Memorable quotes for
Stranger Than Fiction (2006) More at IMDbPro »

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Have you met anyone recently who might loathe the very core of you?
Harold Crick: I just started auditing a woman who told me to get bent.
Dr. Jules Hilbert: Well, that sounds like a comedy. Try to develop that.

---

Kay Eiffel: As Harold took a bite of Bavarian sugar cookie, he finally felt as if everything was going to be ok. Sometimes, when we lose ourselves in fear and despair, in routine and constancy, in hopelessness and tragedy, we can thank God for Bavarian sugar cookies. And, fortunately, when there aren't any cookies, we can still find reassurance in a familiar hand on our skin, or a kind and loving gesture, or subtle encouragement, or a loving embrace, or an offer of comfort, not to mention hospital gurneys and nose plugs, an uneaten Danish, soft-spoken secrets, and Fender Stratocasters, and maybe the occasional piece of fiction. And we must remember that all these things, the nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties, which we assume only accessorize our days, are effective for a much larger and nobler cause. They are here to save our lives. I know the idea seems strange, but I also know that it just so happens to be true. And, so it was, a wristwatch saved Harold Crick.

---

Dr. Jules Hilbert: I've devised a test. How exciting is that? Composed of 23 questions which I think might help uncover more truths about this narrator. Now Howard... Harold, these may seem silly but your candor is paramount.
Harold Crick: Harold. Ok.
Dr. Jules Hilbert: So. We know it's a woman's voice. The story involves your death. It's modern. It's in English and I'm assuming the author has a cursory knowledge of the city.
Harold Crick: Sure.
Dr. Jules Hilbert: O.k. good. Question one. Has anyone recently left any gifts outside your home? Anything. Gum, money, a large wooden horse.
Harold Crick: I'm sorry?
Dr. Jules Hilbert: Just answer the question.
Harold Crick: No.
Dr. Jules Hilbert: Do you find yourself inclined to solve murder mysteries in large luxurious homes to which you, let me finish, to which you may or may not have been invited?
Harold Crick: No. No, no, no.
Dr. Jules Hilbert: Alright. On a scale of one to ten, what would you consider the likelihood you might be assassinated?
Harold Crick: Assassinated?
Dr. Jules Hilbert: One being very unlikely ten being expecting it around every corner.
Harold Crick: I have no idea.
Dr. Jules Hilbert: O.k. let me rephrase.
[takes a deep breath]
Dr. Jules Hilbert: Are you the king of anything?
Harold Crick: Like what?
Dr. Jules Hilbert: Anything. King of the lanes at the local bowling alley.
Harold Crick: King of the lanes?
Dr. Jules Hilbert: King of the lanes, king of the trolls,
Harold Crick: King of the Trolls?
Dr. Jules Hilbert: Yes, uh uh uh a clandestine land found underneath your floor boards.
Harold Crick: No.
Dr. Jules Hilbert: Huh?
Harold Crick: No. That's ridiculous.
Dr. Jules Hilbert: Agreed. Let's start with ridiculous and move backwards. Now, was any part of you at one time part of something else?
Harold Crick: Like do I have someone else's arms?
Dr. Jules Hilbert: Well is it possible at one time that you were made of stone, wood, lye, varied corpse parts? Or, earth made holy by rabbinical elders?
Harold Crick: No. Look, look. I'm sorry, but what do these questions have to do with anything?
Dr. Jules Hilbert: Nothing. The only way to find out what story you're in is to determine what stories you're not in. Odd as it may seem, I've just ruled out half of Greek literature, seven fairy tales, ten Chinese fables, and determined conclusively that you are not King Hamlet, Scout Finch, Miss Marple, Frankenstein's Monster, or a golem. Hmm? Aren't you relieved to know you're not a golem?
Harold Crick: Yes. I am relieved to know that I am not a golem.
Dr. Jules Hilbert: Good. Do you have magical powers?

