archived

bojack: "my mother is dead and everything is worse now. because now i know i will never have a mother who looks at me from across the room and says, 'bojack horseman, i see you.'"

diane: "why can't i be happy? am i busted?"

Bojack: "When you're a kid, you convince yourself that maybe the grand gesture could be enough, that even though your parents aren't what you need them to be over and over and over again, at any moment, they might surprise you with something... wonderful. I kept waiting for that, the proof that even though my mother was a hard woman, deep down, she loved me and cared about me and wanted me to know that I made her life a little bit brighter. Even now, I find myself waiting."

Bojack: "All I know about being good, I learned from TV. And in TV, flawed characters are constantly showing people they care with these surprising grand gestures. And I think that part of me still believes that's what love is. But, in real life, the big gesture isn't enough. You need to be consistent, you need to be dependably good. You can't just screw everything up and then take a boat out into the ocean to save your best friend, or solve a mystery, and fly to Kansas. You need to do it every day, which is, so... hard."

Bojack: "Here's a story: When I was a teenager, I performed a comedy routine for my high school talent show. There was this, uh, cool jacket that I wanted to wear because I thought it would make me look like Albert Brooks. For months I saved up for this jacket. But when I finally had enough, I went to the store and it was gone. They had just sold it to someone else. So, I went home and told my mother, and she said, 'Let that be a lesson. That's the good that comes from wanting things.' She was really good at dispensing life lessons that always seemed to circle back to everything being my fault. But then, one day, on the day of the talent show, my mother had a surprise for me. She had bought me the jacket. Even though she didn't know how to say it, I know this meant that she loved me. Now that's a good story about my mother. It's not true, but it's a good story, right? I stole it from an episode of Maude when I was a kid where she talks about her father. I remember when I saw it, thinking, 'That's the kind of story I want to tell about my parents when they die.' But I don't have any stories like that."

Bojack: "Really makes you think, though, huh? Life, right? Goes by, stuff happens. Then you die."

bojack: "well, if it doesn't matter... can i stay on the phone with you, at least?"

diane: "and i wouldn't have to say, 'i'm sorry i left. i'm sorry i made things so difficult. i'm sorry i'm not the person i thought i was.'"

bojack: "how do you make something right when you've made it so wrong you can never go back?"

bojack: "i'm here because... i need help."