after a while, they all stopped jumpin. It got quiet. Everybody went away. The water smoothed out. But I kept lookin at the ocean. So deep and blue. And different. It was different then. ‘Cause I knew it had all them whales in it.”

“So our fathers are dead. We can’t go on trying ta make our fathers love us or fightin our fathers or tryin ta kill our fathers. What’s the point of killing a dead man cause he won’t love you? A dead man don’t need killin and a dead man can’t love you at all. I know you’re crazy and just me talking ain’t gonna make you sane. But comon! We’re all crazy, that ain’t no excuse. You been treated me bad my whole life and enough already. I been nuts, too. I’m tryin to be well, too. Let’s drop this shitload, this weight of sorrow, these sandbags on our necks from a million years ago, and try to talk to each other about now. You can’t kill me Janice. You been trying your whole life, an I just won’t die. Even when you fire a gun at me, it explodes in your hand. Even if I die, I’ll still be jumping around inside your head. You know, this distance you are from me, this distance now, if we talk to each other, this could be the least distance there ever has been between us.

There’s somethin I’ve wanted to say to you for a long time but I never did. I’m sorry your marriage broke up.”