Quotes for
Etheline Tenenbaum (Character)
from The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

Ethel: How long have you been a smoker?
Margot: 22 years.
Ethel: Well, I think you should quit.

Ethel: What are you talking about?
Chas: The apartment. I have to get some new sprinklers and a back-up security system installed.
Ethel: But there are no sprinklers here either.
Chas: We might have to do something about that too.

Richie: I think he's very lonely. Lonelier than he lets on. Maybe lonelier than he even realizes.
Ethel: Have you spoken to him about this?
Richie: Briefly. And he agreed that...
Chas: I'm sorry, maybe I'm a little confused here. What are you suggesting?
Richie: That he come here and stay in my room.
Chas: Are you out of your mind?
Richie: No. I'm not. Anyway I think he'd be much more comfortable here than at...
Chas: Who gives a shit?
Richie: I do.
Chas: You poor sucker. You poor, washed up papa's boy.

Royal: Got a minute?
Ethel: [startled] What are you doing here?
Royal: Uh, I need a favour. I want to spend some time with you and the children.
Ethel: Are you crazy?
[she carries on walking]
Royal: Well, wait a minute, dammit!
Ethel: Stop following me!
Royal: Well, I want my family back.
Ethel: Well, you can't have it! I'm sorry for you, but it's too late.
Royal: Well, listen... Baby, I'm dying.
[she stops]
Royal: Yeah, I-I'm sick as a dog. I'll be dead in six weeks. I'm dying.
Ethel: What are you talking about? What's happening? Oh, I'm sorry... I didn't know...
[starts crying]
Ethel: Well, what'd they say? What is the prognosis?
Royal: [trying to comfort her] Take it easy, Ethel. Now, hold on, baby, hold on. Hold on, OK?
[she starts wailing]
Ethel: Where is the doctor?
Royal: Well, look, just wait a second now. Wait a second. OK, uh, listen, I'm not dying... but I need some time. A month or so. OK? I want us to-to...
[she slaps him hard]
Ethel: WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU? Are you crazy?
[she walks off]
Royal: Ethel, baby... I am dying.
[she comes back to him]
Ethel: Are you or aren't you?
Royal: What? Dying? Yeah.

Chas: Please don't get in the middle of this, Mr. Sherman. This is a family matter.
Margot: Don't talk to him like that.
Henry Sherman: Call me Henry.
Chas: I prefer Mr. Sherman.
Ethel: Call him Henry.
Chas: Why? I don't know him that well.
Ethel: You've known him for 10 years.
Chas: As your accountant, Mr. Sherman, yes.

[in a hospital ward]
Chas: Why did you try to kill yourself?
Ethel: Don't press him right now.
Richie: I wrote a suicide note.
Chas: You did?
Richie: Yeah. Right after I regained consciousness.
Chas: Can we read it?
Richie: No.
Chas: Can you paraphrase it for us?
Richie: I don't think so.
Chas: Is it dark?
Richie: Of course it's dark, it's a suicide note.

Raleigh: You've made a cuckold of me.
Margot: I know.
Raleigh: Many times over.
Margot: I'm sorry.
Raleigh: And you nearly killed your poor brother.
Ethel: What's he talking about?
Margot: It doesn't matter.
Raleigh: She's balling Eli Cash.

Ethel: Raleigh says you've been spending 6 hours a day locked in here, watching television and soaking in the tub.
Margot: [lying in the bath] I doubt that.
Ethel: Well, I don't that's very healthy, do you? Nor do I think it's very intelligent to keep an electrical gadget on the edge of the bathtub.
Margot: I tie it to the radiator.

[Chas Tenenbaum and his sons enter his mother's house with several bags]
Etheline Tenenbaum: Chas? What's going on?
Chas: We got locked out of our apartment.
Etheline Tenenbaum: Well, did you call a locksmith?
Chas: Uh huh.
Etheline Tenenbaum: Well, I don't understand. Did you pack your bags BEFORE you got locked out?

Henry Sherman: I just wanted to apologize for the other day, when I proposed to you.
Ethel: Why? I thought it was very sweet.

Royal: Chas has those boys cooped up like a pair of jackrabbits, Ethel.
Ethel: He has his reasons.
Royal: Oh, I know that, but you can't raise boys to be scared of life. You gotta brew some recklessness into them.
Ethel: I think that's terrible advice.
Royal: No, you don't.

Ethel: Royal, this is Henry Sherman.
Royal: [shaking hands with him] Hey, lay it on me, man.
Henry Sherman: How do you do?
Royal: Not too well, I'm dying.

Ethel: [about Royal's fake terminal illness charade] Were you part of this, Pagoda?
Henry Sherman: Of course he was.
Royal: No... well, yeah, he was, but, I mean, he wasn't *that* involved.

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