The previous headline may not ring a bell for some. It’s taken from a scene in Ken Russell‘s Altered States. Brainy psychotherapist Blair Brown says to brainy but eccentric psychotherapist Bill Hurt that their careers are in alignment, they’re both moving to Boston, love is obviously there, sex is great or at least impassioned, and all the pieces are in place so “I think we should get married.”

A mildly surprised, faintly amused Hurt says, “You know of course that I’m supposed to be at least a little bit nuts?”

Blair’s reply: “A little bit? You’re an unmitigated madman. You don’t have to tell me how weird you are. I know how weird you are. I’ve been in your bed for the last two months, and even sex is a mystical experience to you. You carry on like a flagellant which would be very nice, but I sometimes wonder if it’s me who’s being made love to. Sometimes I feel like I’m being harpooned by some raging monk in the act of receiving God.”

Ever since seeing this 1980 film I’ve wanted a girlfriend to tell me that I “carry on like a flagellant.” Thirty years later and it’s never happened.

Two others dialogue snips, courtesy of the IMDB:

Bob Balaban: “The way I feel, I don’t expect to go to sleep for a year. I’m on fucking fire!”

Bill Hurt: “Memory is energy! It doesn’t disappear. It’s still in there. There’s a physiological pathway to our earlier consciousnesses. There has to be; and I’m telling you it’s in the goddamned limbic system.” A colleague tells him he’s “wacko,” and Hurt replies: “What’s whacko about it? I’m a man in search of his true self. How archetypically American can you get? We’re all trying to fulfill ourselves, understand ourselves, get in touch with ourselves, face the reality of ourselves, explore ourselves, expand ourselves. Ever since we dispensed with God we’ve got nothing but ourselves to explain this meaningless horror of life.”