Ed Crane quotes from The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)

Ed Crane

Me, I don't talk much... I just cut the hair.

Ed Crane

Maybe there I can tell her all those things they don't have words for here.

Ed Crane

My wife and I have not performed the sex act in many years.

Ed Crane

Dry cleaning. Was I crazy to be thinking about it?

Ed Crane

Heavens to Betsy, Birdy!

Ed Crane

Time slows down right before an accident, and I had time to think about things. I thought about what an undertaker had told me once - that your hair keeps growing, for a while anyway, after you die, and then it stops. I thought, "What keeps it growing? Is it like a plant in soil? What goes out of the soil? The soul? And when does the hair realize that it's gone?"

Ed Crane

And then it was Riedenschneider's turn. I gotta hand it to him, he tossed a lot of sand in their eyes. He talked about how I'd lost my place in the universe; how I was too ordinary to be the criminal mastermind the D.A. made me out to be; how there was some greater scheme at work that the state had yet to unravel. And he threw in some of the old "truth" stuff he hadn't had a chance to trot out for Doris. He told them to look at me, look at me close. That the closer they looked, the less sense it would all make; that I wasn't the kind of guy to kill a guy; that I was The Barber, for Christsake. I was just like them - an ordinary man. Guilty of living in a world that had no place for me, yeah. Guilty of wanting to be a dry cleaner, sure. But not a murderer. He said I *was* modern man, and if they voted to convict me, well, they'd be practically cinching the noose around their own necks. He told them to look, not at the facts, but at the meaning of the facts. Then he said the facts had no meaning. It was a pretty good speech. It even had me going...

Ed Crane

I lived in a little bungalow on Napa Street. The place was OK, I guess. It had an electric ice box, gas hearth, and a garbage grinder built into the sink. You might say I had it made.

Ed Crane

I sat in the house, but there was nobody there. I was a ghost; I didn't see anyone. No one saw me. I was the barber.

Ed Crane

Yeah, I guess I'm sorry about the pain I caused other people, but I don't regret anything. I used to. I used to regret being the barber.

Ed

Was that a pass?

Creighton Tolliver

Maybe.

Ed

Well you're out of line, mister... way out of line

Ed

Frank.

Frank

Huh?

Ed

This hair.

Frank

Yeah.

Ed

You ever wonder about it?

Frank

Whuddya mean?

Ed

I don't know... How it keeps on coming. It just keeps growing.

Frank

Yeah-lucky for us, huh, pal?

Ed

No, I mean it's growing, it's part of us. And we cut it off. And we throw it away.

Frank

Come on, Eddie, you're gonna scare the kid.

Ed

...I'm gonna take his hair and throw it out in the dirt.

Frank

What the...

Ed

I wanna mingle it with common house dirt.

Frank

What the hell are you talking about?

Ed

I don't know. Skip it.