Philosophy Now Forum

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Eva: You don't look happy.
Kevin: Have I ever?

Not that I can recall.

Eva: Haven't you ever wished you had somebody else around to play with?
Kevin, 6-8 Years: No.
Eva: You might like it.
Kevin, 6-8 Years: What if I don't like it?
Eva: Then you get used to it.
Kevin, 6-8 Years: Just because you're used to something doesn't mean you like it. You're used to me.
Eva: Yes, well, in a few months we're all gonna get used to somebody new.

Then Dad buys him the bow.

Franklin: Hey, Kev. Listen buddy, it's easy to misunderstand something when you hear it out of context.
Kevin: Why would I not understand the context? I am the context.

Tell that to Jennifer Crumbley.

Kevin: It's like this: you wake and watch TV, get in your car and listen to the radio you go to your little jobs or little school, but you don't hear about that on the 6 o'clock news, why? 'Cause nothing is really happening, and you go home and watch some more TV and maybe it's a fun night and you go out and watch a movie. I mean it's got so bad that half the people on TV, inside the TV, they're watching TV. What are these people watching, people like me?

Probably not?

[last lines]
Eva: Why?
Kevin: I used to think I knew. Now I'm not so sure.
[pause]
Prison guard: Time's up.

Reminds me a bit of Tom Welles confronting Machine from 8MM.

Young Suited Man #1: Good afternoon ma'am. I hope this isn't an inconvenient time.
Eva: Well, it is actually.
Young Suited Man #1: Well, we just had a couple of quick questions for you.
Eva: What is this about?
Young Suited Man #2: Do you know were are you spending the afterlife?
Eva: Oh! Yes I do as a matter of fact! I'm going straight to hell. Eternal damnation, the whole bit. Thanks for asking! Ok?

Unless, of course, this is Hell?

Death

“It's better to die laughing than to live each moment in fear.” Michael Crichton

How much fear though?

“The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.” Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I want a hell of a lot more myself.

“I felt the unfairness of it, the inarguable injustice of loving someone who might have loved you back but can't due to deadness.” John Green

Deadness will do it.

“After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die.” E.B. White

And not just pigs and spiders, kids.

“Dying is overrated. Human sentimentality has twisted it into the ultimate act of love. Biggest load of bullshit in the world. Dying for someone isn't the hard thing. The man that dies escapes. Plain and simple. Game over. End of pain...Try living for someone. Through it all-good, bad, thick, thin, joy, suffering. That's the hard thing.” Karen Marie Moning

In the interim, thank God for divorce.

“I do not carry a sickle or scythe.
I only wear a hooded black robe when it's cold.
And I don't have those skull-like facial features you seem to enjoy pinning on me from a distance. You want to know what I truly look like? I'll help you out. Find yourself a mirror while I continue.” Markus Zusak

Afterwards, let's meet back here in an hour.

The Last Emperor

Reginald Fleming 'R.J.' Johnston: It would be conveniently sad if he becomes blind. To the expense, Your Excellency. To the cost of maintaining one thousand two hundred eunuchs, three hundred and fifty ladies-in-waiting and one hundred and eighty-five cooks to buying a hundred and twenty sable furs a month and three thousand chickens a week. To the fact that eight hundred and forty guards and employees of the household department, plus one Lord Chamberlain, care only about one thing! Filling their own rice bowls!

Next up: the Vatican.

Interrogator: Now than, there are two types of confession. We call them toothpaste and water tap. The toothpaste prisoner needs to be squeezed every now and then or else he forgets to keep confessing. The water tap man needs one good hard twist before he starts. But then everything comes out.

And then one day the interrogator himself becomes the one being interrogated.

Captain of Imperial Guard: By the command of Her Imperial Majesty, also called, the compassionate, and the Blessed, the Respectful, and the Long-Living, the Empress Dowager commands. Aisin-Gioro Pu Yi, son of Prince Chun, shall be transferred immediately to the Forbidden City and will remain in the great within, awaiting Her Majesty's decision. Respect this!

That's just how it worked.

Scribe: Three months later, Japanese armies were besieging the provisional capital at Nanking. And when the city fell, the atrocities began. Trying to terrorize the rest of China into surrender, the Japanese High Command ordered a massacre. More than two hundred thousand civilians were systematically executed. The world watched in horror, but no help was given.

