Most-quoted character in Wonder Boys (2000): in 17 of its 18 quotes
Most scenes with: James Leer (5), Terry Crabtree (3), Sara Gaskell (2)
I had no business trudging up to James Leer's parents' house in the middle of the night. Not when all that really mattered was trying to make things right with Sarah. But we had decided to rescue James Leer. I wasn't quite sure from what because I was pretty much convinced that everything that came out of James' mouth was basically horseshit. But maybe that really didn't matter. Sometimes people just need to be rescued.
Grady Tripp Whenever I wondered what Sara saw in me, and I wondered more than once, I always came back to the fact that she loved to read. She read everything every spare moment. She was a junkie for the printed word. And lucky for me, I manufactured her drug of choice.
Grady Tripp So there it was. Somewhere in the night, a Manhattan book editor was prowling the streets of Pittsburgh; best-selling author at his side, dead dog in his trunk.
Grady Tripp As for me, I lost everything: my wife, my book, my job, everything that I thought was important. But I finally knew where I wanted to go. And now I have someone to help me get there.
Antonia "Tony" Sloviak Oh, that's such a beautiful Greenhouse.
Grady Tripp It's Mrs. Gaskell's, it's her hobby.
I thought you were Mrs. Gaskell's hobby.
Grady Tripp Piss off, will ya Crabs? I lost a wife today.
You'll find another one, you always do. She'll be younger, prettier; they always are.
It's just... for good luck. Some people carry rabbits' feet...
Grady Tripp ...You carry firearms.
Professor Tripp? Can I ask you a question?
Grady Tripp Yeah, James.
What are we going to do with... it?
Grady Tripp I don't know. I'm still trying to figure out how to tell the Chancellor I murdered her husband's dog.
You?
Grady Tripp Trust me, James, when the family pet's been assassinated, the owner doesn't want to hear one of her students was the trigger man.
Does she want to hear it was one of her professors?
Grady Tripp ...I've got tenure.
Now, that is a big trunk. It holds a tuba, a suitcase, a dead dog, and a garment bag almost perfectly.
Grady Tripp That's just what they used to say in the ads.
Grady Tripp Mm.
My God, I wear the same scent as a transvestite.
Grady Tripp What do we have here? This looks like... that's our old friend Mr. Codeine. That should take the old pinch out of the ankle. Want one?
No, thanks. I'm fine without them.
Grady Tripp Right. That's why you were standing in the chancellor's backyard spinning that "cap gun" of yours. You're fine. Yeah, you're just as fit as a ****in' fiddle.
You're mad at me, aren't you? You're mad because I shot your girlfriend's dog.
Grady Tripp It wasn't her dog, it was her husband's... [looking at James] Who said anything about a girlfriend?
Grady Tripp Okay, James, I wish you hadn't shot my girlfriends dog. Even though Poe and I were not exactly what you'd call simpatico, that's no reason he should've taken two in the chest.
You didn't happen to call our house last night, did you?
Grady Tripp I think I might have, yes.
What do you think you might have said?
Grady Tripp I think I might have said I was in love with you. [pause] He told you?
He told me.
Grady Tripp And what did you say?
I said it didn't sound like you.
Hannah Green Grady, you know how in class you're always telling us that writers make choices?
Grady Tripp Yeah.
Hannah Green And even though your book is really beautiful, I mean, amazingly beautiful, it's... it's at times... it's... very detailed. You know, with the genealogies of everyone's horses, and the dental records, and so on. And... I could be wrong, but it sort of reads in places like you didn't make any choices. At all. And I was just wondering if it might not be different if... if when you wrote you weren't always... under the influence.
Grady Tripp Well... thank you for the thought, but shocking as it may sound, I am not the first writer to sip a little weed. Furthermore, it might surprise you to know that one book I wrote, as you say, "under the influence," just happened to win a little something called the Pen Award. Which, by the way, I accepted under the influence.
Hannah Green I'm not the downy innocent you painted me as.
Grady Tripp That's a shame, we need all the downy innocents we can get.
Let me get this straight. Jerry Nathan owes you money, so as collateral he gives you his car.
Grady Tripp Only I'm beginning to think that the car wasn't exactly Jerry's to give.
Ah, so whose car was it?
Grady Tripp My guess? Vernon Hardapple.
The hood jumper?
Grady Tripp He said a few things that lead me to believe that the car was his.
Such as?
Grady Tripp "That's my car, mother****er."
Why did you keep writing this book if you didn't even know what it was about?
Grady Tripp I couldn't stop.
It's comforting to know that America's children have you for a teacher.
Grady Tripp Nobody teaches a writer anything. You tell'em what you know. You tell'em to find their voice and stay with it. You tell the ones that have it to keep at it. You tell the ones that don't have it to keep at it too because that's the only way they're gonna get to where they're going. Of course, it does help if you know where you wanna go. Helping my students figure that out...that and Sara...that's what's made these last years worthwhile.
Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas)
President Andrew Shepherd
Nick Curran
Jack Colton
Nick Conklin
Gordon Gekko
Zach
Tom Sanders
