Quotes

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Have you met anyone recently who might loathe the very core of you?

Harold Crick: I just started auditing a woman who told me to get bent.

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Well, that sounds like a comedy. Try to develop that.

Dr. Jules Hilbert: I've devised a test. How exciting is that? Composed of 23 questions which I think might help uncover more truths about this narrator. Now Howard... Harold, these may seem silly but your candor is paramount.

Harold Crick: Harold. Ok.

Dr. Jules Hilbert: So. We know it's a woman's voice. The story involves your death. It's modern. It's in English and I'm assuming the author has a cursory knowledge of the city.

Harold Crick: Sure.

Dr. Jules Hilbert: O.k. good. Question one. Has anyone recently left any gifts outside your home? Anything. Gum, money, a large wooden horse.

Harold Crick: I'm sorry?

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Just answer the question.

Harold Crick: No.

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Do you find yourself inclined to solve murder mysteries in large luxurious homes to which you, let me finish, to which you may or may not have been invited?

Harold Crick: No. No, no, no.

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Alright. On a scale of one to ten, what would you consider the likelihood you might be assassinated?

Harold Crick: Assassinated?

Dr. Jules Hilbert: One being very unlikely ten being expecting it around every corner.

Harold Crick: I have no idea.

Dr. Jules Hilbert: O.k. let me rephrase.

[takes a deep breath]

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Are you the king of anything?

Harold Crick: Like what?

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Anything. King of the lanes at the local bowling alley.

Harold Crick: King of the lanes?

Dr. Jules Hilbert: King of the lanes, king of the trolls,

Harold Crick: King of the Trolls?

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Yes, uh uh uh a clandestine land found underneath your floor boards.

Harold Crick: No.

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Huh?

Harold Crick: No. That's ridiculous.

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Agreed. Let's start with ridiculous and move backwards. Now, was any part of you at one time part of something else?

Harold Crick: Like do I have someone else's arms?

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Well is it possible at one time that you were made of stone, wood, lye, varied corpse parts? Or, earth made holy by rabbinical elders?

Harold Crick: No. Look, look. I'm sorry, but what do these questions have to do with anything?

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Nothing. The only way to find out what story you're in is to determine what stories you're not in. Odd as it may seem, I've just ruled out half of Greek literature, seven fairy tales, ten Chinese fables, and determined conclusively that you are not King Hamlet, Scout Finch, Miss Marple, Frankenstein's Monster, or a golem. Hmm? Aren't you relieved to know you're not a golem?

Harold Crick: Yes. I am relieved to know that I am not a golem.

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Good. Do you have magical powers?

Harold Crick: Am I OK?

Doctor Mercator: [with facial indifference] Well, you're not dead. On the other hand, it looks like you cracked your head, you broke three bones in your leg and foot, you suffered four broken ribs, fractured your left arm, and severed an artery in your right arm, which should've killed you in a matter of minutes, but amazingly, a shard of metal from your watch obstructed the artery, keeping the blood loss low enough to keep you alive... which is pretty cool.

Harold Crick: Wow.

Kay Eiffel: [narrating Harold's thoughts on the guitars in the shop] Unfortunately, THIS guitar said, 'When I get back to Georgia, that woman gonna feel my pain.' THIS one said something along the lines of, 'Why yes, these pants ARE lycra.' THESE said, 'I'm very sensitive, very caring, and I have absolutely no idea how to play the guitar.'

Harold Crick: [Ana has just brought out a huge box totally stuffed with a mess of papers] What's this?

Ana Pascal: [Very pleased with herself] My tax files and receipts for the last three years.

Harold Crick: [Horrified] You keep your files like this?

Ana Pascal: No. Actually I'm quite fastidious. I put them in this box just to screw with you.

Penny Escher: [They are in a hospital ward surround by lots of sick and injured people] What are we doing here? I don't even think we're supposed to *be* in here.

Kay Eiffel: You told me I needed visual stimulation.

Penny Escher: Yeah, I meant a museum or something.

Kay Eiffel: I don't *need* a museum. I need the infirm.

Penny Escher: [slightly under her breath] You *are* the infirm.

Ana Pascal: [as their walking with Harold carrying the box of color flagged bags of flour] So did you make a key?

Harold Crick: Uh no I just committed it to memory. The blue, that-that's barley flour.

Ana Pascal: What's that one?

Harold Crick: The orange?

Ana Pascal: Yeah.

Harold Crick: I forget.