Of course that all changed in the West. Though not for the better.

Emperor Pu Yi: Anything Western was good. Especially Wrigley's chewing gum, Bayer aspirin, and cars.

That's changed a bit since, hasn't it?

Eastern Jewel: Oh, I know everything! I know Chiang Kai Shek has got false teeth. I even know his nickname: "Cash My Check!"

Then that Commie dude.

Donnie Brasco

Lefty: There's the boss. And, under him, there's the skipper. You know how this works?
Donnie Brasco: Yeah, it's like in the army.
Lefty: Bullshit. The army is some guy you don't know telling you to go whack some other guy you don't know.

Now that's a good point.

FBI Technician: [sitting on the floor of a motel room, reserved for the FBI] What's "Forget about it"?
Donnie Brasco: "
[lying on the couch]
Donnie Brasco: Forget about it" is, like, if you agree with someone, you know, like "Raquel Welch is one great piece of ass. Forget about it!" But then, if you disagree, like "A Lincoln is better than a Cadillac? Forget about it!" You know? But then, it's also like if something's the greatest thing in the world, like, "Minghia! Those peppers! Forget about it!" But it's also like saying "Go to hell!" too. Like, you know, like "Hey Paulie, you got a one-inch pecker?" and Paulie says "Forget about it!" Sometimes it just means "Forget about it."

Any idea what it means here?

Lefty: A wise guy's always right; even when he's wrong, he's right.

Cue the button men?

Lefty: [to Annette, after having been sent for] And listen to me, if Donnie calls...tell him...if it was gonna be anyone, I'm glad it was him. All right?

And it's possible he actually meant it.

Joe Pistone: [to Maggie in their garage] All my life I've tried to be the good guy, the guy in the white fucking hat. And for what? For nothing. I'm not becoming like them; I am them.

And it's possible he actually meant it.

Donnie Brasco: You think I'm a rat...?
Lefty: [to Donnie while in his car, before putting a loaded revolver to his head] How many times have I had you in my house? If you're a rat, then I'm the biggest mutt in the history of the Mafia.

And, as it turned out...

Philosophy

“Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future too.” Marcus Aurelius

Well, at least until The Big One wipes us all out.

“When you realize there is something you don't understand, then you're generally on the right path to understanding all kinds of things.” Jostein Gaarder

Well, except here, of course.

“Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.” Adam Smith

Of course, he's only paraphrasing Marx and Engels.

“To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities—I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have no pity for them, because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not—that one endures.” Friedrich Nietzsche

Sure, maybe that really is what it's all about.

“I am, therefore I'll think.” Ayn Rand

What a novel idea.

“That's not a bad word...hate and war are bad words, but fuck isn't.” Judy Blume

Next up: "shit", "piss", "****", "cocksucker", "motherfucker", and "tits".

Donnie Brasco

Donnie Brasco: [to Maggie in their garage] If I come out alive, this guy, Lefty, ends up dead. That's the same thing as me putting the bullet in his head myself.

On the other hand, Lefty is a button man for the fucking mob.

Lefty: [to Donnie while in his car] When they send for you, you go in alive, you come out dead, and it's your best friend that does it.

Next up: sending for someone here.

Donnie Brasco: [referring to Bruno, to Lefty, while in his car] Twenty years you know a guy, you fuckin' whack him out just like that over a lounge? That's beautiful.

They didn't even "send" for him.

Lefty: [to Donnie, while sitting in his living room] A guy like you don't touch a made guy, you know what I did yesterday? I went in front of the skippers, I'm going on the record with you, nobody can touch you now, I'm your man, Jesus Christ couldn't touch you because I represent you, keep your nose clean, be a good earner follow the rules, and who knows? Maybe one day they open the books you get straightened out, become a wise guy, a made guy, I'd die with you Donnie.

Talk about ironic!

Lefty: [sees the front page of a newspaper, to Donnie] Whackin' the boss...another thing I get left out of.

Donnie too.

Lefty: [to Donnie in a bar]You know who you’re talkin’ to, my friend? In all the five boroughs, I’m known. Forget about it. I’m known all over the fucking world. Anybody ask anybody about Lefty from Mulberry Street. You’re pissing up the wrong fucking tree..

