McGee: You've never been to a therapist before?
Tony: Me? No. You?
McGee: Yeah. Once when I was young.
Tony: For your agrophobia?
McGee: You're blowing that all outta proportion, Tony.
Tony: Well, you showed a pathological fear of heights earlier today.
McGee: I was staring down ten stories, being a little disoriented, it's a little understandable.
Tony: Disoriented? You had your panties in a twist, tears in your eyes. Oh wait, I couldn't see your eyes, cause they were shut so tight. You were hysterical like a little girl.
McGee: I was not.
Tony: You were hugging the ladder. Ladder hugger. And I've got the photographic evidence.
(Tony pulls out his phone, on which he had recorded McGee from earlier)
Tony: Let technology show you the truth.
McGee: My eyes are not closed. I was blinking.
Tony: Oh. Oh is that what you're doing? Let's let the people decide.
McGee: You're not gonna post that on YouTube.
Tony: Might.
McGee: You give me that thing or I'm gonna...
(The two of them scuffle, as McGee tries to get the phone from Tony)
Therapist: Hey, hey, hey. You two have deeper issues then we discussed on the phone.
Tony: On the phone?
Therapist: Aren't you the couple who called about marriage counseling?
McGee: Couple? Us? No, no, we.....
Tony: It's all right.Timmy, Timmy ---- we're in a safe place. We can be ourselves here.
(McGee pushes himself away from Tony)
Tony: We just got back from Vermont.It's pretty this time of year.
McGee: (pulls out badge) NCIS.Special Agents McGee and DiNozzo.
Tony: *Very* special agents.

Tony: Steady, Probie.
McGee: Tell that to my stomach.
(Tony bends down to height of McGee's stomach)
Tony: Steady, Probie's stomach.

Tony: I recognize that look. You've had sex and I'm guessing it was with a girl.
McGee: No
Tony: It wasn't with a girl?

Tony (in Tommy Lee Jones voice and posture): All right, listen up people. Our fugitive has been on the run for 90 minutes.
Ziva: It has been 3 hours, Tony.
Tony: Average foot speed over uneven ground, barring injuries, is 4 mph.
Ziva: He's not on foot, he's in a car!
Tony: What I need from each and every one of you is a hard target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, hen house, outhouse and doghouse in the area. Our fugitive has a name and it is...
Gibbs: Corporal Damon Werth.
McGee (to Tony): The Tommy Lee Jones speech? Every time we have a fugitive?
(Tony squirms but looks unrepentant.)

Tony: I'm an acquired taste.
McGee: Actually, it's more like the Stockholm Syndrome. The emotional attachment to a captor formed by a hostage as a result of continuous stress and a need to cooperate for survival.


Ziva: This isn't one of your stuipd action movie, Tony.
Tony: No it isn't. If it was you would you'd be dressed differently.
Ziva: And you'd be far better looking.
(McGee laughs)
Tony: (to McGee) You'd be dead by the opening credits!
McGee: Did you ever stop to think that maybe I am the plucky comic relief?

Tony: McGee and I watched the sunrise together. It was very Brokeback Mountain.
McGee: He had me at howdy.

McGee: I never thought I'd say this and actually mean it, but it’s good to see you, Tony.
Tony: I miss you too, Probie.

Tony: Alright, open to search page. (He looks around, and leans into the camera and whispers) Is this hacking McGee? Are we hacking?
McGee: (Emphatically) It's not hacking.
Tony: But it is illegal, right? Don't answer that. I know its illegal. I'm having fun.

Tony: I think you have me confused with someone who is far less awesome.

McGee: Tony, I'm not arguing with you.
Tony: You're arguing now.
McGee: No, I'm not.
Tony: Yes, you are.
McGee: This is not an argument.
Tony: Yes, it is.
McGee: No, it's not.
Tony: Yes, it is. (Ziva's phone rings) Hold on a second. (picks up the phone) Ziva's desk.She's not here.(Ziva walks in) Actually she is just walking in. (to Ziva) Man, deep voice,slightly accented, 6'3, two hundred pounds, Prada suit, Italian shoes, standing on the north side of the street, looking for Ziva.
Ziva: (takes the phone) Thank you, Tony.
Tony: (to McGee) What were we arguing about before?
McGee: We were not arguing.
Tony: Oh, that. Yes, we were.
McGee: You understand that's what we were arguing about. The fact that you will argue about the least little thing, sometimes you argue about nothing at all, you just want to argue.
Tony: That's not arguing, McContrary. C'mon, have a little insight, it's called banter.
McGee: No it is not. Banter is light-hearted, witty repartee.
Tony: Go on.
McGee: It's your turn to get the coffee. Go.

