If, for some reason your life functions ceased, my most precious one, I would collapse, I would draw the shades and I would live in the dark. I would never get out of my slar pad or clean myself. My fluids would coagulate, my cone would shrivel, and I would die, miserable and lonely. The stench would be great. — Coneheads

 

I cannot imagine how I would manage without Irish Woman.  She is my anchor in life, and without her I would drift.  Not only is she the most tender being I have ever met, she is also the toughest taskmaster.  She seems to believe that I am a good person, and will accept nothing less from me.  I am afraid that without her, I would sink to my own expectations.  Hopefully, I will never have to figure out how to live without her.

Doc Holliday: What did you ever want?
Wyatt Earp: Just to live a normal life.
Doc Holliday: There’s no normal life, Wyatt, it’s just life. Get on with it.

— Tombstone

You have your dreams. You have your plans. You have your life. No-one guarantees that those three things will ever intersect. The mark of a true adult is how you deal with what happens when life diverges sharply from what you want. A very wise old man told me a long time ago that you can either live through what life throws at you, or you can die. Just about everything in life boils down to that.

 Have you ever considered any real freedoms? Freedoms from the opinion of others… even the opinions of yourself?  — Apocalypse Now

There are a few people whose opinion matters to me.  I try to never do anything that would make them ashamed of me.  Most of all, I have to find a way through life that keeps me from being ashamed of myself.  Freedom does not come from not caring about the opinions of others, or even about your own.  Freedom comes from recognizing which opinions matter, and disregarding those that don’t.  And with that freedom comes the responsibility to act in a way that earns their respect.

Let us pretend that you are a loving daughter, and I am a good father. — Gladiator

Being a father has been the scariest thing I’ve ever done. I’ve been doing it for over two decades, and for a big chunk of that time, I sucked at it. It took living without my kids for several months for me to figure out that I was a selfish twit, and that I needed to figure out what was really important. Luckily for me, I was able to get a job within a few hours of Little Bear and Girlie Bear, which allowed me to reconnect and relearn how to be a parent. It’s a chance I didn’t really deserve, but it’s one for which I am eternally grateful.