Most-quoted character in Synecdoche, New York (2008): in 17 of its 29 quotes
Most scenes with: Sammy Barnathan (2)
Harold Pinter died [...] No, wait. He won the Nobel Prize.
Caden Cotard I will be dying and so will you, and so will everyone here. That's what I want to explore. We're all hurtling towards death, yet here we are for the moment, alive. Each of us knowing we're going to die, each of us secretly believing we won't.
Caden Cotard I know how to do it now. There are nearly thirteen million people in the world. None of those people is an extra. They're all the leads of their own stories. They have to be given their due.
Caden Cotard Try to keep in mind that a young person playing Willie Loman thinks he's only pretending to be at the end of a life full of despair. But the tragedy is that we know that you, the young actor will end up in this very place of desolation.
Caden Cotard My father died. They said his body was riddled with cancer and that he didn't know, he went in because his finger hurt. They said he suffered horribly, and that he called out for me before he died. They said that he said he regretted his life. They said he said a lot of things, too many to recount, and they said it was the longest and the saddest deathbed speech any of them had ever heard.
Caden Cotard I know how to do the play now. It will all take place over the course of one day. And that day will be the day before you died. That day was the happiest day of my life. Then I'll be able to live it forever. See you soon.
Caden Cotard We're a hit. Reviews are great. Times said it was brilliant casting young people as Willy and Linda.
Caden Cotard Hazel, you've been a part of me forever. Don't you know that? I breathe your name in every exhalation.
Caden Cotard I don't menstruate, so I don't know how I could smell like I'm menstruating.
Caden Cotard I wanted to ask you, how old are kids when they start to write?
Listen, there's an absolutely brilliant novel written by a four year old.
Caden Cotard Really?
'Little Winky" by Horace Azpiazu.
Caden Cotard That's cute.
Hardly, Litty Winky is a virulent anti-Semite. The story follows his initiation into the klan, his immersion in the pornographic snuff industry, and his ultimate degradation at the hands of a black ex-convict named Eric Washington Jackson Jones Johnson...
Caden Cotard -Written by a four year old?
-Jefferson.
Caden Cotard Wow, written by a four year old.
Well Azpiazu killed himself when he was five.
Caden Cotard Why did he kill himself?
I don't know, why did you?
Caden Cotard What?
I said, 'Why would you?'
I don't have a resume, or a picture. I've never worked as an actor.
Caden Cotard Good. Tell me why you're here.
Well I've been... I've been following you for twenty years. So I knew about this audition because I follow you. And I've learned everything about you by following you. So hire me. And you'll see who you truly are. Peek-a-boo. Okay... Hazel, I don't think we need to talk to anyone else, this guy has me down. I'm going to cast him right now. And then maybe you and I can get a drink and we can try and figure out this thing between us. Why I cried... Because I've never felt about anybody the way I feel about you. And I want to **** you until we merge into a Chimera, a mythical beast of penis and vagina, eternally fused, two pairs of eyes that look only at each other, and lips, ever touching, and one voice that whispers to itself.
Caden Cotard Okay. You got the part.
Caden Cotard I won't settle for anything less than the brutal truth. Brutal. Brutal. Each day I'll hand you a paper, it'll tell you what happened to you that day. You felt a lump in your breast. You looked at your wife and saw a stranger, et cetera.
Caden?
Caden Cotard What?
When are we gonna get an audience in here? It's been seventeen years.
Caden Cotard All right, I'm not excusing myself from this either. I will have someone play me, to delve into the murky, cowardly depths of my lonely, ****-up being. And he'll get notes too, and those notes will correspond to the notes I truly receive every day from my god! Get to work!
What's wrong with your face, Daddy?
Caden Cotard It's pustules. It's called sycosis. Spelled differently than psychosis, but it sounds the same.
I don't know what that means.
Caden Cotard Well, there's two different kinds of psychosis. They're spelled differently. P-s-y is like if you're crazy and s-y is like these things on my face.
You could have both though.
Caden Cotard I could. But I don't.
I need to forgive you before I die... but I can't forgive someone who has not asked for forgiveness.
Caden Cotard I just want...
I have no time. I need you to ask for forgiveness.
Caden Cotard Can you ever forgive me?
For what?
Caden Cotard For abandoning you.
For abandoning you to have anal sex with my homosexual lover, Eric.
Caden Cotard I will, I'll say it... For abandoning you... to have anal sex with my homosexual lover, Eric.
No... [Starts crying]nNo, I'm sorry. I cannot... [Dies]
I hope you are happy, ****.
Why did we leave Adele, Caden?
Caden Cotard She left us. Nobody knows that better than you. Except me.
Caden Cotard I don't understand why you're with Sammy.
He's nice, he's available, he ****s me without crying.
Caden Cotard I know what to do with this play now. I have an idea. I think...