---

Dr. Mittag-Leffler: I'm afraid what you're describing is schizophrenia.
Harold Crick: No, no. It's not schizophrenia. It's just a voice in my head. I mean, the voice isn't telling me to do anything. It's telling me what I've already done... accurately, and with a better vocabulary.
Dr. Mittag-Leffler: Mr. Crick, you have a voice speaking to you.
Harold Crick: No, not TO me. ABOUT me. I'm somehow involved in some sort of story. Like I'm a character in my own life. But the problem is that the voice comes and goes...
Dr. Mittag-Leffler: Mr. Crick, I hate to sound like a broken record, but that's schizophrenia.

---

Harold Crick: Am I OK?
Doctor Mercator: [with facial indifference] Well, you're not dead. On the other hand, it looks like you cracked your head, you broke three bones in your leg and foot, you suffered four broken ribs, fractured your left arm, and severed an artery in your right arm, which should've killed you in a matter of minutes, but amazingly, a shard of metal from your watch obstructed the artery, keeping the blood loss low enough to keep you alive... which is pretty cool.
Harold Crick: Wow.

---

Harold Crick: [after his wall has just been demolished by construction workers] Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey hey hey hey hey hey! What're you doing?
Construction Worker #1: Holy crap and hell!
Construction Worker #2: What the hell is that?
Construction Worker #1, Construction Worker #2, Construction Worker #3, Construction Worker #4: [repeating after each other] Stop the crane!
Construction Worker #1: Hey!
Harold Crick: Hey, what are you doing?
Construction Worker #1: Us? What are YOU doing?
Harold Crick: I was watching TV!
Construction Worker #1: Well, we're demolishing this place.
Harold Crick: Are you nuts? I live here!
Construction Worker #1: Is that a TV?
Harold Crick: Yes, that's a TV! It's MY TV!
Construction Worker #1: Well, what's your TV doing in there?
Harold Crick: I said I live here, stupid! It's where I keep my stuff! My name's on the goddamn buzzer! Harold Crick, Apartment 2B eighteen ninety-three, McCarthy!
Construction Worker #1: [pause] Did you say eighteen NINETY-three?
Harold Crick: Yes!
Construction Worker #1: [another pause] Oh. Woops.

---

Kay Eiffel: [narrating Harold's thoughts on the guitars in the shop] Unfortunately, THIS guitar said, 'When I get back to Georgia, that woman gonna feel my pain.' THIS one said something along the lines of, 'Why yes, these pants ARE lycra.' THESE said, 'I'm very sensitive, very caring, and I have absolutely no idea how to play the guitar.'

---

Kay Eiffel: [typing] The phone rang.
[the telephone in her room rings. She looks at it curiously]
Kay Eiffel: [typing] The phone rang again.
[the phone rings again. Penny moves to answer it]
Kay Eiffel: Don't touch it!
[typing]
Kay Eiffel: The phone rang a third time.
[the phone rings again. She leaps up and answers it]

---

Harold Crick: [Ana has just brought out a huge box totally stuffed with a mess of papers] What's this?
Ana Pascal: [Very pleased with herself] My tax files and receipts for the last three years.
Harold Crick: [Horrified] You keep your files like this?
Ana Pascal: No. Actually I'm quite fastidious. I put them in this box just to screw with you.

---

Ana Pascal: [Hurt and annoyed that Harold refuses to just take the cookies and has offered to buy them] Go home Harold.
Harold Crick: Okay.
[starts for the door and realizes he's dissappointed her]
Harold Crick: Did- You made those cookies for me, didn't you.
[She looks at him sadly]
Harold Crick: You were just trying to be nice, and I blew it.
[reaches into his briefcase and retrieves the little black book where he's tracking his comedy vs tragedy tallies, and there are a lot of marks under tragedy. Sadly]
Harold Crick: This may sound like gibberish to you, but I think I'm in a tragedy.

