Daily Dialogue — December 31, 2011
Sally kisses Marie then walks away. Then she sees Harry arriving, still puffing. Then Harry sees Sally as well.
Harry: I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. And the thing is, I love you.
Sally: What?
Harry: I love you.
Sally: How do you expect me to respond to this?
Harry: How about you love me too?
Sally: How about I’m leaving.
Harry: Doesn’t what I said mean anything to you?
Sally: I’m sorry, Harry, I know it’s New Years Eve, I know you’re feeling lonely, but you just can’t show up here, tell me you love me and expect that to make everything alright. It doesn’t work this way.
Harry: Well, how does it work?
Sally: I don’t know, but not this way.
Harry: Well, how about this way. I love that you get cold when it’s seventy one degrees out, I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich, I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you’re looking at me like I’m nuts, I love that after I spend a day with you I can still smell your perfume on my clothes and I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it’s not because I’m lonely, and it’s not because it’s New Years Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of the life to start as soon as possible.
Sally: You see, that is just like you, Harry. You say things like that and you make it impossible for me to hate you. And I hate you Harry… I really hate you. I hate you.
They kiss.
Harry: What does this song mean? For my whole life I don’t know what this song means. I mean, ‘Should old acquaintance be forgot”. Does that mean we should forget old acquaintances or does it mean if we happen to forget them we should remember them, which is not possible because we already forgot them!?
Sally: Well, maybe it just means that we should remember that we forgot them or something. Anyway it’s about old friends.
— Harry (Billy Crystal), Sally (Meg Ryan), When Harry Met Sally (1989), written by Nora Ephron
The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is parties. Today’s suggestion by pliny the elder.
Trivia: Nora Ephron was happy with how the film turned out, but was never happy with the title of the film, and says it’s the one thing she would go back and fix if she could.
Dialogue On Dialogue: “I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of the life to start as soon as possible.” Great capstone line to the monologue.