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Home / Best Quotes / The Tender Bar (2021) Best Movie Quotes

The Tender Bar (2021) Best Movie Quotes

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Starring: Ben Affleck, Tye Sheridan, Lily Rabe, Christopher Lloyd, Max Martini, Rhenzy Feliz, Briana Middleton

OUR RATING: ★★★☆☆

Story:

Amazon Prime coming of age drama directed by George Clooney. The Tender Bar (2021) centers on J.R. Moehringer (Tye Sheridan), a fatherless boy who bonds with his Uncle Charlie (Ben Affleck). As J.R.’s determined mother, Dorothy (Lily Rabe), struggles to provide her son with opportunities denied to her, and leave the dilapidated home of her father (Christopher Lloyd), J.R. begins to gamely, if not always gracefully, pursue his romantic and professional dreams, with one foot persistently placed in his Uncle Charlie’s bar.

 

Our Favorite Quotes:

'Falling in love is a blessing. Try to enjoy it. If you get your heart broken, you'll live.' - Mom (The Tender Bar) Click To Tweet

 

Best Quotes


 

Future JR: Home never meant the same thing to my mother as it did to me. To her, it meant failure, the place you ended up when all the things she was counting on fell through. Work, apartment, boyfriend, not always in that order. But I loved it. To me, Grandpa’s house was a revolving door of cousins and aunts, with a full complement of laughter and tears, and an occasional nervous breakdown. But above all, it’s where Uncle Charlie lived. And when you’re eleven years old, you want an Uncle Charlie.


 

Future JR: My father was a radio DJ in New York. They called him The Voice. He played Top 40 hits, and he’d talk about the musicians. I only met him once, and I was pretty young, so when I could, I’d sneak away and listen to him on the radio. I had to sneak, because after he left us, well, let’s just say mom took a pair of scissors to every picture he was in.


 

Young JR: Why does Grandpa say we should all clear out?
Mom: Because he’s a selfish old p**ck who resents taking care of his family.
Young JR: Like dad?
Mom: No, honey. Grandpa resents taking care of his family. Your father has never taken care of anybody at all.


 

Uncle Charlie: Okay, two rules. I’m never going to let you win, ever. You beat me, you know you beat me, fair and square, but I never let you win. And I’m going to always tell you the truth. I saw you in the yard playing sports. You’re not very good. And probably not going to get a whole lot better. So it might be wise for you, in order to avoid tears and disappointment, and above all, delusion, you know, find some other activities that you like. You know, like what do you like to do the most?
Young JR: I like to read.


 

Uncle Charlie: [to young JR] So, this thing about the radio. You’re going to look for your father in the radio. You think your father is in the radio. He’s not in the radio. He’s just an a**hole who happens to be on the radio. Don’t look for your father to save you. And don’t play sports. That’s all I have to say.


 

The Voice: [over phone] How is your Uncle Charlie?
Young JR: How are you? He wants to know.
Uncle Charlie: I’m still short thirty bucks.


 

Future JR: [referring to his father] He said to be ready at 6:30. I was ready at 4:30 so as not to f*** up. You always remember f***ing up, so you don’t want to. The thing is, that day, I felt like I had. That’s the thing to remember about a kid. The kid always thinks he f***ed up.


 

Future JR: A little while later, after being arrested while on air, for nonpayment of child support, The Voice fled the state. It was about this same period that he called up drunk and said he put a contract on my mother’s life. He also threatened to kidnap me, but Uncle Charlie thought this was a less serious threat, as kidnapping comes with responsibilities.


 

Uncle Charlie: [to young JR] You take care of your mother. And you take care of, if you have one, your woman. If you drink, you keep your s**t together. If your s**t’s not together, you don’t drink. Don’t be like one of these **holes here who acts like it was Jesus who came down and made him late for work and spend all their money and throw back Old Hammerhead with vanilla Coke for thirty years. You know what I’m saying? It’s about being a man.

 

'Women decide if they want something, or if they don't, and it becomes very obvious very fast.' - Uncle Charlie (The Tender Bar) Click To Tweet

 

Uncle Charlie: [to young JR] Get your drink. You get your butts. Don’t carry your money like a drunk. Oh, and, see this? This little compartment in your wallet, right? That’s where you keep your stashies. That’s like a hundred bucks, five, whatever, depending on the economy. Important thing is you never, ever drink that money, right?


 

Uncle Charlie: Hold doors. Be good to your mother. I’ll teach you how to change a tire, jump a car. You know, that’s it. Change a tire, jump a car, take care of your mother, don’t drink your stashies. Oh, one more thing. Very important. Never, under any circumstances, hit a woman, even if she stabs you with scissors.
Young JR: Got it.
Uncle Charlie: That’s it. Male sciences. Right.