---

Penny Escher: [They are in a hospital ward surround by lots of sick and injured people] What are we doing here? I don't even think we're supposed to *be* in here.
Kay Eiffel: You told me I needed visual stimulation.
Penny Escher: Yeah, I meant a museum or something.
Kay Eiffel: I don't *need* a museum. I need the infirm.
Penny Escher: [slightly under her breath] You *are* the infirm.

---

Harold Crick: [runs to Ana the baker with a box of 10 paper bags in it] I'm glad I caught you. I wanted to give you these.
Ana Pascal: Wait, you can give presents, but not receive them? That sounds awfully inconsistent, Mr. Crick.
Harold Crick: Yes, but...
Ana Pascal: Wait, I know, I'll purchase them! Yeah, I'll purchase them.
[reaches into her bag to grab her wallet]
Harold Crick: No, no, no, no.
Ana Pascal: [with wallet in hand, stops to actually look at the box] What are they?
Harold Crick: [quietly] Flours.
Ana Pascal: What?
Harold Crick: I brought you flours.
Ana Pascal: [see the sweetness of the gesture, then realizing he's carried 10 bags of flours] Wait, you carried them all the way here?
Harold Crick: Miss Pascal, I've been odd. I know I've been odd, and I know that there are many forces at work telling me to bring these down here to you, but I brought these for you because... I want you.
Ana Pascal: [a bit taken aback, and ready to be really offended] Excuse me?
Harold Crick: I want you.
Ana Pascal: You want me?
Harold Crick: In no uncertain terms.
Ana Pascal: [realizing that he's really not being a creep and just a guy who's not used to saying what he feels] But isn't there some... I don't rule about fraternization...
Harold Crick: Auditor / Auditee protocols, yes, but I don't care.
Ana Pascal: Why not?
Harold Crick: Because I want you.
Ana Pascal: [contemplates him for a second, and looks back at the box] Can you carry those a little bit further?
Harold Crick: Okay.

---

Ana Pascal: [as their walking with Harold carrying the box of color flagged bags of flour] So did you make a key?
Harold Crick: Uh no I just committed it to memory. The blue, that-that's barley flour.
Ana Pascal: What's that one?
Harold Crick: The orange?
Ana Pascal: Yeah.
Harold Crick: I forget.
[Ana laughs, and they stop in front of a building]
Ana Pascal: Right here.
Harold Crick: [he looks up at the building] Oh.
Ana Pascal: Do you wanna come up?
Harold Crick: To your place?
Ana Pascal: Yeah.
Harold Crick: Uh, I guess. I could.
Ana Pascal: Wasn't that the idea, with the flours and everything?
Harold Crick: Honestly, I had only figured it out up to, 'I want you.'
Ana Pascal: Listen, Mr. Crick, I think I like you. And before I do anything rash, I'd like to make sure. I'd like you to come up.
Harold Crick: I'd be honored.
Ana Pascal: Great.
[they head up the stairs]

---

Ana Pascal: [Ana bursts into the hospital room that is housing Harold who is pretty much in a full body cast] Howard! Oh my god!
Harold Crick: [as she's kissing him] It's okay, I'm fine.
Ana Pascal: Harold you're not fine! You're seriously injured!

---

Ana Pascal: [to cast-covered Harold] So what happened?
Harold Crick: I stepped in front of a bus.
Ana Pascal: What? Why?
Harold Crick: There was a boy I had to pull out of the way?
Ana Pascal: What?
Harold Crick: There was this boy, I had to...
Ana Pascal: You stepped in front of a bus to save a boy?
Harold Crick: I had to. I didn't have a choice.

---

Book Channel Host: So, can you tell us the title of the book you haven't written yet?
Kay Eiffel: [Who has had just about enough of this host] I'm calling it Death and Taxes.
Book Channel Host: Death and Texas? Hey! I'm from Texas!
Kay Eiffel: Wha?
Book Channel Host: Yep! San Antone.
Kay Eiffel: No, no, no, no. Death and Taxes. Taxes. TAXes.
Book Channel Host: Oh! Death and TAXES! Like the Ben Franklin quote.
Kay Eiffel: Yes.
Book Channel Host: Oh now I feel really silly.
Kay Eiffel: [under her breath] You should.

