Angels in America 2003 quotes

"The great work begins" was first written by psychoanalyst Carl G. Jung in 1918, and can be found in The Red BookLiber Novus page 211. This line appears, contained within the introduction, under the header The Way To the Self, in which Jung includes a dialogue between the unconscious self and the Soul:

Angel

The stiffening of your penis is of no consequence!

Angel

Greetings Prophet! The great work begins! The Messenger has arrived!

Angel

My wrath is as fearsome as my countenance is splendid!

But I've got better things with my time than to sit here and listen to this racist bullshit simply because I feel sorry for you-

Louis Ironson

I am not racist!

Oh, come on.

Louis Ironson

…So maybe I am a racist.

Scoffs I really hate that. It's no fun picking on you, Louis. You're so guilty. It's like throwing darts at a glob of jello. There are no satisfying hits, just quivering. The darts just plop in and vanish.

Harper Pitt

I don't understand why I'm not dead. When your heart breaks, you should die. But there's still the rest of you. There's your breasts and your genitals... They're amazingly stupid, like babies or faithful dogs. They don't get it, they just want him. Want him.

Harper Pitt

I'm a Mormon.

Prior Walter

I'm a homosexual.

Oh. In my church we don't believe in homosexuals.

Prior

In my church we don't believe in Mormons.

Louis Ironson

I can't believe you're a Mormon. I can't believe I spent three weeks in bed with a Mormon.

Joe Pitt

Good morning. [he ruffles Louis' hair and gets up]

I can't believe you didn't tell me.

I did.

Yeah, after I asked. I thought you were a Protestant or something.

Well, I'm not.

But you're a lawyer! A serious lawyer!

The chief clerk of the chief justice of the Supreme Court is a Mormon, Louis.

Louis Ironson

I don't believe you! Not Roy Cohn! He's like...the polestar of human evil. He's the worst human being who ever lived. He's not human, even.

Louis Ironson

I'm not saying Kaddish for him. The drugs, okay, fine, sure. But no **** way am I praying for him. My New Deal pinko parents in Schenectady would never forgive me. They're already so disappointed. He's a ****, he's an office temp. Now look, he's praying for Roy Cohn.

Louis Ironson

There are no gods here, no ghosts and spirits in America, there are no angels in America, no spiritual past, no racial past, there's only the political, and the decoys and the ploys to maneuver around the inescapable battle of politics.

I hate America, Louis. I hate this country. Nothing but a bunch of big ideas and stories and people dying, and then people like you. The white cracker who wrote the national anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word 'free' to a note so high nobody can reach it. That was deliberate. Nothing on Earth sounds less like freedom to me. You come to room 1013 over at the hospital, Louis, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean. I live in America, Louis. I don't have to love it. You do that. Everybody’s gotta love somethin'.

Look at that heavy sky out there.

Louis Ironson

Purple.

Purple? Boy, what kind of a homosexual are you anyway? That's not purple, Mary. That color up there is mauve.

You know what your problem is, Louis? Your problem is that you are so full of piping hot crap that the mention of your name draws flies.

Prior Walter

You cry, but you endanger nothing in yourself. It's like the idea of crying when you do it. Or the idea of love.