Reeling him in.

Susan Orlean

The publicness of the public library is an increasingly rare commodity. It becomes harder all the time to think of places that welcome everyone and don’t charge any money for that warm embrace.

Here perhaps?

The idea of being forgotten is terrifying. I fear not just that I, personally, will be forgotten, but that we are all doomed to being forgotten—that the sum of life is ultimately nothing; that we experience joy and disappointment and aches and delights and loss, make our little mark on the world, and then we vanish, and the mark is erased, and it is as if we never existed. If you gaze into that bleakness even for a moment, the sum of life becomes null and void, because if nothing lasts, nothing matters.

Ah, the unbearable lightness of being!

I think the real reason is that life has no meaning. I mean, no obvious meaning. You wake up, you go to work, you do stuff. I think everybody's always looking for something a little unusual that can preoccupy them and help pass the time.

Waiting for godot as it were.

I passed so many vacant acres and looked past them to so many more vacant acres and looked ahead and behind at the empty road and up at the empty sky; the sheer bigness of the world made me feel lonely to the bone. The world is so huge that people are always getting lost in it. There are too many ideas and things and people, too many directions to go. I was starting to believe that the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size. It makes the world seem not huge and empty but full of possibility. If I had been an orchid hunter I wouldn't have seen this space as sad-making and vacant - I think I would have seen it as acres of opportunity where the things I loved were waiting to be found.

For some it's orchids, for others it's...worlds of words?

Libraries are physical spaces belonging to a community where we gather to share information. There isn’t anywhere else that fits that description.

Next up: virtual spaces.

"If you set out alone and sovereign, unconnected to a family, a religion, a nationality, a tradition, a class, then pretty soon you are too lonely, too self-invented and unique, and too much aware that there is no one else like you in the world. If you submerge yourself completely in something - your town or your profession or your hobby - then pretty soon you have to struggle up to the surface because you need to be sure that even though you are a part of something big, some community, you still exist as a single unit with a single mind. It is the fundamental contradictoriness of the United States of America - the illogical but optimistic notion that you can create a union of individuals in which every man is king.

Next up: virtual kings.

Proof

Catherine: [Reading Robert's Notebook] "Let X equal the quantity of all quantities of X. Let X equal the cold. It is cold in December. The months of cold equal November through February. There are four months of cold, and four of heat, leaving four months of indeterminate temperature. In February it snows. In March the Lake is a lake of ice. In September the students come back and the bookstores are full. Let X equal the month of full bookstores. The number of books approaches infinity as the number of months of cold approaches four. I will never be as cold now as I will in the future. The future of cold is infinite. The future of heat is the future of cold. The bookstores are infinite and so are never full except in September...

Maybe next time...

Catherine: It doesn't fit me.
[about the dress]
Hal: Sure it does.
Catherine: You can't prove it.
Hal: I can disprove the opposite.

Uh, mathematically?

Robert: You're gonna be okay.
Catherine: I am?
Robert: Yes. I promise you. The simple fact that we can talk about this together is a good sign.
Catherine: A good sign?
Robert: Yeah.
Catherine: How could it be a good sign?
Robert: Because crazy people don't sit around wondering if they're nuts.
Catherine: They don't?
Robert: No. They've got better things to do. Take it from me. A very good sign that you're crazy is an inability to ask the question, "Am I crazy?"
Catherine: Even if the answer is yes?
Robert: Crazy people don't ask, you see?
Catherine: Huh.

Then it's "huh" all the way down.

Catherine: I didn’t find it.
Hal: Yes, you did.
Catherine: No, I didn’t
Hal: You didn’t find it?
Catherine: I didn’t find it. I wrote it.

Did she or didn't she?

Hal: It's too advanced. I don't even understand most of it.
Catherine: You think it's too advanced?
Hal: Yes.
Catherine: It's too advanced for you.
Hal: You could not have done this work.
Catherine: But what if I did?
Hal: Well, what if?
Catherine: It would be a real disaster for you. Wouldn't it? You and the other geeks who barely finished their PhD's, who are marking time doing lame research, bragging about the conferences they go to. Wow. Playing in an awful band and whining that they're intellectually past it at 26, because they are!

Did she or didn't she?

