Royal Tenenbaums Quotes

I didn't think so much of him at first. But now I get it: he's everything that I'm not.

I'm very sorry for your loss. Your mother was a terribly attractive woman.

Do not confront me with my failures, I have not forgotten them. - Nico (Royal Tenenbaums)

The Royal Tenenbaums," she said. "It's about a family of prodigies.

I've always been considered an asshole for about as long as I can remember. That's just my style.

This is not the "relativism of truth" presented by journalistic takes on postmodernism. Rather, the ironist's cage is a state of irony by way of powerlessness and inactivity: In a world where terrorism makes cultural relativism harder and harder to defend against its critics, marauding international corporations follow fair-trade practices, increasing right-wing demagoguery and violence can't be answered in kind, and the first black U.S. president turns out to lean right of center, the intelligentsia can see no clear path of action. Irony dominates as a "mockery of the promise and fitness of things," to return to the OED definition of irony. This thinking is appropriate to Wes Anderson, whose central characters are so deeply locked in ironist cages that his films become two-hour documents of them rattling their ironist bars. Without the irony dilemma Roth describes, we would find it hard to explain figures like Max Fischer, Steve Zissou, Royal Tenenbaum, Mr. Fox, and Peter Whitman. I'm not speaking here of specific political beliefs. The characters in question aren't liberals; they may in fact, along with Anderson himself, have no particular political or philosophical interests. But they are certainly involved in a frustrated and digressive kind of irony that suggests a certain political situation. Though intensely self-absorbed and central to their films, Anderson's protagonists are neither heroes nor antiheroes. These characters are not lovable eccentrics. They are not flawed protagonists either, but are driven at least as much by their unsavory characteristics as by any moral sense. They aren't flawed figures who try to do the right thing; they don't necessarily learn from their mistakes; and we aren't asked to like them in spite of their obvious faults. Though they usually aren't interested in making good, they do set themselves some kind of mission--Anderson's films are mostly quest movies in an age that no longer believes in quests, and this gives them both an old-fashioned flavor and an air of disillusionment and futility.

Chucky came home sometime around the fifth inning. “Yo,” he said as he walked by me toward his room. “Yo.” When he came back out, he was wearing a red polyester tracksuit and had a bag in his hand. “I got you a present,” he said. When I stood to take the bag from his hands I noticed that the name “Chuck” was embroidered on his jacket. I cautiously removed the contents of the bag to reveal an identical tracksuit to the one he was wearing, except it had “Charlie” embroidered on it. “Oh my god, Chucky.” I buckled over and started laughing. “Screw Helen,” he said. “We’re roomies now.” “We’re the Royal Tenenbaums!” I said, trying to catch my breath. “Thank you, Chuck. I totally thought you’d have Fatbutt embroidered on something the first chance you got.” “It crossed my mind.” Still laughing, I said, “We’re gonna be a spectacle.” “It’s fucking rad

Wow

I know that being sober is more difficult for Nic than I can comprehend. I feel sympathy and pride for his hard work. When I get angry about the past—the lies, the break-ins, the betrayals—I restrain myself from saying anything or even reacting. It does no good. I think it was in New York that Nic and I saw The Royal Tenenbaums together. Nico—her voice pained—sings Jackson Browne’s “These Days.” I hear her sing the haunting lyric: “Don’t confront me with my failures. I have not forgotten them.” I have to remind myself that if Nic’s relapses horrify me, it’s worse for him. I suffer, Vicki suffers, Karen suffers, Jasper and Daisy suffer, my parents suffer, Karen’s suffer, others who love Nic suffer, but he suffers more. “Don’t confront me with my failures. I have not forgotten them.