---

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Because he's real?
Kay Eiffel: Because it's a book about a man who doesn't know he's about to die. And then dies. But if a man does know he's about to die and dies anyway. Dies- dies willingly, knowing that he could stop it, then- I mean, isn't that the type of man who you want to keep alive?

---

Harold Crick: [on bus, and sees Ana get on the same bus] Miss Pascal! Miss Pascal!
Ana Pascal: [she sees him and moves away so that she is standing in the aisle]
Harold Crick: It's Harold Crick from the IRS.
Ana Pascal: [embarrassed] Hi.
Harold Crick: Hey, do you want a seat?
Ana Pascal: No.
Harold Crick: Because there are 11 empty ones.
Ana Pascal: No. I'm fine.
Ana Pascal: [Ana tries to fit, hanging onto a pole that is already full of people. The bus jolts, and she is flung into a seat that is next to, Harold. Embarrassed, she stays there and tries to ignore him]
Harold Crick: So, how are you?
Ana Pascal: I'm lousy. I'm getting audited! By a real *creep*, too.
Harold Crick: Miss Pascal, I think I owe you an apology. IRS agents... we're given rigorous aptitude tests before we can work. Unfortunately for you, we aren't tested on tact or good manners. So... I-I... I apologize. I o-ogled you. Sorry.
Ana Pascal: Apology accepted. But only because you stammered.
Harold Crick: So, are you a frequenter of the Metropolitan Transit Authority too?
Ana Pascal: No. I'm just late.
Harold Crick: Big flag burning to get to?
Ana Pascal: Actually, it's my weekly evil-conspiracy and needlepoint group. You wanna come?
Harold Crick: I left my thimbles and socialist reading material at home.
Kay Eiffel: [narrating] So Harold began to engage in small talk.
Harold Crick: [to Ana] You have very straight teeth.
Ana Pascal: Thanks.
Kay Eiffel: [narrating] *Very* small talk.

---

Kay Eiffel: [narrating] This is a story about a man named Harold Crick and his wristwatch. Harold Crick was a man of infinite numbers, endless calculations, and remarkably few words. And his wristwatch said even less. Every weekday, for twelve years, Harold would brush each of his thirty-two teeth seventy-six times. Thirty-eight times back and forth, thirty-eight times up and down. Every weekday, for twelve years, Harold would tie his tie in a single Windsor knot instead of the double, thereby saving up to forty-three seconds. His wristwatch thought the single Windsor made his neck look fat, but said nothing.

---

Ana Pascal: Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! You miscreant!
Harold Crick: I understand.
Ana Pascal: Oh, get bent, TAXMAN!
[Ana's customers boo and jeer Harold mercilessly]

---

Harold Crick: It says, in the file, that you only paid part of your taxes for last year.
Ana Pascal: That's right.
Harold Crick: Looks like only 78 percent.
Ana Pascal: Yep.
Harold Crick: So you did it on purpose?
Ana Pascal: Yep.
Harold Crick: So you must've been expecting an audit.
Ana Pascal: Um, I was expecting a fine, or a sharp reprimand.
Harold Crick: A reprimand? This isn't boarding school, Miss Pascal. You stole from the government.
Ana Pascal: No I didn't steal from the government. I just didn't pay you *entirely*.

---

Harold Crick: Miss Pascal, you can't just not pay your taxes.
Ana Pascal: Yes, I can.
Harold Crick: You can if you want to get audited.
Ana Pascal: Only if I recognize your right to audit me, Mr. Crick.
Harold Crick: Miss Pascal, I'm right here auditing you.

---

Ana Pascal: Listen, I'm a big supporter of fixing potholes and erecting swing sets and building shelters. I am *more* than happy to pay those taxes. I'm just not such a big fan of the percentage that the government uses for national defense, corporate bailouts, and campaign discretionary funds. So, I didn't pay those taxes. I think I sent a letter to that effect with my return.
Harold Crick: Would it be the letter that beings "Dear Imperialist Swine"?

