Sue: Sam, thank you so much for your help with the tickets. We’re thrilled to be up in that box.
Mrs. Dickinson: Wait a minute, where are we sitting?
Edward: Orchestra, back row.
Mrs. Dickinson: Why didn’t you get us a box?
Edward: Yes, first you stick me in a hole. Now you try to put me in a box.

Austin: God, I miss the old gang. Maybe, I should organize a reunion. Those were the days, man. We used to have so much good times.
Sue: You still have good times, don’t you?

Lavinia: La Traviata, it means ‘The Fallen One.’
Ship: Yeah, I knew that.
Lavinia: You did?
Ship: I studied Italian in college, OK.
Lavinia: Yeah, but you dropped out.
Ship: OK, whatever.
Lavinia: You know, people’s reactions to opera the first time they see it is very dramatic. They either love it or hate it. If they love it, they will always love. If they don’t, they may learn to appreciate it, but it will never become part of their soul.
Ship: Cool, I gotta take a piss.

Emily: So many of my dreams have come true since I met you.
Sam: Emily…
Emily: Sam, I just have to thank you.
Sam: Oh, don’t mention it. It’s nothing. I didn’t even pay for this box.
Emily: Oh no, not for that. Not just for that. I mean for all of it…
Sam: Emily, please.
Emily: For what you’ve given me.
Sam: Please, it’s nothing.
Emily: It’s everything. You changed my life. Before I met you I was nobody. Now, now my poem will be published.

Sam: Emily, we have a problem.
Emily: We do?
Sam: Yeah, you wrote a letter to Mary.
Emily: Yes, I did.
Sam: Yeah, that wasn’t a good move.
Emily: But, I… what do you mean?
Sam: You wrote a letter to Mary, and it made her feel extremely uncomfortable. Both of us, I should say, it made both of us uncomfortable. Your letter upset Mary so much. That’s the reason she’s not here tonight. She refused to come because your letter made her feel so violated.
Emily: I don’t understand.
Sam: You wrote the craziest shit in that letter. You said I was like the sun, like you’re cold whenever I’m not there, like every time I leave Amherst, winter sets in. Why would you write something like that?
Emily: Because it’s how I feel.
Sam: About a married man to his wife?
Emily: I didn’t mean to upset her. I was only trying to express my gratitude.
Sam: Well, listen, you went a little too far this time.
Emily: I’m sorry. Sometimes when I write I lose control.
Sam: I know. It’s part of what makes you a great writer, but you have to be aware off all the rumors.
Emily: What rumors?
Sam: Come on, you’ve heard them. Every time I choose to support a female voice, all the gossipers on the East Coast think I have ulterior motives. And Mary, she hears these whispers, and they upset her. They hurt her. Even though she knows in her soul I am always faithful to her. Now, I’ve tried to make myself absolutely clear: This interest that I’ve taken in you, it is purely professional. You do understand that, don’t you?

Look, I know it’s romantic to have your poem get published, especially when you’ve had to wait for so long. But you have to remember, Emily, the romance, it’s between you and yourself.

Sam

Sue: Are you going to fetch the carriage?
Austin: No, I’m going to go meet Fraiser. He told me to find him after the show for a drink.
Sue: So, what you’re leaving me here?
Austin: You can take the carriage back to the hotel.
Sue: Alone?
Austin: Or with whoever you want.

Emily: I’m just here to tell you how amazing you are.
Adelaide May: Oh, you’re one of them.
Emily: Look, I was in the audience tonight. Your singing, I have never heard anything like it. It was so beautiful. It broke my heart.
Adelaide May: Yes, that’s what they all say.
Emily: But I mean it. Listening to you made me feel things I have never felt before.
Adelaide May: Really, what’s that like?
Emily: What?
Adelaide May: Feeling things.
Emily: But you must know what it’s like. You brought it all to life so perfectly. You made me feel what Violetta was feeling.
Adelaide May: That was just a performance. I’ve done Violetta so many times, I don’t even need to be awake when I’m on stage. You just saw the most moving performance, yet I felt nothing.

Emily: I want to be famous.
Adelaide May: You do?
Emily: Well, sure, doesn’t everybody?
Adelaide May: Why do you want to be famous?
Emily: Because I’m a writer, and I write and write and write poem after poem, and then I stick it in a drawer and it just sits there in the dark where no light shines. I mean that isn’t enough, is it? Don’t they need to be seen? Don’t I need to be seen?
Adelaide May: I don’t know. If you’re seen, then you’re exposed. Everything that’s exposed, well, it goes stale.
Emily: Well, not everything.
Adelaide May: Yes, everything. The critics, they’ll put you on top for a minute, but then they’ll drag you down. They’ll get sick of you, and they’ll destroy you. They hate you, see, because you made them love you. You are a courtesan, and they fell for your trick.
Emily: Who cares what they say? Who cares what people think?
Adelaide May: Exactly, might as well stay in a room by yourself with no one watching.
Emily: How do you do it? How do you find the courage to sing in front of all these people?
Adelaide May: Well, I just pretend they’re not there.
Emily: But I was here tonight. I was here.
Adelaide May: Well, then I suppose I was singing for you.

Imaginary Sue: What is it that you really want? What is the deeper yearning that you have?
Emily: Sue, what do you mean?
Imaginary Sue: Beneath all of this nonsense about fame, what is it that you crave? You crave meaning. You crave beauty. You crave love.

Dickinson Season 2 Episode 6 Quotes

Austin: God, I miss the old gang. Maybe, I should organize a reunion. Those were the days, man. We used to have so much good times.
Sue: You still have good times, don’t you?

Sue: Sam, thank you so much for your help with the tickets. We’re thrilled to be up in that box.
Mrs. Dickinson: Wait a minute, where are we sitting?
Edward: Orchestra, back row.
Mrs. Dickinson: Why didn’t you get us a box?
Edward: Yes, first you stick me in a hole. Now you try to put me in a box.