 

Young JR: [referring to the books behind the bar] Can people read those books?
Uncle Charlie: What are you, soft?
Young JR: No, I mean, can I read them?
Uncle Charlie: What’s the name of this place?
Young JR: The Dickens.
Uncle Charlie: That’s right. Charles Dickens. You know who that is?
Young JR: The owner?


 

Uncle Charlie: You can read as many as you like. Take them in the poker room. Read them all. Fill yourself up. And you know what might happen? If you read enough books, maybe, if you’re lucky, you could become a writer.
Future JR: And that was it. From that moment on, I wanted to be a writer.


 

Mom: Your grandfather has a photographic memory. He knows Greek and Latin. But here is this, the furniture is held together with duct tape, and he’s doing this. He’s farting and saying he didn’t do it, saying “apricots” for no reason. That’s what he did with going to college.
Grandpa: And yet you all end up back here.

 

'Everybody's lucky. Everybody alive is lucky, and were descended from the lucky. Our ancestors were all either fast, smart, or had really good immune systems. Luck, it's why we're all here.' - Wesley (The Tender Bar) Click To Tweet

 

Mom: You are a stingy, crazy, old b****rd. You are not stingy with money.
Grandpa: Haven’t got any.
Mom: You are stingy with love.


 

Mom: Girls become wives and mothers. That was his point of view.
Grandpa: You became one of them!
Mom: Oh, shut up, you old turd! Because he is stingy with love and understanding, that is why I have no education. And that is why you, I swear to God, I have no idea how, you are going to Harvard or Yale.


 

Mom: [to young JR] You are going to Harvard or Yale.
Uncle Charlie: Make up for your disappointments?
Mom: Harvard or Yale.
Grandpa: This from a woman who earns thirty bucks a day!
Mom: And after college, at Harvard or Yale! You are going to law school.
Grandpa: So you can sue your father for child support!
Mom: No. So he can help you with your fines about the septic tank!


 

The Voice: Hey, Charlie. How’s it hanging?
Uncle Charlie: Still got the clap, a**hole?
The Voice: You know I got it from your sister.
Uncle Charlie: Where’s my thirty bucks?
The Voice: It’s up my a**. Come get it.
Uncle Charlie: JR, say hi to your father.

 

'Here's the thing. You got to have “it”. I don't know what it is, but if you don't have “it” immediately, you never get it.' - Uncle Charlie (The Tender Bar) Click To Tweet

 

The Voice: Well, I think your grandfather is a good man. Marches to his own drummer, but that’s what I like about him.
Young JR: Mom says he might have lost his mind.
The Voice: Well, there’s that too. Sometimes your own drummer is a bad idea.


 

The Voice: [to young JR] See, the thing about women, sometimes they don’t think about the cause and effect of things. They want freedom, but then they blame you for dispensing it once they get it. At least that’s my experience. One swinging d**k to another. I’ll give you that one.


 

Young JR: A doctor at school says I have no identity.
The Voice: Jesus. Get one.


 

Young JR: Why did you marry him?
Mom: I was young. I was dumb.
Young JR: I don’t want to be a junior. I don’t want to have the same name.
Mom: You can have any name you want.


 

Uncle Charlie: You can take acid, you can take f***ing Drano. You know what I’m saying? But you commit. You make a decision. You s**t, or wind your watch. You f***ing call it a day, or run for president, and that’s it.

 

'You got to be able to do without people, and they got to know it. It's either all in or nothing.' - Uncle Charlie (The Tender Bar) Click To Tweet

 

School Psychologist: The boy won’t tell me what his name stands for.
Uncle Charlie: It doesn’t stand for anything. His name is JR. Deal with it.


 

Uncle Charlie: Maybe this is a weird time for me to tell you that I’m not a psychologist.
School Psychologist: Why do you say that?
Uncle Charlie: Well, because I’m not a psychologist, and I’m sitting here with somebody who actually is a psychologist, who maybe knows I’m not a psychologist. What are you, f***ing inert?


 

School Psychologist: JR, those are his initials?
Uncle Charlie: Or it’s the contraction for “junior”. What f***ing difference does it make?
School Psychologist: Well, there’s a very big difference if it is being concealed from him that he’s a junior because there is no senior in his life.
Uncle Charlie: That may never have occurred to him, until you just laid your line of bulls**t on the subject to him right to his face.