---

Harold Crick: Miss Pascal, what you're describing is anarchy. Are you an anarchist?
Ana Pascal: You mean, am I a member of...
Harold Crick: An anarchist group, yes.
Ana Pascal: Anarchists have a group?
Harold Crick: I believe so, sure.
Ana Pascal: They assemble?
Harold Crick: I don't know.
Ana Pascal: Wouldn't that completely defeat the purpose?

---

Kay Eiffel: I read this, in this fantastically depressing book, that when you jump from a building, it's rarely the impact that actually kills you.
Penny Escher: Well, I'm sure it doesn't help.

---

Harold Crick: How are you?
Ana Pascal: I'm lousy. I'm being audited.
Harold Crick: Of course.
Ana Pascal: By a real creep, too.

---

Harold Crick: Dave, can I pose a somewhat abstract, purely hypothetical question?
Dave: Sure.
Harold Crick: If you knew you were gonna die, possibly soon, what would you do?
Dave: Wow, I don't know. Am I the richest man in the world?
Harold Crick: No, you're you.
Dave: Do I have a superpower?
Harold Crick: No, you're *you*.
Dave: I know I'm me, but do I have a superpower?
Harold Crick: No, why would you have a superpower?
Dave: I don't know, you said it was hypothetical.
Harold Crick: Fine, yes, you're really good at math.
Dave: That's not a power, that's a skill.
Harold Crick: Okay, you're good at math and you're invisible. And you know you're gonna die.
Dave: Okay, okay. That's easy, I'd go to space camp.
Harold Crick: Space camp?
Dave: Yeah, it's in Alabama. It's where kids go to learn how to become astronauts. I've always wanted to go since I was nine.
Harold Crick: You're invisible and you'd go to space camp?
Dave: I didn't pick invisible, you picked invisible.
Harold Crick: Aren't you too old to go to space camp?
Dave: You're *never* too old to go to space camp, dude.

---

Penny Escher: I'm Penny, I'm Kay's assistant.
Harold Crick: Oh, I'm Harold. Her main character.

---

Harold Crick: Harold frantically grabs his lamp! He shook the hell out of it for no apparent reason!

---

Harold Crick: You don't understand that this isn't a story to me, it's my life! I want to live!

---

Kay Eiffel: [narrating] Little did he know that this simple seemingly innocuous act would result in his imminent death.
Harold Crick: What? What? Hey! HELLOOO! What? Why? Why MY death? HELLO? Excuse me? WHEN?

---

Kay Eiffel: Everyone thinks about leaping off a building.

---

Penny Escher: I will gladly and quietly help you kill Harold Crick.
Kay Eiffel: And this coming from someone who's never thought about leaping off a building.

---

Kay Eiffel: [narrating] And so he did what countless punk-rock songs had told him to do so many times before: he lived his life.

---

Ana Pascal: It was a really awful day. I know, I made sure of it. So pick up the cookie, dip it in the milk, and eat it.

---

Harold Crick: It's not schizophrenia! I just hear a voice in my head
Dr. Mittag-Leffler: It's schizophrenia

---

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Little did he know. That means there's something he doesn't know, which means there's something you don't know, did you know that?

---

Harold Crick: I may already be dead, just not typed.

---

Ana Pascal: Did you like the cookies?
Harold Crick: Yes. Thank you for forcing me to eat them.

---

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Let me ask you this. On a scale of one to ten, what are the chances that you'll be assassinated - one being highly unlikely, ten being you're expecting it around every corner?

---

Penny Escher: And I suppose you smoked all these cigarettes?
Kay Eiffel: No, they came pre-smoked.

---

Dr. Jules Hilbert: It's been a very revealing ten seconds.

---

Kay Eiffel: [narrating] Why was Harold talking to this man? This man... was an idiot; this man used words like "wibbly-wobbly" and "convo," and explained that trees were trees. Of course trees were trees; Harold knew that trees were trees.