[Ana laughs, and they stop in front of a building]

Ana Pascal: Right here.

Harold Crick: [he looks up at the building] Oh.

Ana Pascal: Do you wanna come up?

Harold Crick: To your place?

Ana Pascal: Yeah.

Harold Crick: Uh, I guess. I could.

Ana Pascal: Wasn't that the idea, with the flours and everything?

Harold Crick: Honestly, I had only figured it out up to, 'I want you.'

Ana Pascal: Listen, Mr. Crick, I think I like you. And before I do anything rash, I'd like to make sure. I'd like you to come up.

Harold Crick: I'd be honored.

Ana Pascal: Great.

[they head up the stairs]

Ana Pascal: [to cast-covered Harold] So what happened?

Harold Crick: I stepped in front of a bus.

Ana Pascal: What? Why?

Harold Crick: There was a boy I had to pull out of the way?

Ana Pascal: What?

Harold Crick: There was this boy, I had to...

Ana Pascal: You stepped in front of a bus to save a boy?

Harold Crick: I had to. I didn't have a choice.

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Because he's real?

Kay Eiffel: Because it's a book about a man who doesn't know he's about to die. And then dies. But if a man does know he's about to die and dies anyway. Dies- dies willingly, knowing that he could stop it, then- I mean, isn't that the type of man who you want to keep alive?

[first lines]

Kay Eiffel: [narrating] This is a story about a man named Harold Crick and his wristwatch. Harold Crick was a man of infinite numbers, endless calculations, and remarkably few words. And his wristwatch said even less. Every weekday, for twelve years, Harold would brush each of his thirty-two teeth seventy-six times. Thirty-eight times back and forth, thirty-eight times up and down. Every weekday, for twelve years, Harold would tie his tie in a single Windsor knot instead of the double, thereby saving up to forty-three seconds. His wristwatch thought the single Windsor made his neck look fat, but said nothing.

Kay Eiffel: Every weekday, for 12 years, Harold would run at a rate of nearly 57 steps per block for 6 blocks, barely catching the 8:17 Kronecker bus. His wristwatch would delight in the feeling of the crisp wind rushing over its face. And every weekday, for 12 years, Harold would review 7.134 tax files as a senior agent for the Internal Revenue Service. Only taking a 45.7-minute lunch break, and a 4.3-minute coffee break, timed precisely by his wristwatch.

Kay Eiffel: Beyond that, Harold lived a life of solitude. He would walk home alone. He would eat alone. And precisely 11:13 every night, Harold would go to bed alone, putting his wristwatch to rest on the nightstand beside him. The was, of course, before Wednesday. On Wednesday, Harold's wristwatch changed everything.

Harold Crick: It says, in the file, that you only paid part of your taxes for last year.

Ana Pascal: That's right.

Harold Crick: Looks like only 78 percent.

Ana Pascal: Yep.

Harold Crick: So you did it on purpose?

Ana Pascal: Yep.

Harold Crick: So you must've been expecting an audit.

Ana Pascal: Um, I was expecting a fine, or a sharp reprimand.

Harold Crick: A reprimand? This isn't boarding school, Miss Pascal. You stole from the government.

Ana Pascal: No I didn't steal from the government. I just didn't pay you *entirely*.

Ana Pascal: Listen, I'm a big supporter of fixing potholes and erecting swing sets and building shelters. I am *more* than happy to pay those taxes. I'm just not such a big fan of the percentage that the government uses for national defense, corporate bailouts, and campaign discretionary funds. So, I didn't pay those taxes. I think I sent a letter to that effect with my return.

Harold Crick: Would it be the letter that beings "Dear Imperialist Swine"?

Kay Eiffel: I read this, in this fantastically depressing book, that when you jump from a building, it's rarely the impact that actually kills you.

Penny Escher: Well, I'm sure it doesn't help.

Harold Crick: Dave, can I pose a somewhat abstract, purely hypothetical question?

Dave: Sure.

Harold Crick: If you knew you were gonna die, possibly soon, what would you do?

Dave: Wow, I don't know. Am I the richest man in the world?

Harold Crick: No, you're you.

Dave: Do I have a superpower?

Harold Crick: No, you're *you*.

Dave: I know I'm me, but do I have a superpower?

Harold Crick: No, why would you have a superpower?

Dave: I don't know, you said it was hypothetical.

Harold Crick: Fine, yes, you're really good at math.

Dave: That's not a power, that's a skill.

Harold Crick: Okay, you're good at math and you're invisible. And you know you're gonna die.