 

School Psychologist: It is my belief that the uncertainty about the meaning of his name, and the continual questions about it, have left him without identity.
Uncle Charlie: Very impressive. No identity, hence identity crisis.
School Psychologist: He has no identity, which causes rage.
Uncle Charlie: He has dubiety about his identity, possibly.


 

Uncle Charlie: How sure are you about your identity? Hmm? I’m curious because you seem very interested in his father, and his absence, and you cast it in this very negative light, and bring the kid in here, and you’re traumatizing him. We both know you’re calling his mother up and asking her out on dates.
School Psychologist: That’s…
Uncle Charlie: So you’re willing to traumatize a little kid in order to hit on his mother?

See more The Tender Bar Quotes


 

Future JR: Uncle Charlie never had the money to go to college. He was self-taught. But that didn’t mean some dime-store fifth grade shrink could go toe to toe.


 

Uncle Charlie: [to young JR] I know a lot of guys that think they’re writers, and you’ll find in life that most of them are not. Here’s the thing. You got to have “it”. I don’t know what it is, but if you don’t have “it” immediately, you never get it. And I say you got it.


 

Bar Patron: Hey. Whose kid is that?
Uncle Charlie: My sister’s.
Bar Patron: Which sister? The hot one, or the crazy one?
Uncle Charlie: What, are you f***ing stupid? You want to die?


 

Mom: It’s hard to tell people about your father, JR, because it’s hard to know where to begin.
Young JR: Maybe the police can make him go?
Grandpa: Police can’t make him pay support. A father-son breakfast might be tough.
Grandma: Well, why don’t you take him, you son of a b**ch?
Grandpa: Yeah. Why not? Why not?


 

Young JR: [referring to the father-son breakfast] Thank you for taking me.
Grandpa: Don’t tell anybody I’m a good grandfather. Everybody will want one.


 

Mom: I want you to succeed.
Young JR: What if I can’t?
Mom: As God is my witness, you are going to Yale.


 

Young JR: Who else is coming?
Bobo: Pat.
Young JR: Who’s he?
Bobo: She. Your uncle’s girlfriend.
Uncle Charlie: We all make mistakes.


 

Uncle Charlie: [to young JR] You got to be able to do without people, and they got to know it. It’s either all in or nothing. Know what I mean?


 

JR: [referring to applying to Yale] I won’t get in.
Mom: Yes, you will.
JR: Uncle Charlie says to go all in.
Mom: Yeah, well, your uncle is talking about gambling, and that’s why he lives at home.
JR: Yeah, but isn’t this gambling?
Mom: It’s better than not gambling. I never gambled. That was my problem.
JR: What about dad?


 

Uncle Charlie: [after JR gets into Yale] Always take philosophy, okay? You always do well in that class, because there’s no right answer. Your mother’s going to come to you and try to give you money. Don’t accept it. I’ll take care of you. Once.


 

JR: Because everything I see is unattainable.
Wesley: That’s because you’re probably being a pu**y.
JR: Well, if you’re made to read the greatest things ever written, that you couldn’t do, and make you feel like s**t, then how are you supposed to become a writer?
Jimmy: Socrates says you learn more from a bad book than a good one.
JR: Aristotle. I think.


 

JR: I’m just here on a lucky break. It’s just a lucky break. I mean, I can do Wordy Gurdy, all day long. But I cannot figure out what the f*** they are saying in Henry V.
Wesley: We’re all here on a lucky break, douchebag. I’m Lucky Sperm Club, and no one’s ever noticed that I’m an idiot. It’s also luck. Everybody’s lucky. Everybody alive is lucky, and were descended from the lucky. Our ancestors were all either fast, smart, or had really f***ing good immune systems. Luck, a**hole, it’s why we’re all here.
JR: I never thought about it like that.


 

Uncle Charlie: I got an announcement! Everybody, according to the laws of the sovereign state of New York, today, my nephew is officially a man. And so are his friends legally men.
Chief: The law is f***ed!


 

Joey D: Chaz says you’re insecure at Yale.
JR: No. No.
Joey D: Well, hey, it’s the same as prison. Anywhere is the same as prison. You need to find the main guy, who’s a problem, and you rip his f***ing lungs out.
Chief: The f*** you telling the kid that for?
Joey D: That’s it.
Chief: He’s going to Yale, not Rahway.


 

Wesley: You know, Uncle Charlie is like your old man basically.
JR: No, he’s my Uncle Charlie. My old man’s in a radio.
Chief: Your old man’s in a radio?


 

Uncle Charlie: [to JR] This is when you push. Right now. This is when you bet it all. When you got nothing.