---

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Hell Harold, you could just eat nothing but pancakes if you wanted.
Harold Crick: What is wrong with you? Hey, I don't want to eat nothing but pancakes, I want to live! I mean, who in their right mind in a choice between pancakes and living chooses pancakes?
Dr. Jules Hilbert: Harold, if you pause to think, you'd realize that that answer is inextricably contingent upon the type of life being led... and, of course, the quality of the pancakes.

---

Kay Eiffel: I went out... to buy cigarettes and I figured out how to kill Harold Crick.
Penny Escher: Buying cigarettes?
Kay Eiffel: As I was... when I came out of the store I... it came to me.
Penny Escher: How?
Kay Eiffel: Well, Penny, like anything worth writing, it came inexplicably and without method.

---

Kay Eiffel: What's this?
Penny Escher: [seeing Eiffel smoking a lot of cigarettes] It’s literature on the nicotine patch.
Kay Eiffel: I don't need a nicotine patch, Penny. I smoke cigarettes.

---

Doctor Mercator: You'll be all right. You'll just have a shard of wristwatch embedded in your arm for the rest of your life.

---

[outside, Harold gets very exasperated by the voice]
Harold Crick: SHUT UP!
Kay Eiffel: [voice only] Cursing the heavens in futility.
Harold Crick: [extremely annoyed] No I'm not! I cursing you, you stupid voice so SHUT UP AND LEAVE ME ALONE!

---

Dr. Jules Hilbert: What is your favorite word?
Harold Crick: Integer.

---

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Well let's start from ridiculous and go from there.

---

Kay Eiffel: How many people do you think I've killed?
Penny Escher: Kay...
Kay Eiffel: How many?
Penny Escher: I don't know.
Kay Eiffel: Eight.
Penny Escher: Kay, you need to...
Kay Eiffel: I killed eight people. I counted.
Penny Escher: They were fictional characters, now get up.
Kay Eiffel: Harold Crick isn't fictional. He isn't fictional, Penny. Every book I've ever written ends with someone dying; every one. Really nice people too. I wrote a book about the school teacher. I killed her the day before summer vacation. How cruel is that? And a civil engineer, Edward, the one I trapped with a heart attack in rush hour. I killed him. I killed! Penny, I killed them all.

---

Kay Eiffel: Harold quickly calculated the odds of making an ass of himself, in ratio to the amount of time he stayed to chat.
Harold Crick: This is my stop I should go.
Kay Eiffel: He was elated and surprised by his somewhat flirtatious encounter with Mrs. Pascal. So elated that he exited the transit authority bus a good 27 blocks too early and would now have to walk.

---

[as Harold and Ana lay in bed]
[softly]
Harold Crick: I have to tell you something.
Ana Pascal: Is it a secret?
Harold Crick: Sort of.
[they kiss]
Harold Crick: I adore you.
Ana Pascal: I adore you. Was that it?
Harold Crick: No. I have to tell you this... and I want you to listen very carefully.
[he sits up]
Harold Crick: You can deduct the value of all the food you give away as a charitable contribution. It amounts to more than what you're currently withholding and doesn't break any tax laws.
Ana Pascal: Harold, Harold. The point is to break the tax laws.
Harold Crick: I want to make the world a better place too, Ana. I think that means keeping you out of jail.
Ana Pascal: Okay.
Harold Crick: Okay.

---

Kay Eiffel: [narrating] Harold's life was filled with moments both significant and mundane, but to Harold, those moments remained entirely indistinguishable.

---

Kay Eiffel: I'm not in the business of saving lives, in fact just the opposite.

---

Kay Eiffel: I don't need a nicotine patch, Penny, I smoke cigarettes.

---

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Meeting an insurance agent the day your policy runs out is coincidence. Getting a letter from the Emperor saying he's visiting is plot. A wrecking ball... is something else entirely.

---

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