- Sharon Shaw: It's all regrets. You run as fast as you can from the last regret and of course you are just running straight into the next one. That's life. It's all regrets. That's what they should say. No other way to be alive. It's all regrets. Make 'em count.
- Quentin Sellers: I'd probably say that nobody writes anything. All we do is translate. So if you ever get stuck and you don't know what to say... just listen. Even to the silences. Listen as hard as you can to the world around you and... repeat back what you hear. That translation, that's your voice.
- Ty Shaw: This is the most, uh, wretched, godforsaken stretch of land on the face of the earth. And I'd never leave.
- Ben Manalowitz: Yeah. That's how I feel about Twitter.
- Quentin Sellers: You're a playlist guy.
- Ben Manalowitz: What does that mean?
- Quentin Sellers: When some computer recommends you a bunch of songs based on your favorites and a bunch more--based on your favorites of those. Right. So you're listening to a bunch of music that, I mean, you genuinely like...
- Ben Manalowitz: Yeah.
- Quentin Sellers: ...but you have no idea who sings it. Now, these playlists? It's like the dating app for music. You're not hearing other people's voices. You're just hearing your voice get played back to you. How are you supposed to fall in love? Art used to be in charge of us. You used to buy a whole album not even knowing what songs would be on it. Now we have everything on demand. At your fingertips. In pieces. You think half the people that are posting quotes from Oscar Wilde have ever actually read one of his plays?
- Ben Manalowitz: No.
- Quentin Sellers: Or posting photos of Audrey Hepburn have actually seen the film it's from?
- Ben Manalowitz: No.
- Quentin Sellers: Not a chance, right?
- Ben Manalowitz: What is that about, huh?
- Quentin Sellers: It's the same in culture as it is in archaeology. When a civilization collapses, only the tiniest fragments remain. But we can built it up again.
- Ben Manalowitz: How?
- Quentin Sellers: Make recordings. Real people. Not what people think they already know and want to hear. Real people. Not some generic stereotype or generic song. Real people.
- Quentin Sellers: Your story proves the defining truth of our time.
- Ben Manalowitz: Which is what?
- Quentin Sellers: Everything means everything, so nothing means anything.
- Ben Manalowitz: Some things mean something.
- Ben Manalowitz: Would you like coffee?
- Jasmine: Yes.
- Ben Manalowitz: How do you take it?
- Jasmine: In the mouth.
- Ben Manalowitz: You know, um... There's some things I'm good at. I'm good at asking the right questions. I'm good at getting people to talk. And I'm especially good at drawing thematic connections between seemingly disparate elements and using that to illustrate a larger point or theory. So, whoever or whatever is responsible for what happened to Abilene, I will find this person or this generalized societal force, and I will define it. I'll define it.
- Quentin Sellers: What we're recording here isn't your record. It's your sound... on the record that started with the very first moment in time. So when you sing this song, I want you think about what you're making is the record of your time here on this Earth. It's the sound that you scratch with your life... on the record of the universe. Okay?
- Teenage Singer: Okay.
- Ben Manalowitz: Do you ever find wonder, if you did find something deeper with somebody, if that would somehow be more meaningful?
- John: I do, sometimes. Like right now, I'm casually dating, like, six or seven different women. But I do wonder, deep down, what it would be like to seriously date two or three.
- Ben Manalowitz: You were right, Eloise. I was the story. A self-absorbed know-it-all thinks he's gonna figure out the meaning of America, and all he learns is how empty he is. I was the one living a myth. They say you regret the things you don't do. I didn't love.
- Sharon Shaw: Bless your heart.
- Ben Manalowitz: OK, you know what? I know what that means. So, bless your heart, and bless your heart, and bless your heart, you can all go bless yourselves!
- Abilene Shaw: When I told my mom I was going to New York, she said, bless your heart. Which is Texas for go fuck yourself.
- Ben Manalowitz: I don't understand you people.
- Paris Shaw: 'You people' is a micro-agression.
- Ben Manalowitz: My apologies. Y'all.
- Paris Shaw: 'Y'all' is a cultural appropriation.
- Ben Manalowitz: Paris, you accusing someone of cultural appropriation is cultural appropriation.
- El Stupido Shaw: I'm scared.
- Ben Manalowitz: What are you scared of?
- El Stupido Shaw: Ghosts.
- Ben Manalowitz: Ghosts aren't real.
- El Stupido Shaw: If they're not real, how come everyone knows what they are?
- Ben Manalowitz: They're real as an idea, but they're not real, real. That's what's scary about ghosts, that they aren't real. If ghosts were real they wouldn't be scary at all, right? We would just smile and say, "Hi, ghosts!"
- El Stupido Shaw: Hi ghosts!
- Ben Manalowitz: Hi ghost! Wouldn't that be cool? If when someone wasn't there anymore there was still a little piece of them that could surprise you sometimes?
- El Stupido Shaw: Yeah.
- Ben Manalowitz: But there's not, there's nothing. And that's what's scary about ghosts. That the little piece of someone that feels like it might still be there isn't there at all. Do you feel better?
- El Stupido Shaw: No.
- Ben Manalowitz: Me neither.
- Quentin Sellers: The problem is you got all these bright, creative lights and nowhere to plug in their energy so it gets channelled into conspiracy theories.
- Ty Shaw: You gotta keep living life. Like Catherine the Great said, "You gotta get right back under the horse."
- Ty Shaw: Asking why you love Whataburger is like asking why you like Christmas, or summer night, or why you love your dog. I mean, you could point to the reasons but the reasons aren't really the point. You just love it, and that's how love works.
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