Cecily: Don’t be afraid to fail in a decision that you make together. In any relationship, the only thing you have to fear is a failed decision that you made alone.
psychology
Three friends, on Carlo.
Maurice: Does Count Carlo have a passion?
Cecily: He enjoys art.
Raj: And women.
Maurice: And food!
Cecily: He’s Italian.
Two friends, on love.
Alexander: Love is an illusion, death is inevitable.
Cecily: Love is not an illusion. Marriage is inevitable. I will be happy.
Alexander: The very existence of love, or indeed any sentiment, is questionable. Marriage is a social construct. Happiness is rampant hedonism.
Two friends, on parents.
Cecily: At least your parents know who you are.
Alexander: They’re from Texas. They have no clue how to handle the malaise-riddled, bilingual, gender non-binary gay man that shares their genetics. They’d die of aneurysms if they met the people with whom I keep company: charlatans, musicians, career hedonists, trust fund druggies, and the older men with whom I seek to fill my paternal void (usually via sex and misplaced feelings).
Two friends, on the doctor.
Cecily: I was looking at wedding rings this morning.
Arnaud: Why?! Butterflies’ fingers are too thin for rings dear. You must be ill. Go and see a doctor.
Cecily: I need a ring. What if I get old and nobody loves me enough to keep me company, and all I have left is old copies of Vogue magazine and thoughts about what could have been if I had shared my life with somebody? Maybe the doctor will marry me…
Charles, on one of life’s great challenges.
Charles: Don’t you love to think about things at McDonald’s? Paris is a movable feast, just like the double cheeseburger.
Two friends, on escalators.
Charles: There is something very soothing about this escalator.
Cecily: At the end of a tough day, do you go up and down it and feel like you’re in a narrow, metallic womb? And is Freud’s escalator anything like Schrödinger’s box?
Charles: Well it’s certainly a space where there is only one logical direction and no choice. I think you’d quite benefit from Freud-Shrödinger’s escalator.
Two friends, on shirking identity.
Charles: I do not want to be Charles anymore.
Cecily: Charles has light and shade. Sometimes he’s so dryly drôle, at other times wracked with deep malaise, at other times, he simply makes dad jokes. You’re a universe. Don’t deny the world your universe. What does it matter if being Charles hurts you a little? You don’t keep long-term friendships anyway.
Delilah, after Cecily’s birthday.
Delilah: You’re not as destructive as you think you are. You still have wild delusions about your own power. That’s the narcissism of youth. Guess you’re not as old as you thought you were.
Two friends, on endings.
Charles: I live a double life at best. When, where, and how does it all end? Do I walk into work one day and they’ll all have realised I’m not the person they always thought me to be?
Cecily: You already know your end. It’s preordained. Every moment of your life you have respired as Don Draper, and now you’re questioning whether your writers are going to spontaneously change your course? Hold their hands and walk into that ocean my friend. Buy the world a Coke.
Charles: I want a new story.
Cecily: So did Don. Escape is futile.
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