MARSHA: Can I have more steak?
EMILY: Yes, I saved you a certain centipede centerpiece. Pass. I must say, in his light linen suit, Philippe was very elegant. He was raised by a fantastically elegant mother. I mean that woman’s got elegance in her fucking toes. Philippe, when I watched him eat an artichoke or cut his meat or read a book, he did have a kind of elegance. You know what elegance is?
VINCENT: What?
EMILY: It’s a certain great sensual respect for the essence of things. That’s really in a way how I could define it.
VINCENT: That’s very good.
MARSHA: I never get involved with elegant men.
EMILY: No, you don’t. You know who the most elegant was?
MARSHA: Zeke?
EMILY: Zeke.
MARSHA: Yeah, I think of Zeke as elegant. He’s got that sensual thing — whatever you said.
EMILY: Deep sensual respect for the essence of things. He also needs a particular kind of steak, a particular kind of brandy, a particular tobacco.
MARSHA: Everything has to be perfect.
VINCENT: You know who’s very elegant up to a point? Clem Nye. Let me put it this way — he’s aristocratic, he’s got aristocratic strains in him.
EMILY: You can tell a great deal by the way the hands handle things. Did you find Philippe elegant in any way? I found that no matter what low-grade thing he did, there was a certain kind of class.
MARSHA: Not that last time we saw him at Leo Castelli.
EMILY: Yeah, he showed up in a coat down to the floor and five days’ growth.
VINCENT: Are you serious?
EMILY: He came with a barefoot Indian beatnik and they were all junked up.
MARSHA: I hadn’t seen him in three years. Want to hear the greeting I got? Ciao, so you could hardly make it out, then he walked right by.
EMILY: She was ready to kill him.
MARSHA: I wanted to scream.
EMILY: You were ready to kill him.
MARSHA: Hey, don’t eat those cookies up, you fat pig, I need them for my stews.
VINCENT: Look, Em, I’m eating a lot — she can’t stop me.
EMILY: Nathan Fass thought I was very elegant when he first met me.
VINCENT: You are.
MARSHA: I think you’re split.
EMILY: I think I’m definitely split.
MARSHA: You’re also split, Vince. I have no elegance, do I?
VINCENT: Oh, listen to her.
MARSHA: I don’t.
EMILY: No, I don’t think Marsha’s elegant. By the way, you know, I don’t think elegance is the great quality. Joan is also very split.
MARSHA: Everyone’s split but me.
EMILY: In terms of my definition, Joan certainly has a sensual respect for the essence of things.
VINCENT: Let me put it this way, darling, your definition may or may not be correct. You know who was elegant? Lawrence of Arabia.
EMILY: I think Marlon Brando’s fantastically elegant.
VINCENT: Jackie Kennedy is not elegant. She’s got good taste and good intentions, but she’s not elegant. Neither was Jack, none of those kids are.
EMILY: Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elegant.
VINCENT: Menotti is fantastically elegant, he’s the meaning of the word. Tim Cullen is not elegant, the way he picks his nose. I don’t know what Julie Harris is like, but she gives me the feeling that she would be elegant.
EMILY: By the way, Elizabeth Taylor has absolutely zero in elegance.
VINCENT: I ate many cookies and they were mighty good.
EMILY: How come you had those cookies in the house, Marsha? They’re not your style.
MARSHA: For cooking, gingersnap gravy. Can’t we talk about something a little more universal than these personalities?
VINCENT: We’re talking about elegance, what do you want? It’s unbelievably universal.
EMILY: You know, if we had more of an escort, we could go to that party.
VINCENT: I’m Marshie’s escort all the time.
EMILY: Where have you been going?
MARSHA: Oh, we go to the supermarket and back, and we do laundry almost every day. You know some people only go to the laundromat once or twice a summer?
VINCENT: That’s not very elegant.
MARSHA: Haven’t we exhausted the subject?
EMILY: We could also find out what it is by the people who pretend toward it. Is Andy Warhol elegant?
VINCENT: No, but he’s got style. He’s so fake that it becomes real. I would say that in nature the sky is elegant, but the ocean isn’t. However the ocean is much more exciting than the sky.
MARSHA: Don’t knock the sky.
EMILY: Don’t knock the sky that feeds you rain.
VINCENT: You know if that diet pill made you high, I’d hate to see you when you’re low.
EMILY: You think I’m low? I’m just serious.
VINCENT: No you’re not — you’re sad and depressed and somewhat cut-off. You know what she is, Marsh? She’s on the brink of knowing that she’s got to make her move in life, and she’s getting up the energy.
EMILY: I just made a face that a friend of mine makes, Mike Christy.
VINCENT: That’s what got her all depressed, you know, just the mention of his name before. I was trying to be objective, I thought she could take it. The terrible thing about Mike Christy is that he’s probably full of all the right things, he comes very close to her and then he goes psssssssst.
EMILY: I’m not too fond of him on that level either. You know most people in the art world are totally inelegant.
VINCENT: Thank God you realize that.
MARSHA: Who has sex appeal?
EMILY: I think Emil does, wow.
VINCENT: No, as a matter of fact he’s the only person who I ever heard had a big penis and still didn’t find attractive.
EMILY: I can’t understand why you’re so negative about him.
VINCENT: I don’t know, but I am.
MARSHA: You’ll work it out, darling. He probably looks like somebody you once hated.
VINCENT: Oh no, it’s too embarrassing to put everything on that level.
EMILY: Who is sexual? I think Marsha’s sexy, I think you’re sexy. I don’t find Nico sexy, exuding sex — I’m just telling you, Vinnie.
VINCENT: I want you to be honest.
EMILY: I think Emil’s sexy.
VINCENT: You know he’s sexy because you know he’s good in bed.
EMILY: I don’t call a person sexy just because he has a big prick.
VINCENT: It helps.
EMILY: If someone is small, I can still find him very attractive. Listen, Michael Christy’s much sexier than a lot of these people, and his penis isn’t that special.
VINCENT: I bet Norman Mailer’s very good.
MARSHA: I’ve always thought that. What is sexual? Let’s talk about what sexual is.
EMILY: I think sexual is the least distance between yourself and the object of gratification.
MARSHA: She’s got these ready-made fires.
EMILY: My mind is a steel trap. The first time I slept with Nathan Fass, which lasted seven hours, it was the most incredible thing in my life. That man is so tight and so crazy, he went out of his mind wild, like some kind of soldier goes beserk one day?
VINCENT: You know that’s the second time you said soldier tonight.
EMILY: No, Joan said it the first time.
VINCENT: And she isn’t even here.
EMILY: Marshie’s falling asleep.
VINCENT: I am too. It’s got nothing to do with you; I’ve been up since six o’clock.
EMILY: What about the party?
VINCENT: We could pass by it. I’m going to read my Willa Cather, but the two of you go.
EMILY: We can’t go without an escort.