The Prince of Tides (1991)

Nick Nolte: Tom Wingo

Photos 

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Quotes 

• Herbert Woodruff : That Stradivarius is worth over a million dollars!

  Tom Wingo : Well, if I drop it, it won't be worth shit.

  Susan Lowenstein : Don't do it, Tom.

  Tom Wingo : Apologize to your wife, Herbert.

  Herbert Woodruff : You're bluffing.

  Tom Wingo : I may be, but its a powerful bluff, isn't it, asshole?

  [Tom throws fiddle high in the air] 

  Herbert Woodruff : [screaming]  I'm sorry, Susan!

  [Tom catches fiddle] 

  Tom Wingo : Sincerity becomes you, Herbie. Now apologize to me for your unforgivable breach of etiquette at the dinner table tonight, you possum-bred cocksucker.

  Herbert Woodruff : I'm very sorry, Tom.

• Susan Lowenstein : Just admit it. You love her more.

  Tom Wingo : No. Not more, Lowenstein. Only longer.

• [last lines] 

  Tom Wingo : [narrating]  At the end of every day I drive through the city of Charleston and I cross the bridge that will take me home. I feel the words building inside me, I can't stop them, or tell you why I say them, but as I reach the top of the bridge these words come to me in a whisper. I say these words as a prayer, as regret, as praise, I say: Lowenstein, Lowenstein.

• Susan Lowenstein : How did you deal with his death?

  Tom Wingo : I shut down like a broken motor.

  Susan Lowenstein : Huh. And according to the Southern way, still no tears.

  Tom Wingo : [laughing]  Oh, I cry sometimes, Lowenstein. I cry at weddings, at the Olympics. I'm real big at the national anthem.

  Susan Lowenstein : But not over Luke?

  Tom Wingo : What the hell for? It wouldn't bring him back.

  Susan Lowenstein : No. But it might bring you back.

• Tom Wingo : It's the Southern Way; when things get too painful, we either avoid them or we laugh.

  Susan Lownstein : When do you cry?

  Tom Wingo : [laughing]  We don't.

• Tom Wingo : [narrating]  There are families who live out their entire lives without a single thing of interest happening to them. I've always envied those families.

• Tom Wingo : [narrating]  In New York I learned that I needed to love my mother and father in all their flawed, outrageous humanity, and in families there are no crimes beyond forgiveness. But it is the mystery of life that sustains me now. I look to the north, and I wish again that there were two lives apportioned to every man - and every woman.

• Tom Wingo : Hell, Lowenstein! She made a schizophrenic! My mother should have raised cobras, not children!

• Tom Wingo : [narrating]  I don't know when my parents began their war against each other - but I do know the only prisoners they took were their children.

• Tom Wingo : I'm sick of my sister's attraction to razor blades - and I'm sick of shrinks who can't do a fucking thing to help her.

• Tom Wingo : Let's face it, Lowenstein. Women are more devious than men. You're great at hiding things. You keep secrets. You smile when you lie. You expect a man to be a tower of strength. When he's got a few weaknesses and insecurities, what do you do? You turn around, and goddamn it, you betray him!

• Tom Wingo : How about Luke? Do you ever think about Luke? Does he ever cross your mind?

  Lila Wingo Newbury : Who taught you to be so cruel?

  Tom Wingo : You did, Mama, you did.

• Tom Wingo : [narrating]  From my mother I inherited a love of language and an appreciation of nature. She could turn a walk around the island into a voyage of purest discovery. As a child, I thought she was the most extraordinary woman on earth. I wasn't the first son to be wrong about his mother.

• Tom Wingo : Now girls, have I ever told you the facts of life?

  Jennifer Wingo : Oh, not this again.

  Tom Wingo : Stay away from boys 'cause they are all disgusting, self-indulgent beasts that pee on bushes and pick their noses.

• Tom Wingo : [narrating]  We found a silent soothing world where there was no pain. A world without mothers or fathers. We would make a circle bound by flesh and blood and water and only when we felt our lungs betray us would we rise towards the light.

• Tom Wingo : You do have a sense of humor! I was beginning to think you had it surgically removed.

• Eddie Detreville : How's Savannah? When can I see her?

  Tom Wingo : I don't know, Eddie. It's like talking to a fern.

  Eddie Detreville : Well, I'm glad she's improving.

• Tom Wingo : You have to be patient with me, Lila. You've done a lot to piss me off.

• Tom Wingo : [shouts]  This is not about me!

  Susan Lowenstein : Then, why are you so upset?

• Tom Wingo : [narrating]  I suppose Henry Wingo would have been a pretty good father - if he hadn't been such a violent man.

• Susan Lownstein : So you feel your mother betrayed you?

  Tom Wingo : I was talking about my *wife*!

  Susan Lowenstein : Oh...