Six Feet Under, Season 1

Old Man:
You've done a nice job. She looks peaceful.

David:
Well, she is at peace now.

Old Man:
If there's any justice in the universe, she's shoveling shit in Hell.

Nate:
Everybody forgives everybody for everything.

Nate:
I refuse to sanitize this anymore!

David:
This is how it's done.

Nate:
Yeah? Well, it's whacked. What is this stupid salt-shaker? Huh? What is this hermetically sealed box? This phony Astroturf around the grave? Jesus, David, it's like surgery. Clean. Antiseptic. Business. He was our father!

David:
Please don't do this.

Nate:
You can pump him full of chemicals. You can put makeup on him. You can prop him up for a nap in the slumber room; but the fact remains, David, that the only father we're ever gonna have is gone! Forever … and that sucks, but it's a goddamned part of life and you can't really accept it without getting your hands dirty. Well, I do accept it, and I intend to honor the old bastard by letting the whole world see just how f***ed up and shitty I feel that he's dead! God damn it!

Priest:
Amen.

David:
What the hell?

Ruth:
There's been an accident. The new hearse is totaled. Your father is dead. Your father is dead, and my pot roast is ruined.

Nathaniel Sr.:
[to Nate] Well, well, the prodigal returns. This is what you've been running away from your whole life, buddy boy. Scared the crap out of you when you were growing up, didn't it? And you thought you'd escape. Well, guess what? Nobody escapes.

Tracy Montrose Blair:
[to David, talking about the music at the funeral] Anyway, I so prefer this light, classical -- you know, chamber orchestra stuff. It's still spiritual, but doesn't seem so dated or depressing. [Laughs] I studied music appreciation when ... [what she's actually saying fades out and what we now hear is in voice-over -- what David hears her saying in his head.] You think I'm really boring, don't you? Well, get used to it, because now that your father is dead, you can forget about ever going to law school. It's just you and dead people and freaks like me for the rest of your life!"

David:
[screams]

Brenda:
Well, we're all wounded. We carry our wounds around with us through life, and eventually they kill us. Things happen that leave a mark in space, in time. In us.

Rico:
[referring to the deceased's erection] Angel lust. You can be dead, but you're never really dead.

Nathaniel Sr.:
[commenting on his own headstone] Is that the best anyone could come up with? "Father, husband, caregiver"?

Nate:
What would you prefer? "Introvert, sadist, mindf***er"?

Claire:
What am I, some knocked-up Victorian wife that has to stay hidden from view?

Nate:
I, uh, think Mr. Suarez kinda shit himself. Is that normal?

David:
You stopped to eat? Do you have any respect for human life at all?

Nate:
I have a huge respect for human life! I just didn't know that they can take a dump when they're dead!

David:
Well, they can. Make a note of it!

Ruth:
Boys, I don't like this bickering.

David:
Yeah, and I don't like you sleeping with hairdressers. [Ruth slaps David. David walks away, followed by Nate]

Nate:
Look, don't take this out on Mom. What is it that you want to say to me?

David:
Well, there's a body that's spent over two hours in a van. Unrefrigerated. Decomposing at a rate much faster than you could ever imagine. Thanks for making my life just that much more difficult. Thanks for undermining my authority with our employees. And thanks for making so clear to me that my choice to dedicate myself to this business and to this family was really stupid, because apparently I would have be rewarded just the same for wasting my life.

Nate:
Oh, my life is a waste? Well, f*** you. At least I enjoy it.

David:
Well, lucky you.

Nate:
Dave, at least let me help.

David:
You've helped enough.

Claire:
I wish that just once people wouldn't act like the clichés that they are.

Ruth:
You both look so happy. Just enjoy it while it lasts. Which isn't very long. You think you have forever, but you don't. Soon you start to get on each other's nerves. Then you don't tell the other person as much as you used to, 'cause, really, what's the point? You thought they understood you, but they never did … not really. Finally, not only do you not tell the other person anything real, you actively start lying to him. And then, when you think it can't get any worse, he up and dies! No matter what you do, you end up alone, not knowing who you are or what you really want!

