one-sided editorial from the campaign to abolish names in 2004
Melina: Have you lost your mind?
Quaid: No, Cohagen stole it from me.
("Total Recall," 1990)

This little bit of dialogue is good. It's a nice little turn of words. It inspires people to chuckle.

Let's look at it more deeply.

Why wouldn't anyone walk out of the theater quoting this, even in 1990, when people quoted everything Arnold said?

What lines did people quote from this movie, lines that people quoted over the phone with relatives in Pennsylvania?

Sharon Stone: Honey -- we're . . . married!
Arnold: [Shoots her in the forehead] Consider that a divorce.

The closest we get to a name there is "Honey" -- a pet name, a universal.

This is how it works:

Names aren't quotable. Sometimes, they are.

To wit:

"Ginger Lee, I've done a bad job of being a good person."
(TRIN(N)IT(T)Y, by tim rogers)

Usually, they're not.

Look at the above line, way at the top here. Think about it hard. Now look at this variant:

A: Have you lost your mind?
B: No, they stole it from me.

It feels like something that belongs to us, regardless of its truth within its silly little movie world.

Right?

Thoughts?

And . . . that's all I really got to say about this.