Catherine [at the church service before her father is buried]: Wow. I can’t believe how many people are here. I never knew he had this many friends. Where have you all been for the last five years? I guess to you guys he was already dead, right? I mean, what’s a great man without his greatness? Just some old guy. So you probably wanna catch up on what you missed out on. Um… He used to read all day. He kept demanding more and more books. I was getting them out of the library by the carload. There were hundreds. And then one day I realized he wasn’t reading. He believed aliens were sending him messages through the Dewey decimal numbers in the books. He was trying to work out the code. He used to shuffle around in his slippers. He talked to himself. He stank. I had to make sure he bathed, which was embarrassing. Then he started writing 19, 20 hours a day. I got him this huge case of notebooks. He used every one. I dropped out of school. You see, he was convinced that he was writing the most beautiful, elegant proofs. Proofs like music. I’m glad he’s dead.

Or certainly ambivalent.

Catherine: Wait.
Robert: What's the matter?
Catherine: It doesn't make sense.
Robert: Sure it does.
Catherine: No.
Robert: Where's the problem?
Catherine: The problem is, you are crazy.
Robert: So?
Catherine: So you said a crazy person would never admit that.
Robert: Ah. I see.
Catherine: So?
Robert: It's a point.
Catherine: So how can you admit it?
Robert: Well because, I'm also dead. Aren't I?

That can change things.

Despair

“But for a long time, altogether unnoticed by his comrades, there had ripened in his soul a dark contempt for mankind; contempt mingled with despair and painful, almost deadly fatigue.” Leonid Andreyev

Mine too.
Well, sans the painful, almost deadly fatigue.

“I've seen enough change in my lifetime to know that despair is not only self-defeating, it is unrealistic.” Susan Griffin

How utterly ridiculous is that?

“Despair is the one thing that brings chaos to this world. Just like a single bullet setting off a world war, despair has the power to throw this world into chaos!" Kazutaka Kodaka

Of course, that's the whole point of mine.

"My identifying features are rapture and despair.” Wisława Szymborska

In no particular order.

“The first thing is not to despair. Let us not listen too much to those who proclaim that the world is at an end. Civilizations do not die so easily, and even if our world were to collapse, it would not have been the first. It is indeed true that we live in tragic times. But too many people confuse tragedy with despair.” Albert Camus

Like only a fool would.

“...my feelings became calmer, if it may be called calmness when the violence of rage sinks into the depths of despair.” Mary Shelly

Some will, some won't.

Donnie Brasco

Tim Curley: [referring to her husband, Joe Pistone to Maggie, in her home] Standard procedure is that he has to check in with us every day, he might miss a day or two here and there, it was three weeks ago, we can't tell you because we don't know, there's war going on in the mafia family where Joe is undercover, three leaders of a rival faction have been murdered, he's right in the line of fire, not because he's one of us because he's one of them, who he's close to, they're all the top dogs now, it's not a problem we anticipated, we have got to pull him out.

No, really, how close did he come to being "one of them"?

Donnie Brasco: You know something?
[Donnie soon boasts, when he meets FBI agents in a place the mob would never look, a kosher restaurant]
Donnie Brasco: I got him. I got my hooks in the guy.
[referring to Lefty Ruggiero]

Not to mention the other way around.

Donnie Brasco: [Lefty Ruggiero is explaining Mafia code to Donnie Brasco] If I say you're a friend of mine, that means you're connected. If I say you're a friend of ours, that means you're a made guy. If I introduce you, I'm responsible for you. Anything wrong with you, I go down.

What could go wrong?

Donnie Brasco: What'd you think? Are we heading back to New York pretty soon or what?
Sonny Black: Not you, I want you to represent me down here. I want you to be my man in Florida, get that club going, you know King's Court. You didn't think I knew about that did you? I think I'm going to send the lion down here with you and keep that big pussy in the parking lot.
Donnie Brasco: You know Sonny I really appreciate the offer but I got a lot things going on in New York
Sonny Black: Lefty's a dynamite guy there's no doubt about it, he looked after me when I was in the can and that's something I don't forget, something I will never ever forget.
Donnie Brasco: Yeah, he's a stand up guy. He really cares about you too.
Sonny Black: Yeah, I know he does, but the problem is you think he's helping you but his hurting you. He gets in those two or three whines in you know what I'm saying?
Donnie Brasco: Yeah I don't want to be stepping on nobody's toes, if it wasn't for lefty...
Sonny Black: [Interrupts him] ...no, that's it, you belong to me now. That's it.

