At its heart, 'Fat City' is not about boxing. It is a universal story of grim realities and toxic delusions. It is awash with awareness of chances blown, dreams stymied, precious time wasted, and all future prospects scorched to ashes by the process.
There is a deep sadness to American poverty, greater than the sadness of any other kind. It's because America has such an ideology of success.
If you get too big for your boots, if you've got big dreams, you're gonna get them broken or shattered.
Fame was not at all what it was cracked up to be, as far as I was concerned.
I remember feeling that. I couldn't do, nor did I want to do, the kinds of roles I'd been doing.
As much as I hate to say it, what I'm coming to realize is that all we're really able to do is put the brakes on. Imagine going real fast in a Flintstones car, and my heel is out there. I went to Washington to change the world, and all I can do is put my heel out.
I always wished for this, but it's almost turning into more of a nightmare than a dream.
God loves with a great love the man whose heart is bursting with a passion for the impossible.
Why did I keep hitching myself to dreams as big as that Montana sky? I was like Rooster Jim's chickens, with no way to fly that high.
I know people who've had dreams unrealised due to circumstances.
Their lives have been largely defined by failure and you would think the prospect of marriage, which is supposed to be bountiful and hopeful, it's just really another kind of tangential thing in his life.
My professional life has been a constant record of disillusion, and many things that seem wonderful to most men are the every-day commonplaces of my business.
It was total naivety that got me to Hollywood. I thought it was going to happen straight away. I told myself 'give it 5 years, there's no way I'll be here after that if it doesn't happen'. Cut to ten years later!
That one man scorned and covered with scars Still strove with his last ounce of courage To reach the unreachable star.
Almost every desire a poor man has is a punishable offence.
I don't want to spend my life on an ice cube.
Vain hopes are like certain dreams of those who wake.
I am gone quite mad with the knowledge of accepting the overwhelming number of things I can never know, places I can never go, and people I can never be.
What you've done is done. You've got a goal you never reach, and it's always farther away. It keeps you walking. I don't want to sit down.
We must always aim for the impossible; if we lower our goal, we also diminish our effort.
I've grown to love L.A., but it's the most socially awkward place. All these people have come there not to be something but to pretend to be someone trying to be someone.
Dreams are like paper, they tear so easily.
When you work on a passion project, there's always the chance that you'll get your heart broken.
I always wanted to be a boy scout but was too poor. Couldn't do it.
Earthly majesty is always akin to the fallen angel, who is proud and unhappy, beautiful but troubled, and whose plans and efforts, though vast, are denied access.
