- Louise: So what happened, were you bored in Manchester?
- Johnny: Was I bored? No, I wasn't fuckin' bored. I'm never bored. That's the trouble with everybody - you're all so bored. You've had nature explained to you and you're bored with it, you've had the living body explained to you and you're bored with it, you've had the universe explained to you and you're bored with it. So now you want cheap thrills and like plenty of them, and it don't matter how tawdry or vacuous they are as long as it's new, as long as it's new, as long as it flashes and fuckin' bleeps in forty fuckin' different colors. So whatever else you can say about me, I'm not fuckin' bored.
- Louise: Yeah. All right.
- Johnny: So how's it all going for you?
- Louise: It's a bit boring, actually.
- Johnny: It's not easy, is it? Do you find that? Well, just goes to show ya that no matter how many books you read, there's some things in this world that you never, ever, ever, ever, ever fuckin' understand.
- Johnny: All right, listen. Does anybody mind if I scream here? Is that okay with you all? Cause I'd feel better for it. It won't take long.
- Johnny: Have you ever thought, right, but you don't know, but you may have already lived the happiest day in your whole fuckin' life and all you have left to look forward to is sickness and purgatory?
- Sophie: Oh, shit. I just live from day to day, myself.
- Johnny: I tend to skip a day now and again, you know what I mean.
- Johnny: Has nobody not told you, Brian, that you've got this kind of gleeful preoccupation with the future? I wouldn't even mind, but you don't even have a fuckin' future, I don't have a future. Nobody has a future. The party's over. Take a look around you man, it's all breaking up. Are you not familiar with the Book of Revelations of St. John, the final book of the Bible prophesying the apocalypse?
- Brian: Yes. As it happens, I'm familiar with all the Books of the Bible.
- Johnny: I'm very happy for you. He forced everyone to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead so that no one shall be able to buy or sell unless he has the mark, which is the name of the beast, or the number of his name, and the number of the beast is...
- Johnny, Brian: 6-6-6.
- Brian: I know about it.
- Johnny: Great!
- Brian: I know about Nostradamus. Nostradamus talked about three brothers. Did he mean the Kennedy brothers or was he talking about three bits of the Soviet Union? You see? You just can't tell.
- Johnny: Fuck Nostradamus! I'm not talking about Nostradamus or Mother Shipton or Russell Grant or Mystic-fucking-Meg. I'm talking about the Holy fucking Book! What can such a specific prophecy mean? What is the mark? Well the mark, Brian, is the barcode, the ubiquitous barcode that you'll find on every bog roll and packet of johnnies and every poxy pork pie, and every fuckin' barcode is divided into two parts by three markers, and those three markers are always represented by the number 6. 6-6-6! Now what does it say? No one shall be able to buy or sell without that mark. And now what they're planning to do in order to eradicate all credit card fraud and in order to precipitate a totally cashless society, what they're planning to do, what they've already tested on the American troops, they're going to subcutaneously laser tattoo that mark onto your right hand, or onto your forehead. They're going to replace plastic with flesh. Fact! In the same book of Revelations when the seven seals are broken open on the day of judgment and the seven angels blow the trumpets, when the third angel blows her bugle, wormwood will fall from the sky, wormwood will poison a third part of all the waters and a third part of all the land and many many many people will die! Now do you know what the Russian translation for wormwood is?
- Brian: No.
- Johnny: Chernobyl. Fact! On August the 18th, 1999, the planets of our solar system are gonna line up into the shape of a cross.
- Brian: I don't believe in astrology.
- Johnny: I'm not talking about astrology! I'm talking about astronomy. They're gonna line up in the fixed signs of Aquarius, Leo, Taurus, and Scorpio, which just happen to correspond to the four beasts of the apocalypse, as mentioned in the Book of Daniel. Another fuckin' fact! Do you want me to go on? The end of the world is nigh, Bri, the game is up!
- Brian: I don't believe that. Life can't just come to a stop.
- Johnny: All right, I'm not saying that life will end or the world will end, or the universe will cease to exist. But man will cease to exist! Just like the dinosaurs passed into extinction, the same thing will happen to us! We're not fuckin' important! We're just a crap idea!
- Louise: How did you get here?
- Johnny: Well, basically, there was this little dot, right? And the dot went bang and the bang expanded. Energy formed into matter, matter cooled, matter lived, the amoeba to fish, to fish to fowl, to fowl to frog, to frog to mammal, the mammal to monkey, to monkey to man, amo amas amat, quid pro quo, memento mori, ad infinitum, sprinkle on a little bit of grated cheese and leave under the grill till Doomsday.
