Alex: OK. I'll tell you what happened. Otherwise, you won't feel like you're doing your job, right? But before I start, something I've gotta know. Did you ever jerk off to anything a patient told you?
Paul: What?
Alex: Come on. Come on. I mean, you must hear some crazy stories from women. Explicit shit. Fantasies. Did you ever jerk off afterwards?
Paul: Are you concerned that I'll masturbate to something that you tell me, Alex?
Alex: Me? No. I'm talking about you've got women, they sit here on your couch. They tell you all about fucking. It must get to you sometimes. I know it would get to me.
Paul: Do you masturbate?
Alex: There you go again, you're answering a question with a question.
Paul: All right. I'll answer with an answer. I'm a human being. I masturbate sometimes. My fantasies are about many, many things. All sorts of women. Is that what you wanted to hear? That in that regard I'm not that substantially different from you?
Alex: That's the first time you've ever answered one of my questions. In any case, you won't masturbate to me and Laura's story, I guarantee you that. You may think of it the next time you're having sex with your wife and you're trying not to come.

Alex: Feelings are not a philosophy. You either feel or you don't. You can't bullshit about it.

Jake: You're hitting on our therapist too? You are fucking unbelievable. Why? Because he's a doctor? He could be your father.
Amy: Sorry, Paul.
Jake: Don't apologize for me, all right?

Alex: If you hold on to this organ... called guilt feelings... And I believe that's what it is. It's an organ. Like the spleen or liver. The system will cut it out of you completely. Understand? I have no way of feeling guilt anymore. I don't have the organ.

Amy: It's my pregnancy.
Jake: Our pregnancy. It's ours.
Amy: Oh really?
Jake: Yeah, that's right!
Amy: And the hemorrhoids, are those yours too? And the nine months of morning sickness, whose are those? And the extra fifty pounds, are those yours too?

Amy: I feel happier and I've lost the weight. And for the first time I can actually see myself as someone who... Someone who...
Jake: Someone who'd never have a baby with a shithead.
Amy: You are so primitive.
Jake: Primitive? Back when she was cheating with me on her first husband, Paul, I was sexy. But now I'm primitive.

Laura: [to Paul] Something in you is restless, damaged. There's a yearning there, and I know it when I see it. And I want you just the way you are... Damaged and restless, yearning... Warts and all.

Gina: The way you took critique, it made you furious. You know, it was one professional assessment. And you took it personally. So personally, I had to wonder if it wasn't an echo of an earlier rejection.
Paul: Please, Gina. Not this again. I know exactly where you're going with this.
Gina: A son who feels he's disappointed his father. A son who feels he hasn't lived up to his father's expectations. It's something you would want to address.
Paul: Please don't minimize what you said to me. I wasn't reacting to something in my past in relation to my father.
Gina: One review drove you out of the institute.
Paul: That letter pissed on eight years of my work. Despite it, though, I did become an excellent therapist. Some people might say that... I became a better therapist than you.

Gina: I always ask myself, 'If they were to diagnose therapists whose marriages fell apart, how many cases of erotic transference would they find?'
Paul: What does that mean?
Gina: That sometimes erotic transference in therapy is a test of your married life. If a therapist can't handle a situation where his patient falls in love with him, it may indicate some breakdown in his private life.

Laura: [talking to Paul about breaking up with Andrew] He'll make a nice husband for someone who deserves him.
Paul: But obviously not for you?
Laura: I nearly fuck guys in bathroom stalls, as you very kindly reminded me. I just couldn't stand up there in front of everyone, promise to... Well, I just shouldn't ever make promises. I promise not to make any more promises. How's that?

Alex: So, are there any rules?
Paul: Rules?
Alex: Ground rules. Anything I should know before we start?
Paul: Oh... Not really. It's more or less... It's more or less up to you.
Alex: Oh, right, right. I'm a customer.
Paul: Yeah. Though in my profession we say that the customer is always wrong.
[Alex looks surprised at Paul]
Paul: That's a... It's a therapists' joke.

Alex: I want you to tell me something. Honestly. Do you really think you can help me? If we sit here, we talk about fucking a few times, you'll be able to solve all my problems?
Paul: I don't have the answer to that question.
Alex: Yeah, I knew you'd say that. You know, that's what kills me about you people. 'Cause any other professional... I go to a doctor, he takes a look and he says, 'This what you got. This is how long you have to live.' If I went to a mechanic, he'd say, '$2,000, it'll be good as new.' But you people, you don't guarantee shit.

Gina: Easier to see patterns when they're not ours.
Paul: Or we see them but we can't avoid them. That's worse.

Laura: I'm getting married in a few months. I need to, uh, conserve every last drop of energy for my wedding.
Paul: You're finding it requires energy that you don't have? I thought brides were supposed to be whirling dervish of activity.
Laura: [smiles] Oh my God. The word 'bride' creeps me out.

Gina: You're using me as your accomplice. Not in a practical way. But emotionally, to help you move on from them [your patients]. That way you're free to be with Laura.
Paul: You know, I don't even want to say to that. I mean, what... are you doing? Is this what you call help? 'cause that's why I came here. I came here for you to help me. I keep saying this. But through some misguided line of reasoning, through some narcissistic... need of yours to save the day, to put yourself at the front and the center, we've ended up here. In this same place... just to confirm that you, Gina, are right. As always.
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