David:
I don't understand kids! When I was her age, I never would've taken a foot!

Keith:
David, I can help. I'm a cop. That's what I do for a living.

David:
You find feet?

Brenda:
I don't want any children.

Nate:
Wow! Who said anything about children?

Brenda:
I was referring to you.

Ruth:
Okay, I'm a terrible mother who's responsible for all your problems! Happy?

Brenda:
No mistake, you guys are undertakers. You take every f***ing feeling you have, put it in a box and bury it.

Paco:
[to David] This is some f***ed-up way to make a living, you know that?

Powerful:
Hey, where you from, dawg?

Rico:
[to Mr. and Mrs. Bolin] One moment, please. [leaves the intake room and takes Powerful to the Wisteria Room] "Where you from"? Like in, where my parents were born? San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico. "Where you from" as in, what gang I belong to? I'll tell you what gang I belong to: the gang that's gonna help you bury your friend. The gang that's gonna be there for you and your cholos for when every other f***ing home doesn't wanna deal with your tired-ass bullshit. Your friend is dead, man. Now, do you want me to help you, or do you want to just go heads up?

[Nate and David have lunch at a diner with Matt Gilardi from Kroehner Services International and talk about their decision to not sell Fisher & Sons.]

Matt Gilardi:
Okay, I'll make it simple; you either accept my offer by the end of the day or I'll make it my personal mission to bury you by the end of the month. David, you in on this suicide mission?

David:
You just threatened my family.

Matt Gilardi:
Let's not be melodramatic.

David:
What do you expect us to do? Run and hide, sell and be grateful, pack up and move?

Matt Gilardi:
If you're smart.

David:
You have the entire Kroehner organization behind you, and what do we have? You. Because one day when your mind isn't on Fisher & Sons, I will find you or someone you love. [Gilardi laughs.] I'm not saying anyone's going to die. There are tragedies far worse things than death: things you couldn't even dream of, you spineless, candy-ass, corporate f***. Just give me a reason. It's your decision. Are we worth the trouble, Mr. Gilardi? [Gilardi looks nervously at David.] Lunch is over, get lost.

Nate:
[to Matt Gilardi] Are you deaf? [Gilardi leaves.]

Paco:
[to David] You ever see sunlight, or you gotta avoid it?

Nate:
This is my … uh, my girlfriend, Brenda.

Brenda:
I prefer the term "f*** puppet."

Brenda:
You don't really believe in God, do you?

Nate:
Well yeah. I mean, I don't believe in a beard little old man up in a cloud but I believe in something. Some sort of undefinable creative force.

Brenda:
I think it's all just totally random.

Nate:
Really?

Brenda:
Yeah. We live, we die. Ultimately, nothing means anything.

Nate:
How can you live like that?

Brenda:
I don't know. Sometimes I wake up so f***ing empty that I wish I'd never been born, but what choice do I have?

Nathaniel Sr.:
So I'm walking along one day, and this asshole stops me and asks me if I'm all right. He says I got a look. He'd seen a man with that same look once and had ignored it, and that man had jumped out a nine-story window. You know the reconstruction involved in a death like that? This business gets under your skin, it's like a f***ing virus. They can even see it on your face, smell it on you.

Nate:
What the hell is this place, this music? Since when did you listen to the Classics IV? What the hell did you do here? Who the hell are you?

Nathaniel Sr.:
So many questions. Why couldn't you ask 'em when I was still alive? It's okay, I couldn't answer most of them anyway, unlike now. Now I'm a f***ing prophet.

Nate:
All right.

Nathaniel Sr.:
Think I'm kiddin,' buddy boy? That's one of the perks of being dead: you know what happens after you die - and you know the meaning of life.

Nate:
That seems fairly useless.

Nathaniel Sr.:
Yeah, I know - life is wasted on the living.

