Max Schumacher quotes from Network (1976)

Max Schumacher

It's too late, Diana! There's nothing left in you that I can live with! You're one of Howard's humanoids, and, if I stay with you, I'll be destroyed! Like Howard Beale was destroyed. Like Laureen Hobbs was destroyed. Like everything you and the institution of television touch is destroyed. You are television incarnate, Diana, indifferent to suffering, insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer. The daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split-seconds and instant replays. You are madness, Diana, virulent madness, and everything you touch dies with you. Well, not me. Not while I can still feel pleasure and pain and love.

Max Schumacher

I'm not sure she's capable of any real feelings. She's television generation. She learned life from Bugs Bunny.

Max Schumacher

After living with you for the last six months, I'm turning into one of your scripts. Well, this is not a script, Diana. There's some real, actual life going on here.

Max Schumacher

She does have one script in which I kill myself: An adapted for television version of "Anna Karenina", where she's Count Vronsky and I'm Anna.

Diana Christensen

The time has come to re-evaluate our relationship, Max.

Max Schumacher

So I see.

Diana Christensen

I don't like the way this script of ours has turned out. It's turning into a seedy little drama.

Max Schumacher

You're going to cancel the show?

Diana Christensen

Right.

Do you love her?

Max Schumacher

I don't know how I feel. I'm grateful I can feel anything.

Max Schumacher

I know I'm obsessed with her.

Then say it. You keep telling me that you're obsessed, you're infatuated. Say that you're in love with her.

Max Schumacher

I'm in love with her.

Howard Beale

I just ran out of bullshit.

Harry Hunter

Mr. Schumacher's right here, do you want to talk to him?

Howard Beale

Bullshit is all the reasons we give for living. If we can't think up reasons of our own, we always have the God bullshit.

Max Schumacher

Yeah, Tom, what is it?

Howard Beale

We don't know why we go through all this pointless pain, humiliation, and decay. So there better be someone somewhere who does know. That's the God bullshit.

Max Schumacher

He's saying that life is bullshit, and it is, so what are you screaming about?
[hangs up]

Mr. Hackett's trying to get through to you.

Max Schumacher

Tell Mr. Hackett to go **** himself.

Howard Beale

I'm gonna blow my brains out right on the air, right in the middle of the seven o'clock news.

Max Schumacher

Well, you'll get a hell of a rating, I'll tell you that. A 50 share, at least. We could make a series of it. "Suicide of the Week." Aw, hell, why limit ourselves? "Execution of the Week."

Howard Beale

"Terrorist of the Week."

Max Schumacher

I love it. Suicides, assassinations, mad bombers, Mafia hitmen, automobile smash-ups: "The Death Hour." A great Sunday night show for the whole family. It'd wipe that ****in' Disney right off the air.

Diana Christensen

I'm sorry for all those things I said to you last night. You're not the worst **** I ever had. Believe me, I've had worse. You don't puff or snorkel and make death-like rattles. As a matter of fact, you're rather serene in the sack.

Max Schumacher

Why is it that a woman always thinks that the most savage thing she can say to a man is to impugn his cocksmanship.

Diana Christensen

I'm sorry I impugned your cocksmanship.

Max Schumacher

I gave up comparing genitals back in the schoolyard.

Max Schumacher

I'm the man that you presumably love. I'm a part of your life. I live here. I'm real. You can't switch to another station.

Diana Christensen

Well, what exactly is it you want me to do?

Max Schumacher

I just want you to love me. I just want you to love me, primal doubts and all. You understand that, don't you?

Diana Christensen

I don't know how to do that.

Max Schumacher

You need me. You need me badly. Because I'm your last contact with human reality. I love you. And that painful, decaying love is the only thing between you and the shrieking nothingness you live the rest of the day.

Diana Christensen

Then, don't leave me.

Max Schumacher

It's too late, Diana. There's nothing left in you that I can live with. You're one of Howard's humanoids. If I stay with you, I'll be destroyed. Like Howard Beale was destroyed. Like Laureen Hobbs was destroyed. Like everything you and the institution of television touch is destroyed. You're television incarnate, Diana: Indifferent to suffering; insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer. And the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays. You're madness, Diana. Virulent madness. And everything you touch dies with you. But not me. Not as long as I can feel pleasure, and pain... and love.

Max Schumacher

And it's a happy ending: Wayward husband comes to his senses, returns to his wife, with whom he has established a long and sustaining love. Heartless young woman left alone in her arctic desolation. Music up with a swell; final commercial. And here are a few scenes from next week's show.

Diana Christensen

You're his goddamn agent. I'm counting on you to talk some sense into the lunatic. Nobody wants to hear about dying democracy and dehumanization.

Max Schumacher

I'm sorry I'm late.

Diana Christensen

We're starting to get rumbles from the agencies. Another couple of weeks and the sponsors will be bailing out! This is a breach of contract. This isn't the Howard Beale we signed. Get him off that corporate universe kick, or so help me, I'll pull it off the air! I told him, Lou! I've been telling him every day for a week! I'm sick of telling him. Now you tell him! (hangs up) Jesus Christ. You could help me out with Howard if you wanted to. He listens to you. You're his best friend.

Max Schumacher

I'm tired of all this hysteria about Howard Beale.

Diana Christensen

Every time you come from seeing somebody in your family you come back in one of these middle-aged moods.

Max Schumacher

And I'm tired of finding you on the god-damn telephone every time I turn around. I'm tired of being an accessory in your life! And I'm tired of pretending to write this dumb book about my maverick days in the great early years of television. Every god-damned executive fired from a network in the last twenty years has written this dumb book about the great early years of television. And nobody wants a dumb, damn, god-damn book about the great years of television...

Diana Christensen

Terrific, Max! Maybe you can start a whole new career as an actor.

Max Schumacher

After living with you for six months, I'm turning into one of your scripts. Well, this is not a script, Diana. There's some real actual life going on here. I went to visit my wife today because she's in a state of depression, so depressed that my daughter flew all the way from Seattle to be with her. And I feel lousy about that. I feel lousy about the pain that I've caused my wife and my kids. I feel guilty and conscience-stricken and all of those things that you think sentimental, but which my generation called simple human decency. And I miss my home because I'm beginning to get scared shitless. Because all of a sudden, it's closer to the end than it is to the beginning, and death is suddenly a perceptible thing to me - with definable features. You're dealing with a man that has primal doubts, Diana, and you've got to cope with it. I'm not some guy discussing male menopause on the 'Barbara Walters Show'. I'm the man that you presumably love. I'm part of your life. I live here. I'm real. You can't switch to another station.

Diana Christensen

What exactly is it you want me to do?

Max Schumacher

I just want you to love me. I just want you to love me, primal doubts and all. You understand that, don't you?