Michael Douglas: Grady Tripp

Wonder Boys

Grady Tripp

James Leer: Now, that is a big trunk. It holds a tuba, a suitcase, a dead dog, and a garment bag almost perfectly.
Grady Tripp: That's just what they used to say in the ads.

Terry Crabtree: Let me get this straight. Jerry Nathan owes you money, so as collateral he gives you his car.
Grady Tripp: Only I'm beginning to think that the car wasn't exactly Jerry's to give.
Terry Crabtree: Ah, so whose car was it?
Grady Tripp: My guess? Vernon Hardapple.
Terry Crabtree: The hood jumper?
Grady Tripp: He said a few things that lead me to believe that the car was his.
Terry Crabtree: Such as?
Grady Tripp: "That's my car, motherfucker."

Vernon Hardapple: Why did you keep writing this book if you didn't even know what it was about?
Grady Tripp: I couldn't stop.

Grady Tripp: I had no business trudging up to James Leer's parents' house in the middle of the night. Not when all that really mattered was trying to make things right with Sarah. But we had decided to rescue James Leer. I wasn't quite sure from what because I was pretty much convinced that everything that came out of James' mouth was basically horseshit. But maybe that really didn't matter. Sometimes people just need to be rescued.

Grady Tripp: Okay, James, I wish you hadn't shot my girlfriend's dog. Even though Poe and I weren't exactly what you'd call simpatico, that's no reason he should've taken two in the chest.

Hannah Green: Grady, you know how in class you're always telling us that writers make choices?
Grady Tripp: Yeah.
Hannah Green: And even though your book is really beautiful, I mean, amazingly beautiful, it's... it's at times... it's... very detailed. You know, with the genealogies of everyone's horses, and the dental records, and so on. And... I could be wrong, but it sort of reads in places like you didn't make any choices. At all. And I was just wondering if it might not be different if... if when you wrote you weren't always... under the influence.
Grady Tripp: Well... thank you for the thought, but shocking as it may sound, I am not the first writer to sip a little weed. Furthermore, it might surprise you to know that one book I wrote, as you say, "under the influence," just happened to win a little something called the Pen Award. Which, by the way, I accepted under the influence.

James Leer: What are we doing?
Grady Tripp: I'm gonna get you a nice meal, a couple cups of coffee, then I'm taking you home.
James Leer: Take me now.
Grady Tripp: What?
James Leer: I'm not hungry.
Grady Tripp: James, you gotta eat.
James Leer: I'll get something out of the vending machine.
Grady Tripp: Vending machine? What are you talking about?
James Leer: At the bus station, they have these cheese sandwiches. They're pretty good. It's better if you take me now. That way, Carl won't get my spot.
Grady Tripp: Carl?
James Leer: Never mind.
Grady Tripp: James, go get us a table, will ya? I'm not letting the most talented writer in my class eat some week-old cheese sandwich, okay?

Grady Tripp: It's been a long time since someone wrote a really good book in jail.

[Grady offers James some codiene pills]
James Leer: No thanks. I'm fine without them.
Grady Tripp: Right. That's why you were standing in the Chancellor's back yard twirling that little cap gun of yours tonight. You're fine, all right, you're fit as a fucking fiddle.

James Leer: You're mad at me, aren't you? You're mad because I shot your girlfriend's dog.
Grady Tripp: It wasn't her dog, it was her husband's...
[looking at James]
Grady Tripp: Who said anything about a girlfriend?
James Leer: [smiling back]
Grady Tripp: Okay, James, I wish you hadn't shot my girlfriends dog. Even though Poe and I were not exactly what you'd call simpatico that's no reason he should've taken two in the chest

[eating a box of white-powder donuts]
James Leer: These are incredible. Incredible!
Grady Tripp: Finish the rest of that joint, James, you can start chewing on the box.

Grady Tripp: [Narrating] So there it was. Somewhere in the night, a Manhattan book editor was prowling the streets of Pittsburgh; best-selling author at his side, dead dog in his trunk.

Terry Crabtree: [Looking at James Leer's book] The Love Parade... I've got a feeling about this, Tripp. I feel this kid in my bones.
Grady Tripp: ONLY in your bones?

Traxler: Say, Professor Tripp, is all that stuff true about Errol Flynn? How he used to put paprika... on his dick... to make it, you know, like... more stimulating... for the chick?
Grady Tripp: Christ, Traxler, how the hell should *I* know?
Traxler: [gesturing to James Leer's rucksack that Tripp is holding] You're reading his biography, aren't you?
Grady Tripp: Oh. No, it's true. He used to rub all sorts of things on it. Salad dressing... ground lamb...
Traxler: Sick!