Casey: It's a vicious circle.
Dan: Yep. Just keeps going around and around.
Casey: Never stops.
Dan: That's what makes it vicious.
Casey: And a circle.

Casey: Can we be men for a second?
Dan: Okay, but just a second.

Dan: You know what pumps me up?
Casey: I know you like grape jelly.....

Casey: Jeez, Danny, that night in Minneapolis with the Jaegermeister, we didn't do anything untoward, did we?
Dan: You mean did we get married?
Casey: Yeah.
Dan: No.

Fraser: (Dressed as a woman and insisting Ray open doors for him.) Ray, manners.
Ray: You know, Benny, there's a limit.
Fraser: A limit? To good etiquette? I think not, Ray.
Ray: Just get in the car before I beat you with your purse.

Fraser: Detective Vecchio will blow your brains off.
Ray: Out.
Fraser: Out. I'm sorry, I stand corrected, he will blow your brains out.

Vecchio: I mean, it's just one of those special cases where alone we're incomplete but together we're better than we are separately, you know what I mean?

Fraser: Look at that!
RayK: It's a fish.
Fraser: Yeah. It's an encouraging sign.
RayK: That's not a sign, Fraser, it's a fish.
Fraser: Well, it's a trout, to be exact, which is a sign that the water quality of the Great Lakes is actually returning.
RayK: Look, why are you arguing with me, Fraser? It's not a sign, it's a fish! That means the boat's sinking and we're dying!
Fraser: Well, yes, it's a sign of that also.

Geoffrey: He's dead. I threw him in the river and swans ATE him!

[Keeping beat for a dance lesson]
Chaucer: And a one and two and three and four and your hands should alight like a birdie on a branch. And one and two and three and four and Wat doesn't lead he follows like a girl.
[Wat punches him. Scene changes, and Chaucer now has a tissue stuck up one nostril]
Chaucer: And one and two and twirlie twirlie twirlie! And one and two and you're still getting it wrong! And one and two and three and four you can hit me all day cause you punch like a... what?
Roland: A girl!

Wat: It's called a lance. Hello?

Wat: Uh, betray us, and I will fong you, until your insides are out, your outsides are in, your entrails will become your extrails I will w-rip... all the p... ung. Pain, lots of pain.

Roland: Well, that was different.
Chaucer: Well, it's time we celebrate our differences.
Roland: Just maybe not in public.

Chaucer: I'm a writer.
Wat: A what?
Chaucer: A wha- a what? A writer. You know, I write, with ink, and parchment. Geoffrey Chaucer's the name, writing's the game. You've probably read my book? the Book of the Duchess? No? Well, it was allegorical.
Roland: Well, we won't hold that against you, that's for every man to decide for himself.

Roland, Chaucer, Kate, Wat: [singing] He's blond, he's pissed, he'll see you in the lists, Lichtenstein! He's blond, he's tanned, he comes from Gelderland, he comes from Gelderland! Gelderland, Gelderland, Gelderland... Gelderland, Gelderland, Gelderland...

Wat: You have been weighed.
Roland: You have been measured.
Kate: And you have absolutely...
Chaucer: Been found wanting.
William: Welcome to New World. God save you, if it is right that he should do so.

Wat: I don't understand women.
Chaucer: Nor do I. But they understand us. Well, maybe not you.

John Paul: Look, just wait, wait...
Craig: I waited for you...
JP: Look, Craig, Craig, please. Just shut up alright and let me speak, okay? You can't just walk back into my life and hand me this. OK, I was finally over you and now you've ruined everything!
Craig: I'm sorry.
JP: Now all I can think is what if you hadn't walked into class that day? 'Cos everything since then's just been a disaster. I mean, OK, I probably wouldn't still be with Hannah, what with her being a girl and everything...Craig you've got no idea how much you've hurt me, so I just wanted to say to you, you know, before you walk out of my life forever.....that I wouldn't have missed any of it for the world.
Craig: W-what?
JP: I don't know how we keep finding ourselves here I really don't. But the one thing that I do know - the one thing that I'm sure of - is that I love you. I really love you and..."

