Zelig

Leonard Zelig:
My deepest apology goes to the Trochman family in Detroit. I...I never delivered a baby before in my life, and I... I just thought that ice tongs was the way to do it.

Leonard Zelig:
I have an interesting case. I'm treating two sets of Siamese twins with split personalities. I'm getting paid by eight people.

Leonard Zelig:
I love baseball. You know, it doesn't have to mean anything. It's just very beautiful to watch.

Leonard Zelig:
I worked with Freud in Vienna. We broke over the concept of penis envy. Freud felt that it should be limited to women.

Leonard Zelig:
But I've never flown before in my life, and it shows exactly what you can do, if you're a total psychotic!

The Narrator:
That Zelig could be responsible for the behavior of each of the personalities he assumed means dozens of lawsuits. He is sued for bigamy, adultery, automobile accidents, plagiarism, household damages, negligence, property damages, and performing unnecessary dental extractions.

Zelig's Wife:
He married me up at the First Church of Harlem. He told me he was the brother of Duke Ellington.

Wrist Victim:
He was the guy who smashed my car up. It was brand new. Then he backed-up over my mother's wrist. She's elderly... and uses her wrist a lot.

House-Painting Victim:
He painted my house a disgusting color. He said he was a painter. I couldn't believe the results. Then he disappeared.

Leonard Zelig:
I would like to apologize to everyone. I... I'm awfully sorry for, for marrying all those women. It just, I don't know, it just seemed like the thing to do.

Leonard Zelig:
And to the, to the gentleman who's appendix I took out, I...I'm, I don't know what to say, if it's any consolation I... I may still have it somewhere around the house.

Leonard Zelig:
[to Dr. Eudora Fletcher] Oh . . . the pancakes!

Leonard Zelig:
[to Dr. Eudora Fletcher] My brother beat me. My sister beat my brother. My father beat my sister, my brother, and me. My mother beat my father, my sister, my brother, and me. The neighbors beat our family. The family down the street beat the neighbors and our family.

Leonard Zelig:
[to Dr. Eudora Fletcher, under hypnotism] I'm 12 years old. I run into the synagogue. I ask the rabbi the meaning of life. He tells me the meaning of life, but he tells it to me in Hebrew. I don't understand Hebrew. Then he wants to charge me $600 for Hebrew lessons.

Narrator:
The Ku Klux Klan, who saw Zelig as a Jew, that could turn himself into a Negro and a Chinaman, saw him as a triple threat.

Bruno Bettelheim:
The question of whether Zelig was a psychotic or merely neurotic was a question that was endlessly discussed among his doctors. Now I myself felt his feelings were really not all that different from the normal, what one would call the well-adjusted, normal person, only carried to an extreme degree, to an extreme extent. I myself felt that one could really think of him as the ultimate conformist.