 

JR: So how did you end up in Venice?
Wesley: Studied hard. I got good grades. My old man said, “Pick a city.” So, my brother used to make me go with him, and watch Don’t Look Now with Donald Sutherland.
JR: Jesus. How old were you?
Wesley: That movie made a man out of me. But it took place in Venice.
JR: First movie was The Exorcist.


 

Sidney: So, what does JR stand for?
JR: It’s a complicated thing. I’ll tell you when I know you better.
Sidney: Is there trauma?
JR: Yes.
Sidney: Father based?


 

Sidney: If you have a father complex, it’s kind of a red flag. Women with father complexes tend to eat a lot. But men get really f***ed-up.
JR: I don’t have a father complex. He’s just a guy on the radio.
Sidney: That’s a relief.


 

Sidney: So, what do you want to be, JR? Other than an emotional mess.
JR: Oh. Other than that? I want to be a writer. I’m going to be a writer.
Sidney: Why a writer?
JR: Ever since I was a kid, I’ve just, I love to read everything I could get my hands on. Every great writer, every great book. I got into Yale to be a lawyer.
Sidney: You don’t look like a lawyer.
JR: I’ll take that as a compliment.
Sidney: You do that.


 

Mom: So you think you’re in love?
JR: Yeah. I think I’m in love.
Mom: She’s a lucky girl.
JR: I don’t know about that.


 

Mom: I don’t know what that means. “Lower-middle-upper”.
Uncle Charlie: It means the people who think they’re rich. The actual rich, you never see. They hide so people won’t kill them.


 

JR: I mean, I just feel like Sidney’s so up here, and I’m so down here.
Mom: No, you have so much to offer her.
JR: No money, no idea what it is I want to do. Besides being a lawyer and suing my father.
Mom: What? That’s not why I want you to be a lawyer. That would be pathological, JR. It’s not the worst thing if the man puts the woman on a slight pedestal.
Uncle Charlie: Very slight.


 

Mom: Falling in love is a blessing. Try to enjoy it. If you get your heart broken, you’ll live.


 

Sidney: I’m never going to train you out of it, am I?
JR: Train me out of what?
Sidney: Thinking things are more than what they are.


 

Future JR: There wasn’t a thing Sidney wouldn’t do or try. She taught me about love, and that semester just flew by for both of us. I wasn’t naive. I knew that my first great love
probably wouldn’t be my last. But there was something about her, something different, something that gave me hope.


 

Sidney: [to JR] I’m feeling weird. I’m sorry I brought you for Christmas. I think I’m seeing someone else.


 

Sidney’s Dad: What do you study?
JR: You know, Phil, I study people. I think I’ve always studied people. And this is great.
Sidney: JR is a writer.
Sidney’s Dad: I mean, what do you study at Yale?
JR: Usual f***ing bulls**t. My mother wants me to be a lawyer.
Sidney’s Mom: She sounds like a very intelligent woman, if a trifle optimistic.


 

Future JR: And that was it, dumped in Connecticut. I’d spend the next two years just focusing on making something of myself. Being somebody. Somebody Sidney would want back.


 

Priest: What’s your main trouble?
JR: I’m just a poor boy who wants a rich girl.
Priest: That’s been done.
JR: She’s not really rich. She’s lower-upper-middle.
Priest: Well, you never see the real rich. They’re invisible.


 

Priest: Do you have plans in your head to make something of yourself, go and sweep her away?
JR: Maybe.
Priest: If she loved you, she’d take you poor. Heard it here first.
JR: I’ve heard it from someone else. Also, the Gatsby thing, you know?
Priest: Well, what’s your main theme? Since it isn’t really that one.
JR: The absent father. You know that one?
Priest: Sure, how else do you think people become priests?


 

Sidney: I’m getting agita.
JR: Is agita the root of agitation?
Sidney: No. Men who want things are.
JR: You know, I think you think I want something that I’m not thinking. Unless, you want me to think it.
Sidney: I’m seeing someone.
JR: You got to be f***ing kidding me!


 

Future JR: [referring to Sidney] I can’t explain it, really, why I kept going back. She just had my number.


 

Wesley: Alright, so she gets agita, whatever that is.
JR: It’s Yiddish for nerves.
Wesley: Alright, so she gets that, and she needs her space, and her time, and all that, right? So I have a question for you. What do you need? Look, I’m not a genius. It’s an obvious question.
JR: What do I want? I want to be a writer, but I suck.


 

The Voice: [over phone] Hey, I’m glad you made it. I was worried. College ain’t for everybody.
JR: It was for mom, but you got her pregnant.
The Voice: Yes, well, we all have to paddle our own canoe, JR. Seems like your mother’s got you paddling hers a little bit.
JR: I think she’s been paddling both of ours for a very long time.
The Voice: Maybe.