KISSING! IN FRONT OF THE SUNSET POSTER!

JP: Good. Well, er, I'm glad we got that out of the way.
Craig: Yeah. You are still coming with me to Dublin, right?
JP: Yeah.
Together {Craig: You're not just seeing me off.
{JP: If you still want me to.
Craig: Even if we do this, there's no guarantees it's gonna work.
JP: I know. I know. We could mess everything up.
Craig: We could screw it up.
JP: Yeah.
Craig: I love you, John Paul McQueen.
JP: Why wouldn't you?

ON THE TRAIN.
Craig: Oh, er, and by the way, when we get to Dublin, if anyone asks, you're my cousin Steve. Everyone thinks I'm straight.
JP: What?
Craig: I'm messing.

THE GLORIOUS, HAPPY EVER AFTER END!

Martin: I’m thinking about getting an Adamantium helmet.
Mac: Yeah? That’s the stuff the Wolverine skeleton’s made out of, isn’t it?
Martin: Yep. Hardest metal in the world.
Mac: Indeed, indeed yeah. Sadly of course, a fictional metal. So that would probably reduce its effectiveness in a crash-style scenario.
Martin: Good point. Good point. Still the hardest metal in the world though. [Martin leaves.]
Mac: Fictional.

Mac: "Join me again next week on Let’s Make No Fucking Sense when I will be waxing an owl."

Toby: You have to ask yourself - if no-one on the internet wants a piece of it, just how far from the pack have you strayed?

Wash: (as Stegosaurus) Yes. This is a fertile land, and we will thrive. We will rule over this land, and we will call it...this land. (as Allosaur) I think we should call it your grave! (as Stegosaurus) Ah! Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal! (as Allosaur) Mine is an evil laugh! Now DIE! (as Stegosaurus) Oh, no, oh God no, oh dear God in heaven...

Rodney: Yay! Faint hope!

The thing that's stuck in my head most about Manhood For Amateurs is definitely the passionate espousal of fandom, and the idea that fan obsession comes from the same place as the artistic impulse — the desire for communal expression. Why do you think people often see fans as in opposition to "true" creative people? Now that fans are running all the comic book companies, producing Doctor Who, and reinventing Star Trek, do you see this changing? What will it take for a work of fanfic to be recognized as art? Have you ever written fanfic?

Well, I'm not sure I fully accept the premise of the question: "People often see fans as in opposition to 'true' creative people." Or rather, you may be right, "people" do see it that way, but if so then these people are deeply ignorant of the history of popular culture and its production. Fans began to take over creative responsibility in the world of Science Fiction as early as the mid-thirties; I doubt that by the mid-seventies there were many major practitioners in the genre who had not started out as a passionate, Con-going, zine-compiling fans. The second great age of American cinema was entirely created by fans (Coppola, Scorsese, Rafelson, Ashby, Spielberg, Lucas, et al) ; The Godfather is as much about the intensive study of gangster films as it is about gangsters. Same goes, even more so, for Scorsese. Rock and roll, same deal. The Beatles work is fan fiction on the work of Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers: It's not simple (or even complex) imitation; it's elaboration, infilling, transformation, a strategic redployment of the tropes and figures of the source material/primary text; the Beatles are in dialog with Buddy Holly, as Badfinger was in dialog with the Beatles and Jellyfish with Badfinger. Or you could go Stones/Stooges/Sex Pistols. The word "influence" is insufficient and too one-sided to describe a relationship that is much more accurately reflected by the system of tribute/ appropriation/critique that fandom employs. This kind of process, by which one generation of fan/critics (because anyone who doesn't understand that a fan is a critic doesn't know what a fan is, and there is nothing sadder to contemplate than the idea of a critic who is not also a fan) becomes the creators whose work inspires and obsesses and is critiqued by the next generation of fans, who in turn become critic-creators, has occurred in every popular art form across the board going back fifty or five thousand years. The apostles wrote fan fiction on Torah. So your "people" are silly people, and we don't need to listen to them.

Michael Chabon


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