Nate:
Could've told me you were proud of me.

Nathaniel Sr.:
Never around for me to tell, which is exactly what I was proud of you for. Therein lies your Catch-22.

Nate:
So what's the meaning of life?

Nathaniel Sr.:
You really wanna know?

Nate:
I don't know. Will it f*** me up if I do?

David:
Thank you, Nate, I appreciate your honesty, wrapped as it was in such a bouquet of condescension.

Father Clark:
The hardest part about my work is the fact that most people don't want a real relationship with God. Yeah, sure, they'll pray to a man nailed to a cross, but they'll - they'll ignore the gay kid who gets strung up, or the black man who gets dragged behind a car, or someone's mother living in a box.

Ruth:
Is this a school trip?

Claire:
No. You go to the mountains and confront fear and get in touch with your most basic self... It looks good on your college application.

Father Clark:
Well, religion is politics, David. Jesus was a revolutionary, threatened those in power, and they had him assassinated. And they'd do the same thing to him today.

Teacher:
Algebra forces your mind to solve problems logically. It's one of the only perfect sciences-

Claire:
You think the world runs on logic? Come on. Open your eyes.

Nate:
Sorry, there was an accident on the 405. Both cars totaled. Should have stopped to hand out cards.

Nate:
Come on, Dave. I watch Will & Grace. I have gay-dar.

David:
Okay, don't say gay-dar.

Parker:
Good. That's what I want people to think.

Claire:
When in reality you're, like, this compulsive liar, danger slut.

Parker:
I thought you were, like, this Goth arty freak girl......who was, like, tragic and suicidal.

Claire:
Oh, my God, that is so not who I am.

Brenda:
You know what I find interesting? If you lose a spouse, you're called a widow or a widower. If you're a child and you lose your parents, then you're an orphan. But what's the word to describe a parent who loses a child? I guess that's just too f***ing awful to even have a name.

Ruth:
Nathaniel, what happened to us? We were so in love once.

Nathaniel Sr.:
Life happened to us. I buried hundreds of people, and we watched each other grow old.

Ruth:
But we're not old.

Nathaniel:
Well, technically speaking, I'm as old as I'm ever going to get.

Ruth:
We were such children when we met. Then we watched those children disappear.

Ruth:
I miss what we had.

Nathaniel:
So find it again.

Ruth:
Thank you. I've had the best time coming to this funny restaurant and having you yell at me in the bathroom!

Angela:
I never worked in a funeral home that was this depressing.

Margaret:
You know, some complete stranger just grabbed my ass! Isn't this fabulous?

David:
All she told the police is that he was boring.

Nate:
What, that's it? … Sick part is, I understand it. … Sometimes I'm boring.

David:
Me, too. [awkward silence]

[David is getting a lap dance.]

Stripper:
Aren't you enjoying this even one bit?

David:
Yeah, I'm loving it. Why?

Stripper:
Well, your dick isn't responding.

Protester:
God hates fags!

Nate:
[to protester] God hates morons!

David:
Please, God. Help me. Take this pain away. Please fill this loneliness with your love. Help me, God, please, help me.

Tracy Montrose:
Why do people have to die?

Nate:
To make life important.

Nate:
When I went backpacking through Europe after I quit school, I went to this island off the coast of Sicily—it’s this volcanic island—and on the boat over, there was this pine box. Somebody from the island was being returned to be buried there. And there were all these old Sicilians dressed up all in black, waiting, just lined up on the beach. And when they got that coffin to the beach, those old Sicilian women just went ape-shit, screaming, throwing themselves on, beating their chests, tearing at their hair, making animal noises, and it was just so…so real. I mean, I’ve been around funerals my entire life, but I had never seen such grief. And at the time, it gave me the creeps, but uh…now I think it’s probably so much more healthy than…this.

Ruth:
Sometimes people are hard to take but only because the first side they present is annoying or aggressive because they're nervous. After you spend some time with them you realize maybe there's another side to them that's worth knowing