Next up: That's it here.

Nicky: C’mon Donnie, let’s fillet this fat fuck.

The last words he ever spoke.

Lefty: Nicky was a rat because Sonny Black says he was a rat. Who the fuck am I? Who am I? I’m a, a spoke on a wheel. And so was he, and so are you.

That's it.

FBI agent: We’ve got to pull him out. Help us. He’ll listen to you.
Maggie: You think so? He was here a week ago. He snuck into the house after I was asleep. He didn’t even wake me up. Didn’t even say hello to me. He came to get a sports coat.

Next up: the bag of money.

Afterword:
The evidence collected by “Donnie Brasco” led to over 200 indictments and over 100 convictions. Special agent Joseph Pistone lives with his wife under an assumed name in an undisclosed location. There is still a $500,000 open contract on his head.

Go for it?

"What is the difference between a philosopher and an intellectual? A philosopher is aware of his convictions. He recognizes them, sees them from behind. A philosopher sees things from behind. This is why every philosopher is specific, particular... not a single philosopher is universal. This includes Plato, which is the grand tragedy of Platonism." - PZR

niiice

That's how an aphorism is done, boys.

^^^ We need a way to explain the link, the relationship, between seeing things from behind and why that particular capacity makes the philosopher, but not the intellectual, 'specific' and 'particular':

"He recognizes them, sees them from behind. A philosopher sees things from behind. This is why every philosopher is specific, particular"

His motives for his convictions... how and where he got em. These are specific and particular becuz of his (our) uniqueness. So, unlike the intellectual, the philosopher admits the contingency of his perspective, its utter uniqueness... he recognizes how he's come to hold his convictions and can be critical of them, even sometimes suspsicious of them. seeing them from behind. creeping up on one's own convictions with a skepticism.

An intellectual doesn't do this. An intellectual who isn't also a philosopher is the guy who got real smart but stopped after acquiring a few favorite interests and never expanded into philosophical thinking. He never spent his intellect on solving impractical ethical, metaphysical, and epistemological problems. That being the case, whatever he ended up being at thirty is something he neither thought much about nor is skeptical/critical of.

Like he can't be his own critic. He can't see his own convictions from behind and recognize how surreptitiously he came to have and hold his values. A philosopher, on the other hand, is suspect to himself. He could back his own self into a corner if he wanted to be critical of his convictions.

So all that has to be condensed into a line or two to make the connection between 'seeing them from behind' and how that makes a philosopher specific and particular. There needs to be a hook there or sumthin. Everything runs smoothly until that part. Be like why does seein sumthin from behind mean you're specific and particular? Why cain't u see universals from behind? Like why can't i have a conviction that virtually everybody else has? Why does mines have to be specific and particular and what does my uniqueness gotta do with it?

But the best thing about aphorisms is that they don't have to be axiomatic or lead to any clear consensus or conclusion as long as they are written well. I mean obviously u can't write complete random nonsense... I'm sayin it's more the poetic nature of it than the prose, that makes it good.

The last line of the piece- grand tragedy of platonism - gives it a cliffhanger effect. That is a whole subject in itself deserving of an aphorism... and yet the aphorism ends at it. A massive conclusion that leaves us in curious suspense.

Very decent.

"whatever he ended up being at thirty is something he neither thought much about nor is skeptical/critical of."

And he wouldn't be able to tell u how he got there, either. He doesn't explain his turn to atheism and then secular ethics as a transition made philosophically. Rather he just became whatever his dasein did and really hasn't given anything much thought since he was twenty. Same values, same morals, same religiouness (or not). Lived at home and then college. Started a career and married, etc.

The harder u go as a philosopher the further from that kind of sterile intellectual life of normalcy you'll be. Not to say philosophers don't plant roots and marry or whatever, only that all these things - home life, school, work, relationships - are all highly problematic philosophical matters. A hard philosopher will know just how so they are, and out of instinct, steer clear of them if he can.