- Louise: I see you haven't changed.
- Sophie: [laughs] He's a fuckin' genius, this geezer.
- Johnny: What if God just put us here for his own entertainment? That's all we are - just something for him to have a bit of a laugh at?
- Johnny: You can't make an omelet without cracking a few eggs. And humanity is just a cracked egg. And the omelet stinks.
- Sophie: I don't know what they want from you half the time. What they start off liking you for, they end up hating you for. Don't like you if you're strong. Don't like you if you're weak. Hate you if you're clever, hate you if you're stupid. They don't know what they want.
- Johnny: You see, the thing is, Brian, that God is a hateful god. Must be. Because if God is good, then why is there evil in the world? Why is there pain and hate and greed and war? Doesn't make sense. But if God is a nasty bastard, then you can say, "Why is there good in the world? Why is there love and hope and joy?" Well, let's face it. Good exists in order to be fucked up by evil. The very existence of good enables evil to flourish. Therefore, God is bad.
- Johnny: And what is it what goes on in this postmodern gas chamber?
- Brian: Nothing. It's empty.
- Johnny: So what is it you guard, then?
- Brian: Space.
- Johnny: You're guarding space? That's stupid, isn't it? Because someone could break in there and steal all the fuckin' space and you wouldn't know it's gone, would you?
- Brian: Good point.
- [last lines]
- Sandra: What is your problem?
- Johnny: What's *your* problem?
- Sandra: All these silly questions and...
- Johnny: Well look - I've never met a nurse before and I'm just interested in, uh, well in life. I mean, do you think it's worth saving?
- Sandra: Of course I do. But there is a time and a place and actually this isn't the time or...
- Johnny: The place?
- Sandra: No. And this is where I...
- Johnny: Live?
- Sandra: Yes, and I'm not feeling very...
- Johnny: Sexy?
- Sandra: ...comfortable, actually. I'm not feeling very comfortable.
- Johnny: Well make yourself comfortable, luv, or slip into something more
- [mouths the word]
- Johnny: comfortable.
- Sandra: [starts to leave] My bath. Hot toast. Hot milk. Hot water bottle. Bed. Sleep.
- Johnny: Do you like me?
- Sandra: I don't know you so...
- Johnny: Do you find me attractive?
- [Sandra is speechless]
- Johnny: Well listen luv, it's like this - I find you attractive. Very attractive.
- Sandra: Enough. I've had enough. It comes at me from all angles... You... all of you just... it's the tin lids... When... how will the world ever...
- Johnny: End?
- Sandra: Yes!
- [Sandra leaves]
- Johnny: You know what frightens me about the human body?
- Sophie: What?
- Johnny: Well, it's like the, er, most sophisticated mechanism in the entire universe, and yet it's so fuckin' quiet, isn't it? Know what I mean?
- Sophie: Dunno. Mine makes enough noise.
- Johnny: It's like this, er, wet, pink factory. What the fuck are they makin' in there? I mean, what's the product? You never see no delivery trucks comin' and goin', do you?
- Johnny: Evolution isn't over. Man isn't the be-all and fucking end-all. Look, if you take the whole of time, represented by one year, we're only in the first few moments of the first of January. There's a long way to go. Only now we're not gonna sprout extra limbs and wings and fins, because evolution itself is evolving. And whereas you, through some process of extrasensory recall, might imagine that you were some - I don't know - some 17th Century little Dutch girl livin' in a windmill in old Amsterdam, one day you'll realize that you've had not just one or two past or future existences, but that you were, and are, everybody and everything that has ever been - or will ever be.
- Brian: Hang on a minute. You just contradicted yourself.
- Johnny: Oh, how'd you make that out?
- Brian: Downstairs you were predicting the end of the world. Now you're talking about the future. How do you explain that, eh?
- Johnny: Easy. When it comes, the Apocalypse itself - will be part of the process of that leap of evolution.
- Brian: Yeah. Well, whatever happens, mankind will not cease to exist.
- Johnny: He must. By the very definition of apocalypse, mankind must cease to exist - at least in a material form.
- Brian: What do you mean, "in a material form"?
- Johnny: Well, he'll evolve.
- Brian: What into?
- Johnny: Into something that transcends matter. Into a species of pure thought. Are you with me?
- Brian: Yeah. Like a ghost.
- Johnny: No, not like a fucking ghost, you big girl's blouse! Into something that's, like, well beyond our comprehension. Into a universal consciousness. Into God, who is, by the same principle - that time is.
