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You've Got Mail Nora Ephron & Delia Ephron COMPUTER: Welcome. You've got mail. JOE: Brinkley is my dog. He loves the streets of New York as much as I do -- although he likes to eat bits of pizza and bagel off the sidewalk, and I prefer to buy them. Brinkley is a great catcher and was offered a tryout on the Mets farm team -- -- but he chose to stay with me so that he could spend 18 hours a day sleeping on a large green pillow the size of an inner tube. Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly-sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address. On the other hand, this not knowing has its charms. KATHLEEN: What will he say today, I wonder. I turn on my computer, I wait impatiently as it boots up. I go on line, and my breath catches in my chest until I hear three little words: You've got mail. I hear nothing, not even a sound on the streets of New York, just the beat of my own heart. I have mail. From you. KATHLEEN: Is it infidelity if you're involved with someone on E-mail? CHRISTINA: Have you had sex? KATHLEEN: Of course not. I don't even know him. CHRISTINA: I mean cybersex. KATHLEEN: No! CHRISTINA: Well, don't do it. The minute you do, they lose all respect for you. KATHLEEN: It's not like that. We just E-mail. It's really nothing, on top of which I'm definitely thinking of stopping because it's getting -- CHRISTINA: Out of hand? KATHLEEN: Confusing. KATHLEEN: Forget it. We don't talk about anything personal. We made a rule about that. I don't know his name, what he does or exactly where he lives, so it will be really easy to stop seeing him, because I'm not. CHRISTINA: God, he could be the next person to talk into the store. He could be... George. GEORGE: Morning. CHRISTINA: Are you On Line? GEORGE: As far as I'm concerned, the Internet is just another way to be rejected by a woman. CHRISTINA: One Saturday night I was really depressed about not having a date, so I thought, no problemo, I'll go on line and I won't be lonely, but I couldn't get on, there were hundreds of thousands of people who didn't have dates trying to get on. You have to wonder which is harder, getting a date or getting On Line when you don't have a date. KATHLEEN: I guess I've read Pride & Prejudice about 100 times and every time I read it I worry that Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy are not going to get together -- but the truth is whenever I think about my favorite book I always think about the books I read as a child. KATHLEEN: Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life. Well, not small, but circumscribed. And sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven't been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around? I don't really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So goodnight, dear void. KATHLEEN: Men For Women, Women for Men, Women for Women -- what is this? CHRISTINA: You fill out one of these forms and they file it in the book and if someone wants to meet you, they arrange it. KATHLEEN: What a stupid way to meet someone. CHRISTINA: Compared to the Internet? KATHLEEN: If I had to get up on Saturday morning knowing that I was about to go down to the pier and unravel all those ropes and put on all that sunblock -- CHRISTINA: All that talk about the wind. KATHLEEN: And then you have to go out on the boat, and you sail and sail and sail until you are bored witless, and then, only then, do they say, let's turn around and you realize the trip is only half over, only it's not, because the wind has changed -- CHRISTINA: It hasn't changed. It's died. KATHLEEN: So then there's more talk about the wind. While you just float up and down trying not to get nauseous. And when you finally get back, you have to clean up the boat. CHRISTINA: Why don't people have boat maids? KATHLEEN: I know. There're all these people who wouldn't be caught dead polishing a doorknob in their house but put them on a boat and they want to rub down everything in sight. ANNABEL: What is that? KATHLEEN: A handkerchief. Oh my, do children not even know what handkerchiefs are? A handkerchief is a Kleenex you don't throw away. JOE: Do you ever feel you become the worst version of yourself? That a Pandora's Box of all the secret hateful parts -- your arrogance, your spite, your condescension -- has sprung open. Someone provokes you, and instead of just smiling and moving on, you zing them. Hello, it's Mr. Nasty. KATHLEEN: My business is in trouble. My mother would have something wise to say. JOE: I'm a brilliant businessman. It's what I do best. What's your business? KATHLEEN: No specifics, remember? JOE: Minus specifics, it's hard to help. Except to say, go to the mattresses. KATHLEEN: What? JOE: It's from The Godfather. It means you have to go to war. KATHLEEN: The Godfather? What is it with men and The Godfather? JOE: The Godfather is the I Ching. The Godfather is the sum of all wisdom. The Godfather is the answer to any question. What should I pack for my summer vacation? "Leave the gun, take the cannoli." What day of the week is it? "Maunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Wednesday." And the answer to your question is "Go to the mattresses." You're at war. "It's not personal, it's business. It's not personal it's