- Robert F. Kennedy: [voiceover] This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives. It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours. Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet. No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason. Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded. "Among free men," said Abraham Lincoln, "there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs." Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire. Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them. Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul. For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter. This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all. I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered. We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers. Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence. We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge. Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution. But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can. Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.
- Edward Robinson: You've got... shit to offer. You've got no poetry, you've got no light. No one looking at you going, "Damn... look at that Miguel. I want... some of what he's got." All you have is your anger.
- Fisher: Why do you want to get stoned?
- Jimmy: We want to get stoned, because it feels good, man.
- Fisher: Bingo, because it feels good! You want to get stoned, because it feels good! Right?
- Cooper: Right!
- Fisher: Wrong!
- Cooper: Why is that wrong?
- Fisher: Because it's a cop out...
- Jimmy: Ok, then can you explain to us why for what other reason than the fact it feels good, do we want to get stoned, man?
- Fisher: Because it's our way, of getting closer, to god.
- Fisher: That is what you're looking for; except for you didn't know it, until this minute.
- Samantha: I forgot to pack my black shoes. I packed a black dress and a back up dress, but the backup dress also requires black shoes. I don't have them. I forgot to pack my black shoes.
- Virginia Fallon: People come to see me. People LOVE me! So if I want to have a fucking drink, then I am going to have a fucking drink
- [softly, in Tim's face]
- Virginia Fallon: ... because I deserve it!
- Virginia Fallon: You know, we're all whores, but only some of us get paid.
- [Seeing that Miriam is a bit offended]
- Virginia Fallon: ... I'm sorry. You didn't deserve that.
- Edward Robinson: Let's send the brown man back across the border.
- Miguel: We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us.
- Robert F. Kennedy: What I think is quite clear is that we can work together in the last analysis, and that what has been going on in the United States over the period of the last three years, the division, the violence, the disenchantment with our society, the division whether it's between black and white, between the poor and the more affluent or between age groups or over the war in Vietnam, that we can start to work together. We are a great country and selfless country and a compassionate country. And I intend to make that my basis for running in the period of the next few months.
- [after causing a disruption in the restaurant]
- Jimmy: Are you still high from the acid?
- Cooper: No... well, maybe a little.
- [Susan, the waitress walks up to the table and sets down a tray of food]
- Jimmy: We didn't order this.
- Susan Taylor: You guys have gotta eat something.
- Cooper: Why is that?
- Susan Taylor: [smiling] Is this the first time you two have turned on?
- [Cooper laughs nervously]
- Susan Taylor: Oh, come on fellas, your pupils are like saucers.
- Jimmy: What do you know, you're from Iowa.
- Susan Taylor: Ohio. And what, do you think California is the only place people drop acid?
- [Susan turns around and walks off]
- Cooper: [quietly] Was I that obvious?
- Jack: Samantha. You're more than the shoes on your feet or the designer dress on your back. You're more than the purse you carry or the money inside. You and I are more than the stuff, more than the things in our lives. Somewhere between our things and our stuff is us. I don't wanna lose us.
- Paul: Do we know anything yet?
- Fire Captain: We got men on the sixth floor going from room to room. You the manager?
- Paul: Paul Ebbers. And the bungalows?
- Fire Captain: We're checking them now.
- Female Dispatcher: 5574
- Fire Captain: Roger that. It's a false alarm. False alarm. I wouldn't want to be you today.
- Paul: Occupational hazard. We'll open the cafe. You or you men want coffee, a hot breakfast, it's on the house. Thanks.
- Fire Captain: It'll take us a while to wrap this up, but I'll let the boys know.
- Edward Robinson: White folks ain't trying to keep you down. White folks just don't like to be pushed into a corner. They'll come around. You just got to make it look like it was their idea, like they're the ones that thought of it. They need to feel like they're the great emancipators. Like it was theirs to give in the first place. Let'em have it. I mean, if that's all it takes, let them have it.
- Miriam: [to her husband] Your, clothes, your hair. They might say 1968, but your attitude is pure 1920.
- Edward Robinson: I was like you once, I had anger. Then when Dr. King was gone... Anger like you couldn't even imagine.
- Virginia Fallon: People don't care about you as much when you get older.
- Virginia Fallon: Look at you. You look terrific.
- Miriam: Yeah.
- Virginia Fallon: But you know how they call women "tootsie" or. "Cupcake"? Anyone ever call you "twinkie"?
- Miriam: No
- Virginia Fallon: That's right. And I guarantee you no one will ever call you twinkie. You know why? Because we don't have the same shelf life as a twinkie. We're like melting..ice cream cones. You know what? I was wondering, like, exactly, I was thinking, "when did I grow that flat spot on my ass?"