 

Mom: What law schools are you looking at?
JR: None. I’m going to be a novelist.
Mom: Where you going to live?
JR: At Grandpa’s, like everybody. We all go to Grandpa’s.


 

Sidney: We can be friends. Just not romantic or sexual.
JR: That sounds appealing.


 

Sidney: You contacted The New York Times?
JR: Would you like it if I was at The Times?
Sidney: I love you anyway. I just don’t want a relationship.
JR: But you have a relationship. It’s just not romantic or sexual.


 

Uncle Charlie: So, Sidney saw you in your reduced condition. But she was checking up on you. She was trying to see if you had your s**t together.
JR: I don’t even have any s**t to get together. I don’t. I don’t have anything.


 

Uncle Charlie: What did I tell you about the male sciences? Remember that?
JR: Yeah.
Uncle Charlie: Right? Have a job.
JR: Right.
Uncle Charlie: Have a car.
JR: Yeah.
Uncle Charlie: Put all your s**t in it.
JR: I don’t have any of that.
Uncle Charlie: So you can be independent, and then somebody might want you. And if they don’t, you get the f*** out of there.


 

Uncle Charlie: So do not write to her and tell her that you’ve improved your position, because that will take away all the power and the majesty of her finding this out for herself.
JR: I already did.
Uncle Charlie: Can you f***ing come to me with this s**t, please? Do not tell her you want her back. Did you say that?
JR: Yeah.
Uncle Charlie: Did you go and stare up at the building, like in the rain and s**t?
JR: [unconvincingly] No.


 

Uncle Charlie: JR, this girl has abandoned you how many times? If someone abandons you, what does that tell you? You, of all people.
JR: She just needs time, you know?
Uncle Charlie: Yeah, I think you’re missing a central fact, which is that women decide if they want something, or if they don’t, and it becomes very obvious very fast.


 

Wesley: I’m telling you, JR, I promise you, whether you write at The Times, whether you write this book, Sidney will still never call you out of the blue to get you back. Okay, and do you know why?
JR: Why? Why won’t Sidney ever call me, genius who knows everything?
Wesley: Because she’s dumped you like nine times. Because she doesn’t love you, man. Because she’s getting married on Memorial Day. In retrospect, what you do next is going to be important.


 

Young JR: [as JR is dreaming talking to his younger self] So you’re just a f***up.
JR: I’m not a f***up.
Young JR: Yeah, you are. And you come from a long line of f***ups.
JR: That’s true.
Young JR: You want to know what I think?
JR: Probably not.
Young JR: I think you should go back to sleep, wake up in twenty years, tell everybody how good you could’ve been. That’s what I think.


 

Uncle Charlie: [to JR, referring to his father] He shows up. Comes into the bar. Orders a well Scotch neat. Never order a well Scotch. Never order it neat. It’s a signal that you’re reaching the end. And in his case, this was twenty years ago. And then I loaned the guy thirty bucks, which I have yet to see since. And over all these years, all I really remember about him is that f***ing voice. I mean, the set of pipes. As I get older, I wonder, you know, like what was the f***ing problem?


 

The Voice: [to JR] Man, you can’t shut your daddy up. What are you going to do without the bad guy in your life? You’re set. And they’ll all say that you never had a chance.


 

Officer James: Sorry about your father.
JR: He’s not my father.
Officer James: You don’t get to pick.
JR: Maybe.


 

Uncle Charlie: Your mother’s settled, you know? Selling insurance. Somebody’s got to sell insurance, right?
JR: Yeah.
Uncle Charlie: Some of them are happy, probably. But I think Yale mostly took care of her anxieties. It’s not my place to judge what she’s looking for, but, you know, I’d say she’s alright.


 

JR: I’m going to Manhattan. It’s time. Wesley has a place.
Uncle Charlie: Well, if you’re going to be a writer, you got to get a job.
JR: Yeah. I’m not sure what that is yet.
Uncle Charlie: Insurance is taken. It’s America. Pick something.


 

Future JR: When you set out to be a lawyer, you go to law school. You get a diploma for your effort. You pass the bar. In the text, it declares you officially a lawyer. That’s how most jobs work. But you’re a writer the minute you say you are. Nobody gives you a diploma. You have to prove it, at least to yourself. On that day, driving to Manhattan, stashies in my wallet, Uncle Charlie’s car, that’s the moment I knew I was a writer. And just my luck, publishing was headed toward memoir.

 


 

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