Suicide

“I have no more fight left, the will to keep going has been extinguished, and I am ready to throw in the towel. Nothing matters anymore, my heart is hollow, and I see no hope for a better tomorrow. Nothing can lighten this heavy burden of despair - it is all too much, and it feels as if there is no end in sight.” Jonathan Harnisch

What some call "a good day".

“Suicides often kill themselves because they are afraid of death. They can't stand the mounting tension of life and the wait for the worst to happen - and they kill themselves to be free of the threat.” Clarice Lispector

That may actually be true.

“Suicide note from a centenarian: The suspense was killing me.” Alan C. Baird

True story?

“Hitler is dead and he killed himself. I guess, sometimes, it is okay to celebrate killers. I guess, sometimes, it is okay to celebrate suicide. Weird how that works.” Aaron Kyle Andresen

Unless, of course, you're a Nazi.

“Comedians are known to commit suicide.” Steven Magee

Let's take a look: https://www.ranker.com/list/famous-come ... rity-lists

“It had nothing to do with me, but I couldn’t help wondering what it would be like, being burned alive all along your nerves. I thought it must be the worst thing in the world.” Sylvia Plath

It's certainly right up there.

The Departed

Frank Costello: Who let this IRA motherfucker in my bar?
[the man looks startled]
Frank Costello: [laughs] Just kidding. How's your mother?
Man in Costello's Bar: Oh, she's on her way out.
Frank Costello: [walks away] We all are. Act accordingly.

And how might that be?

[narrating first lines]
Frank Costello: I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me. Years ago we had the church. That was only a way of saying - we had each other. The Knights of Columbus were real head-breakers; true guineas. They took over their piece of the city. Twenty years after an Irishman couldn't get a fucking job, we had the presidency. May he rest in peace. That's what the niggers don't realize. If I got one thing against the black chappies, it's this - no one gives it to you. You have to take it.

Run that by Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson?

Oliver Queenan: [during Costigan's interview] Do you know what we do here? My section?
Billy Costigan: Sir, yes, sir. I have an idea...
Dignam: [interrupting] Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's say you have no idea and leave it at that, okay? No idea. Zip. None. If you had an idea of what we do, we would not be good at what we do, now would we? We would be cunts. Are you calling us cunts?
Oliver Queenan: Staff Sergeant Dignam has a style of his own. I'm afraid we all have to get used to it.

Not that it isn't all basically scripted.

Dignam: [during Costigan's interview] Your fuckin' family's dug into the Southie projects like ticks. Three-decker men at best. You, however, grew up on the North Shore, huh? Well, la-di-fuckin'-da. You were kind of a double kid, I bet, right? Huh? One kid with your old man, one kid with your mother. You're upper-middle class during the weeks, then you're droppin' your "R"s and you're hangin' in the big, bad Southie projects with your daddy, the fuckin' donkey on the weekends. I got that right?
Dignam: [Billy does not answer] Yup. You have different accents? You did, didn't you? You little fuckin' snake. You were like different people.
Billy Costigan: You a psychiatrist?
Dignam: Well, if I was I'd ask you why you're a Statie making 30 grand a year. And I think if I was Sigmund fuckin' Freud I wouldn't get an answer. So tell me, what's a lace-curtain motherfucker like you doing in the Staties?
Billy Costigan: Families are always rising or falling in America, am I right?
Oliver Queenan: Who said that?
Billy Costigan: Hawthorne.
Dignam: [Dignam makes a farting sound] What's the matter, smartass, you don't know any fuckin' Shakespeare?

Shakespeare and the Staties?

Oliver Queenan: [during Costigan's interview] We have a question: Do you want to be a cop, or do you want to appear to be a cop? It's an honest question. A lot of guys just want to appear to be cops. Gun, badge, pretend they're on TV.
Dignam: Yeah, a lot of people just wanna slam a n*****'s head through a plate-glass window.
Billy Costigan: I'm all set without your own personal job application. Alright, Sergeant?
Dignam: What the fuck did you say to me, trainee?
Billy Costigan: [to Queenan] With all due respect, sir, what do you want from me?

Two words, Billy: Donnie Brasco.

Madolyn: [during his counseling session] What do you expect coming in here?
Billy Costigan: I have to come here.
Madolyn: I know you have to come here, but now that you're here, what do you want?
Billy Costigan: You want the truth? Valium.

Two pills. And even then he has to all but yank them out of her.