Off the Map (2003)

Jim True-Frost: William Gibbs

Quotes 

• Charley : Excuse the cryin'. I am a damn cryin' machine. That's why I drink so much water, won't have any fluids left in me. Have you ever been depressed?

  William Gibbs : I've never not been depressed.

• William Gibbs : The moment I saw you, Mrs. Grodin, the very first instant, I knew my life as I had understood it was... I'd been up since sunrise. My second night in the car, I was completely lost. I must have walked ten miles to a clearing, to your garden. To you, standing there in all those vines, those vegetables. I saw you and pignon trees behind, and the hill, and everything completely still. So beautiful. It was almost unbearable, it still is. Then later, holding your hand, I remembered being at a birthday party, this children's birthday party, and my older brother was acting out. Me, discovering my mother dead. My mother committed suicide. But maybe she didn't. He was telling this story, how I'd come home from school carrying a pyramid I'd made out of foam core, and opened the front door, and walked in backwards and bumped into her, in the hall. She hung herself. Now I don't think it's true! I don't think it's a real memory, my memory. I think it's just the description that I heard from my brother. I don't even think foam core EXISTED back then, Mrs. Grodin. I always felt partly responsible, involved, being the one to find her, but now I don't think I did. I don't think I did! It was like the cornerstone of my childhood, the event upon which I built everything else, and now it's pulled out and everything is toppled. The only thing I can hold on to right now, Mrs. Grodin, the only thing I know to be true, is my love for you.

• Arlene : You're up. You look much better. You got some color.

  William Gibbs : Mrs. Grodin...

  Arlene : Would you like to wash yourself? Would you? There's a pool in the stream above the goat pen.

  William Gibbs : Mrs. Grodin, I...

  Arlene : There's a junked Mercury out at the dump, same model as yours. I'm sure we can get a lot of parts.

  William Gibbs : I love you.

  Arlene : Oh. Well, that's nice.

• Charley : Nice shirt.

  William Gibbs : Thanks, it's yours.

• William Gibbs : I don't know who I am.

  Charley : I don't either.

  William Gibbs : Know who I am?

  Charley : You?

  William Gibbs : You don't know who I am, or who you are?

  Charley : No.

• William Gibbs : You know, I really admire you, Mr. Grodin. More than any man I've ever met. You don't have a penny in the bank, no life insurance, no credit. But your house is all paid for, you got four years worth of food stored away, three years worth of firewood, stockpiles of clothes, beautiful wife, great kid. Your life is yours. I think you're a genius.