- Brian: You don't believe in God.
- Johnny: Of course I believe in God.
- Poster Man: Shift.
- Johnny: It's all goin' very well.
- Poster Man: Shift out the fuckin' way, will you?
- Johnny: No, I like Laurel and Hardy, you know, although apparently they didn't get on in real life, you know, another illusion shattered. Sorry about that pal, it's just I've had a lot of bad experience with walls, you know, what with talking to them and climbing them, and me dad's driven me up a good few of them in 'is time, you know what I mean? But I think I've got the secret. The saucy little secret, this solipsistic, sagacious little secret is just, you got, you just gotta bang your fuckin' head against them. Just crack the old pate. Are you with me? Have you got it? And that's it, that's the key to enlightenment, which is, it's like that's why, it's like such a potent motif of civilization - it's the wall. It's like the, the Great Wall of China, and the Wall of Jericho and the Berlin Wall, and the Wailin' Wall. Now you see the Jews, they've almost got it, an't they? What with the old rockin' and that, and you know, just that six inches away and they'd be there, they'd have won the fuckin' race, they'll be there, you with me?
- [poster man continues to stick up 'cancelled' posters]
- Johnny: What is all this, anyway? What are you doing? Cancel everything. In the beginnin' there was the Word, and the word was "cancelled." D'you get like satisfaction out of this? D'you think you're makin' a contribution? You're like sort of publicly promulgating vacuities? Are you with me? Fuckin' hell!
- [poster man starts to stride away]
- Johnny: Oh, that's it! Blank it all out! Blank it all out till you just atrophy and die of fucking indifference. Can I show you something, pal? You see that at the top of your legs? That's your arse and that's your fucking elbow! Do you want to write it down or s...
- [the poster man hits him]
- Johnny: Well, Brian, congratulations! You've succeeded in convincin' me that you do 'ave the most tedious fuckin' job in England.
- Jeremy: Hope I haven't given you AIDS, Sophie.
- Louise: Jesus Christ.
- Sophie: Are you serious?
- Jeremy: I was merely jesting.
- Louise: Very funny.
- Jeremy: I think AIDS is rather healthy in its way.
- Louise: You what?
- Jeremy: I realise that's not the fashionable thing to say, of course.
- Louise: No, it's not.
- Jeremy: But the world is over crowded, isn't it? It does need a little pruning.
- Sophie: You fuckin' better be joking?
- Johnny: You think you can recapture your youth by fucking it? You don't want to fuck me. You'll catch something cruel.
- Jeremy: You've got wonderful breasts.
- Masseuse: Don't you mean "tits"?
- Jeremy: Are they both the same size, or is one bigger than the other?
- Masseuse: I don't know. D'you want to weigh them?
- Jeremy: [waitress pops champagne cork] Is that a proposition?
- Masseuse: No, it's a threat... Are you rich?
- Jeremy: [messily eating fried chicken] Life is for enjoying.
- Masseuse: What about family? Have you got any brothers or sisters?
- Jeremy: I try not to remember.
- Masseuse: You're sexually frustrated, aren't you?
- Jeremy: [chortles and snickers]
- Masseuse: What's funny?
- Jeremy: Are you a feminist?
- Masseuse: No.
- Jeremy: Do you like fucking?
- Masseuse: Do you like wanking?
- Jeremy: Not on my own, no.
- Jeremy: [licks his fingers]
- Johnny: It's funny bein' inside 'int it? 'Cos when ya are inside, yer still actually outside aren't ya. And then you can say when you're outisde, you're inside because you're always inside yer head. Do you follow that?
- Brian: Yes, it is a boring job. Bloody boring, actually. But all you can see is the tip of the iceberg, the present, the tedious here and now. What you're incapable of seeing is the rest of time, the rest of the iceberg, past and the future - my future - which is a very interesting place to be. The good thing about this job is that it gives me time and space to contemplate the future at my leisure, whilst the city sleeps, free from the cacophonous curiosity of the hoi polloi. So, you see, it's not a boring job. And I'm not boring either.
- Johnny: Why are you here in London, oh Bodhidharma?
- Archie: Put my old man at the hospital.
- Johnny: Your dad?
- Archie: Right.
- Johnny: How did you do that, then?
- Archie: Cracked him on the head.
- Johnny: So what, is he in a bad way?
- Archie: Fuckin' half dead.
- Johnny: So you're like on the run, then?
- Archie: Yeah.
- Johnny: Me too.
- Archie: Yeah, the cops after you, yeah?