Corky St Clair quotes from Waiting for Guffman (1997)

Corky St Clair

It's a Zen thing, like "how many babies fit in a tire," you know, the old joke.

Corky St Clair

Well, then, I just HATE you... and I hate your... ass... FACE!

Corky St Clair

My first show was Barefoot in the Park, which was an absolute smash, but my production on the stage of Backdraft was what really got them excited. This whole idea of 'In Your Face' theatre really affected them. The conceptualization, the whole abstraction, the obtuseness of this production to me was what was interesting. I wanted the audience to feel the heat from the fire—the fear—because people don't like fire, poked, poked in their noses. You know, when you get a cinder from a barbeque right on the end of your nose, and you kind of make that face, you know? That's not a good thing. And I wanted them to have the sense memory of that. So during the show I had someone burn newspapers and send it through the vents in the theatre. And well, they freaked out, and 'course the fire marshall came over, and they shut us down for a couple of days.

Corky St Clair

So what I'm understanding here - correct me, if I'm wrong - is that you're not givin' me any money. So now I'm left basically with nothin'. I'm left with zero, in which, in which, what can I do with zero, you know? What can I - I can't do anythin with it! I need to, this is my life here we're talking about! We're not just talkin' about, you know, somethin' else. We're talking about my life, you know? And it's forcing me to do somethin' I don't wanna do. To leave. To, to go out and just leave and go home and say, make a clean cut here and say: 'No way, Corky, you're not puttin' up with these people!' And I'll tell you why I can't put up with you people - because you're bastard people! That's what you are! You're just bastard people! And I'm goin' home and I'm gonna, I'm gonna bite my pillow, is what I'm gonna do!

Corky St Clair

Me, you know, right out of the navy, you know, fresh off a destroyer, with a dance belt and a tube of chapstick, basically, you know, not really much to call my own, and then basically being slammed down for ten or so years off off off off Broadway, and then, enough is enough, OK, I get the joke.

Corky St Clair

I think that the elements, as Dr. Watson said to Sherlock, "are coming together, sir." I was shopping for my wife, Bonnie (I buy most of her clothes). And Mrs. Pearl was in the same shop, and it just was an accident. Y'know, we started talking... about pantyhose. She was saying—w-whatever, that's not the point of the story, but what the point is was that through this accidental meeting—it's like, y'know, it's like a Hitchcock movie, where, you know, you're thrown into a rubber bag and put in the trunk of a car. You find people; you find them. Something... It—is it karma? Maybe. But we found him; that's the important thing—and I got Bonnie a wonderful pantsuit.

Corky St Clair

What the city council did was really... give me a challenge, and it's a challenge that I am going to accept. It's like in the olden days, in the days of France, when men would slap each other with their gloves say, y'know..."D'Artagnan!"... y'know, "how dare you talk to me like that, you!," and smack 'em.

I don't want to interfere, but I think it would be... I think we have to work on...

Corky St. Clair

I can't hear you!

I think we have to work on the music a little bit more. But I don't want to make trouble. So, [whispering again] and I don't really want to do this in front of them...

Corky St. Clair

Well, where do you want to do it?

Well, I think we have to sit down and make a schedule that includes some music time, because I think Jane and I have to work...

Corky St. Clair

Why are you whispering? I'm right here, you know?

Oh I'm sorry, do you want me to talk louder? Because I think that that it would be...

Corky St. Clair

Well now it's too loud! You know, just talk like a normal person, OK?