business." Recite that to yourself every time you feel you're losing your nerve. I know you worry about being brave, this is your chance. Fight. Fight to the death. JOE: The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall! Decaf! Cappuccino! JOE (on the television): I sell cheap books. Sue me. KEVIN: That's what you said? JOE: That's not all I said. I said -- I can't believe those bastards -- I said we were great, I said people can come and sit and read for hours and no one bothers them, I said we stock 150,000 titles, I showed them the New York City section. I said we were a goddamn piazza where people could mingle and mix and be. KEVIN: A piazza? JOE: I was eloquent. Shit. It's just inevitable, isn't it? People are going to want to turn her into Joan of Arc -- KEVIN: -- and you into Attila the Hun. JOE: Well it's not me personally, it's more like it's the company -- KATHLEEN (on the television): And I have to say, I have met Joe Fox, who owns Foxbooks, and I have heard him compared his store to a Price Club and the books in it to cans of olive oil. JOE: Why am I compelled to meet her? I'm just ruining a good thing. KEVIN: You're taking it to the next level. I always do that. I always take a relationship to the next level, and if it works okay I take it to the next level after that, until I can finally get to the level where it becomes absolutely necessary for me to leave. JOE: Kevin, this woman is the most adorable creature I have ever come in contact with. If she turns out to be even as good-looking as a mailbox, I will be crazy not to turn my life upside down and marry her. JOE: See her? KEVIN: There's a beautiful, whoa, a very beautiful girl. JOE: Yes. KEVIN: But no book. JOE: Can you see her? KEVIN: Yes. JOE: And? -- KEVIN: She's very pretty. JOE: She is. I knew she would be. She had to be. KEVIN: She looks... I would say she has a little of the coloring of that Kathleen Kelly person. JOE: Kathleen Kelly of the bookstore. KEVIN: Why not? You said you thought she was attractive. JOE: So what? Who cares about Kathleen Kelly? KEVIN: Well, if you don't like Kathleen Kelly, I can tell you right now you ain't gonna like this girl. JOE: Why not? KEVIN: Because it is Kathleen Kelly. KATHLEEN: I have something to tell you. I didn't vote. FRANK: What? KATHLEEN: In the last mayoral election, when Rudy Giuliani was running against Ruth Messinger, I went to get a manicure and forgot to vote. FRANK: Since when do you get manicures? KATHLEEN: Oh, I suppose you could never be with a woman who gets manicures. FRANK: Forget it. It's okay. I forgive you. KATHLEEN: You forgive me. KATHLEEN: What? You don't love me? Me either. FRANK: You don't love me? But we're so right for each other. KATHLEEN: I know. That woman on television, right? Sidney-Ann. FRANK: I mean, nothing's happened or anything. KATHLEEN: I think she's a Republican. FRANK: I can't help myself. SHOPPER: We should bomb Foxbooks. KATHLEEN: It's not their fault. The truth is, the world is just... different. Soon we'll just be a memory. In fact, someone, some foolish person will probably think it's a tribute to this city, the way it keeps changing on you, the way you can never count on it, or something. I know, because that's the sort of thing I'm always saying. But the truth is, I'm heartbroken. I feel as if part of me has died, and my mother has died all over again, and no one can ever make it right. KATHLEEN: Six months ago, when you and I first met, I knew everything about myself -- what I would be doing for the rest of my life and even the person I would be doing it with. Now I know nothing. JOE: Remember the man who worked with her? ANNABEL: No. JOE: Well I hired him. ANNABEL: You killed the Storybook Lady. KATHLEEN: Everyone is breaking up. KATHLEEN: Why did you stop by? I forget. JOE: I wanted to be your friend. KATHLEEN: Oh. JOE: I knew it wasn't possible. What can I say? Sometimes a person just wants the impossible. JOE: Let me guess. From the Internet. KATHLEEN: Yes. JOE: You've Got Mail. KATHLEEN: Yes. JOE: Very powerful words. KATHLEEN: Yes. KATHLEEN: The only thing I really care about besides the married thing... and the jail thing... is the boat thing. JOE: The boat thing? KATHLEEN: I could never be with anyone who has a boat. JOE: Oh. KATHLEEN: So that clinches it. We'll never be together. I'll take care of these. JOE: I could never be with anyone who likes Joni Mitchell. "It's cloud's illusions I recall, I really don't know clouds at all." What does that mean? JOE: Timing is everything. He waited until you were primed. Until you knew there was no other man you could ever love. KATHLEEN: Yes. JOE: Sometimes I wonder... KATHLEEN: What? JOE: If I hadn't been Foxbooks and you hadn't been The Shop Around the Corner and we'd just met -- KATHLEEN: Don't. JOE: I would have asked for your phone number and I wouldn't have been able to wait 24 hours before calling and asking, "How about coffee, drinks, dinner, a movie, for as long as we both shall live?" JOE: Let me ask you something? How come you'll forgive him for standing you up and you won't forgive me for a little tiny thing like putting you out of business? JOE: Don't cry, Shopgirl, don't cry. KATHLEEN: I wanted it to be you. I wanted it to be you so badly.

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