advertisementHarold: What were you fighting for?
Maude: Oh, big issues. Liberty. Rights. Justice. Kings died, kingdoms fell. I don’t regret the kingdoms – what sense in borders and nations and patriotism? But I miss the kings.
Maude: I should like to change into a sunflower most of all. They’re so tall and simple. What flower would you like to be?
Harold: I don’t know. One of these, maybe.
Maude: Why do you say that?
Harold: Because they’re all alike.
Maude: Oooh, but they’re
not. Look. See, some are smaller, some are fatter, some grow to the left, some to the right, some even have lost some petals. All
kinds of observable differences. You see, Harold, I feel that much of the world’s sorrow comes from people who are
this,
[she points to a daisy]
Maude: yet allow themselves be treated as
that.
[she gestures to a field of daisies]
Maude: [cut to a shot of a field of gravestones in a military cemetery]
Harold: I like you, Maude.
Maude: I like you, Harold.
Maude: A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they are not dead, really. They’re just backing away from life.
Reach out. Take a
chance. Get
hurt even. But play as well as you can. Go team, go! Give me an L. Give me an I. Give me a V. Give me an E. L-I-V-E.
LIVE! Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room.
Psychiatrist: Tell me, Harold, how many of these, eh,
suicides have you performed?
Harold: An accurate number would be difficult to gauge.
Psychiatrist: Well, just give me a rough estimate.
Harold: A rough estimate? I’d say fifteen.
Psychiatrist: Fifteen?
Harold: That’s a rough estimate.
Psychiatrist: Were they all done for your mother’s benefit?
Harold: No. No, I would not say “benefit.”
[seagulls fly across the sky]
Maude: Dreyfus once wrote from Devil’s Island that he would see the most glorious birds. Many years later in Brittany he realized they had only been seagulls… For me they will always be –
glorious birds.
Harold: You sure have a way with people.
Maude: Well, they’re my species!
Harold: Do you… enjoy… knives?
Harold: Maude.
Maude: Hmm?
Harold: Do you pray?
Maude: Pray? No. I communicate.
Harold: With God?
Maude: With
life.
Maude: Vice, Virtue. It’s best not to be too moral. You cheat yourself out of too much
life. Aim above morality. If you apply that to life, then you’re bound to live life fully.
Maude: Harold,
everyone has the right to make an ass out of themselves. You just can’t let the world judge you too much.
Maude: You know, at one time, I used to break into pet shops to liberate the canaries. But I decided that was an idea way before its time. Zoos are full, prisons are overflowing… oh my, how the world still dearly loves a cage.
Maude: Tell me, do you dance?
Harold: Pardon me?
Maude: Do you sing and dance?
Harold: Uh, no.
Maude: Uh, no. I thought not.
[laughs]
Harold: You hop in any car you want and just drive off?
Maude: Well, not any car – I like to keep a variety. I’m always looking for the new experience.
Harold: [smiling] Maybe.
Harold: [more seriously] Nevertheless, I think you’re upsetting people. I don’t know if that’s right.
Maude: Well, if some people get upset because they feel they have a hold on some things, I’m merely acting as a gentle reminder: here today, gone tomorrow, so don’t get attached to things.
Maude: [gesturing to a sick tree growing through a sidewalk] Harold, we have
got to do something about this life.
Harold: What?
Maude: We’ll transplant it. To the forest.
Harold: You can’t do that.
Maude: Why not?
Harold: This is public property.
Maude: Well,
exactly.
Maude: [to a motorcycle officer]
Don’t get officious. You’re not yourself when you’re officious – That is the curse of a government job.
Maude: Grab the shovel, Harold.
[last lines]
Maude: Oh, Harold… That’s
wonderful. Go and love some more.
Psychiatrist: That’s very interesting, Harold, and I think, very illuminating. There seems to be a definite pattern emerging. And, of course, this pattern, once isolated, can be coped with. Recognize the problem, and you are halfway on the road to its, uh, its solution. Uh, tell me, Harold, what do you do for fun? What activity gives you a different sense of enjoyment from the others? Uh, what do you find fulfilling? What gives you that… special satisfaction?
Harold: ...I go to funerals.
Maude: The earth is my body; my head is in the stars.
[pauses]
Maude: Who said that, Harold?
Harold: I don’t know.
Maude: Well, I suppose I did, then.
Mrs. Chasen: I have here, Harold, the forms sent out by the National Computer Dating Service. It seems to me that as you do not get along with the daughters of my friends, this is the best way for you to find a prospective wife.
[Harold starts to interrupt]
Mrs. Chasen: Please, Harold, we have a lot to do and I have to be at the hairdresser’s at three.
[she looks over the papers]
Mrs. Chasen: The Computer Dating Service offers you at least three dates on the initial investment. They screen out the fat and ugly, so it is obviously a firm of high standards.
Priest: I would be remiss in my duty if I did not tell you that the idea of intercourse – the act of your firm, young body… comingling with… withered flesh… sagging breasts… and flabby b-b-buttocks… makes me want… to vomit.
Harold: Maude?
Maude: Yeah?
Harold: [pulls the stamped coin from the arcade out of his pocket] Here.
Maude: A gift!
[reads the engraving]
Maude: “Harold loves Maude.”... and Maude loves Harold. This is the nicest gift I’ve received in years.
[she throws the stamped coin into the water]
Harold: [gasps, bemused]
Maude: So I’ll always know where it is.
Maude: [at her 80th birthday party] I couldn’t imagine a lovelier farewell!
Harold: Farewell?
Maude: Oh, yes, dear… My 80th birthday.
Harold: But you’re not going anywhere… are you?
Maude: [long pause] I took the tablets an hour ago. I’ll be gone by midnight.
Harold: [after a long pause]
WHAT?
[immediately cut to an ambulance]
[first lines]
Mrs. Chasen: [after spotting Harold hanging from a noose in the living room] I suppose you think that’s very funny, Harold… Oh, dinner at eight, Harold. And do try and be a little more vivacious.
Harold: [referring to police officer] He’s following us.
Maude: Is he? Police always want to play games!
Harold: I haven’t lived. I’ve died a few times.
[Harold and Sunshine are laying on the floor covered in fake blood from Harold’s knife]
Mrs. Chasen: [shocked] Harold!... That was your last date!
Maude: [Maude is driving Harold’s hearse through a cemetery] Hey, this old thing handles well! Ever drive a hearse Harold?
Harold: Yeah.
Maude: Well! It’s a new experience for me!
[the hearse is seen squealing through a curve]
Maude: Good on curves! Shall I take you home Harold?
Harold: Uh, this is my car.
Maude: [looks at Harold]
YOUR hearse?
Harold: Y’hearse!
Maude: Ohhhhhhhhhhhh!
[the hearse is seen screeching to a stop]
Maude: Then
YOU shall take ME home!
