The Brothers Bloom

Bloom:
Eat your waffles, fat man.

Stephen:
That's my new favorite camel.

The Curator:
The Curator: Madam, your smile is the sun and fallen men like me, we need the sun.

Stephen:
I have at different times in my life, sold sand to an Arab and ice to an Eskimo.

Bang Bang:
[after blowing up the Prague castle] F*** me...

Bloom:
Do you feel cheated?

Penelope Stamp:
The trick to not feeling cheated is to learn how to cheat.

Stephen:
The score to beat is 7.9. Keep your head in the game, that Japanese judge is very tough.

Bloom:
This is a banana seat, man.

[Stephen and Bang Bang stare at him]

Bloom:
Don't give me that blank look. You know what a goddamn banana seat is.

Bloom:
There's actually a nack to this. If you're trying to fast-track to a mark's sympathies, there's nothing quite as effective as having your first conversation be from a hospital bed... they put you in.

Penelope Stamp:
I think you're constipated, in your f***ing soul... I think you might have a really big load of grumpy petrified poop up your soul's ass.

Penelope Stamp:
Oh my god, I'm so horny!

Bloom:
[exiting] Goodnight.

Penelope Stamp:
A thunderstorm! I LOVE thunderstorms!

Young Stephen:
Let 'em melt. [he and Bloom walk away in slo mo. A Rod Stewart song starts playing]

[repeated line]

Stephen:
Tastes like tinfoil.

Bloom:
How did you find me?

Penelope Stamp:
Bang Bang.

Bloom:
Bang Bang?

Penelope Stamp:
She gave me her cell number.

Bloom:
Bang Bang has a cell phone?

Stephen:
See, you've reached an unethical conclusion. You think you want out, but you don't. One last con.

Bloom:
Where are we going?

Stephen:
New Jersey.

Bloom:
...I'll get my coat...

Stephen:
Can I get a 'wow'?

Penelope Stamp:
I don't know about "truths." A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells, the less you know.

Stephen:
The perfect con is one where everyone involved gets just what they wanted.

Stephen:
You were the only audience I ever needed.

Penelope Stamp:
This was a story about a girl who could find infinite beauty in anything, any little thing, and even love the person she was trapped with. And i told myself this story until it became true. Now, did doing this help me escape a wasted life? Or did it blind me so I didn't want to escape it? I don't know, but either way I was the one telling my own story...

The Curator:
Your smile is the sun, ma ch?re. And fallen men, we need the sun.

Penelope Stamp:
I know I'm pretending to be a smuggler ba ba ba... BUT what you don't know is that I'm a real smuggler because I tell it like I own it. You know what your problem is? You just gotta stop thinking and just enjoy the ride man.

Penelope Stamp:
There is no such thing as an unwritten life, only a badly written one.

Narrator:
and being who he wasn't, could be as he wished to be

Penelope Stamp:
I think a little real danger might suit me, so, uh, if you three want to join my smugglers gang, I'll uh, y'know, uh... consider it.

Bloom:
Trying to get something real by telling yourself stories is a trap.

Bloom:
You don't understand what my brother does. He writes his cons the way dead Russians write novels, with thematic arcs and embedded symbolism and sh*t. And he wrote me as the vulnerable anti-hero. And that's why you think you want to kiss me. It's a con.

Stephen:
[Opening a gate at the zoo] Is this the bathroom? Nnnnno. This is camels.

Stephen:
I'm not thrilled they set this in Mexico. There could be legitimate reasons, but Mexico's- and I don't like to simplistically vilify an entire country- but Mexico's a horrible place.

[first lines]

Narrator:
As far as con man stories go, I think I've heard them all. Of grifters, ropers, faro-fixers; tails drawn long and tall. But if one bears a bookmark in the confidence man's tome, it would be that of Penelope, and of the brothers Bloom.

Young Stephen:
[precociously observing] Playground bourgeoisies.

Penelope Stamp:
I'm an epileptic photographer.

Stephen:
In my story you don't get the money, or the sunset, or the girl.

Diamond Dog:
Our hero must face the Minotaur before he escapes the maze.

[last lines]

Penelope Stamp:
He said to me, there's no such thing as an unwritten life. Just a badly written one.

Bloom:
Oh God.

Penelope Stamp:
I love you Bloom. You know what we're gonna do? We're gonna live. Like we're telling the best story in the whole world.

Penelope Stamp:
Are you ready?

Bloom:
[narrating] And Stephen said something else one. The perfect con is one where everyone involved gets just the thing they wanted.

Stephen:
Have at thee, you ham-headed bastards!

Young Stephen:
[to Bloom, after finishing their first con] So how's it feel?

Narrator:
In truth, young Bloom won't know for twenty years just how he felt. [Beat]

Narrator:
And so, we'll skip ahead now in our story.

Bloom:
I can't wake up next to another stranger, who thinks they know me, or even wants to know me, cause I don't know - who - I'm thirty five years old, and I, I'm useless, I'm crippled, I don't, I've only ever lived life through these roles that aren't me, that are written for me by you.

Stephen:
Tell me what you want.

Bloom:
Why? So you can write me a role in a story where I get it? You're not listening to me. I want a real... thing, I wanna do things how I don't know are gonna work out, a-I, want, a...

Stephen:
You want an unwritten life.

Penelope Stamp:
I collect hobbies. I see someone doing something I like, and I get books and learn how to do it.

Stephen:
So what are your plans in Greece?

Penelope Stamp:
I don't plan.

Stephen:
Good for you.

Bloom:
What was your childhood like?

Penelope Stamp:
I make cameras out of watermelons.

Stephen:
[about the Curator] Penelope, do you know our friend?

Stephen:
Only as the creepy Frenchman.

Narrator:
Another home, another main street. Stephen looked around, then summed the burgh up thusly:

Young Stephen:
Bloom, we've hit a one hat town.

Narrator:
One theater. One car wash. One caf?. One park. One cat. Which, through some mishap, had one leg.

Stephen:
We're a genius, Bloom.