Dave: Okay, okay. That's easy, I'd go to space camp.

Harold Crick: Space camp?

Dave: Yeah, it's in Alabama. It's where kids go to learn how to become astronauts. I've always wanted to go since I was nine.

Harold Crick: You're invisible and you'd go to space camp?

Dave: I didn't pick invisible, you picked invisible.

Harold Crick: Aren't you too old to go to space camp?

Dave: You're *never* too old to go to space camp, dude.

Harold Crick: Harold frantically grabs his lamp! He shook the hell out of it for no apparent reason!

Kay Eiffel: [narrating] Little did he know that this simple seemingly innocuous act would result in his imminent death.

Harold Crick: What? What? Hey! HELLOOO! What? Why? Why MY death? HELLO? Excuse me? WHEN?

Penny Escher: I will gladly and quietly help you kill Harold Crick.

Kay Eiffel: And this coming from someone who's never thought about leaping off a building.

Ana Pascal: It was a really awful day. I know, I made sure of it. So pick up the cookie, dip it in the milk, and eat it.

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Little did he know. That means there's something he doesn't know, which means there's something you don't know, did you know that?

Ana Pascal: Did you like the cookies?

Harold Crick: Yes. Thank you for forcing me to eat them.

Penny Escher: And I suppose you smoked all these cigarettes?

Kay Eiffel: No, they came pre-smoked.

Kay Eiffel: [narrating] Why was Harold talking to this man? This man... was an idiot; this man used words like "wibbly-wobbly" and "convo," and explained that trees were trees. Of course trees were trees; Harold knew that trees were trees.

Kay Eiffel: I went out... to buy cigarettes and I figured out how to kill Harold Crick.

Penny Escher: Buying cigarettes?

Kay Eiffel: As I was... when I came out of the store I... it came to me.

Penny Escher: How?

Kay Eiffel: Well, Penny, like anything worth writing, it came inexplicably and without method.

Doctor Mercator: You'll be all right. You'll just have a shard of wristwatch embedded in your arm for the rest of your life.

Dr. Jules Hilbert: What is your favorite word?

Harold Crick: Integer.

Kay Eiffel: How many people do you think I've killed?

Penny Escher: Kay...

Kay Eiffel: How many?

Penny Escher: I don't know.

Kay Eiffel: Eight.

Penny Escher: Kay, you need to...

Kay Eiffel: I killed eight people. I counted.

Penny Escher: They were fictional characters, now get up.

Kay Eiffel: Harold Crick isn't fictional. He isn't fictional, Penny. Every book I've ever written ends with someone dying; every one. Really nice people too. I wrote a book about the school teacher. I killed her the day before summer vacation. How cruel is that? And a civil engineer, Edward, the one I trapped with a heart attack in rush hour. I killed him. I killed! Penny, I killed them all.

[as Harold and Ana lay in bed]

[softly]

Harold Crick: I have to tell you something.

Ana Pascal: Is it a secret?

Harold Crick: Sort of.

[they kiss]

Harold Crick: I adore you.

Ana Pascal: I adore you. Was that it?

Harold Crick: No. I have to tell you this... and I want you to listen very carefully.

[he sits up]

Harold Crick: You can deduct the value of all the food you give away as a charitable contribution. It amounts to more than what you're currently withholding and doesn't break any tax laws.

Ana Pascal: Harold, Harold. The point is to break the tax laws.

Harold Crick: I want to make the world a better place too, Ana. I think that means keeping you out of jail.

Ana Pascal: Okay.

Harold Crick: Okay.

Kay Eiffel: I'm not in the business of saving lives, in fact just the opposite.

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Meeting an insurance agent the day your policy runs out is coincidence. Getting a letter from the Emperor saying he's visiting is plot. A wrecking ball... is something else entirely.

Ana Pascal: ...I figured if I was gonna make the world a better place... I would do it with cookies...

Kay Eiffel: [V.O] At precisely 11:13 every night Harold would go to bed alone, placing his wristwatch to rest on the nightstand beside him.

Kay Eiffel: [pause] That was, of course, before Wednesday. On Wednesday, Harold's wristwatch changed everything.

Kay Eiffel: As much as I'd like to, I can't just through Harold Crick off a building.

Harold Crick: Dave, I'm being followed.

Dave: How are you being followed? You're not moving.

Professor Jules Hilbert: It's her masterpiece. It's possibly the most important novel in her already stunning career. It's absolutely no good unless you die at the end.