Roseanne monologue from "Into That Goodnight"

While I might not have agreed with every aspect of the show or Roseanne's own views, this monologue really made me understand what the series was all about, and made it one of my personal favorites.

I especially like her thoughts on creativity and writing!

From episode "Into That Goodnight" part 2

Everyone wonders where creative people get their inspiration.
Actually, I’ve found, it’s all around you.

Take Leon, for instance. Leon is not really as cool as I made him. He’s the only gay guy I know who belongs to the Elks Club.
Then there’s Scott. He really is a probate lawyer I met about a year ago, and introduced to Leon. I guess I didn’t get too creative there.

A lot of kids have called my son a nerd. But, as I told him, they called Steven Spielberg a nerd, too. A lot of times, nerds are really artists who just listen to the beat of a different drummer.

My mom came from a generation where women were supposed to be submissive about everything. I never bought into that, and I wish Mom hadn’t either. I wish she had made different choices. So, I think that’s why I made her gay. I wanted her to have some sense of herself as a woman. Oh yeah, and she’s nuts.

My sister in real life, unlike my mother, is gay. She always told me she was gay, but for some reason I always pictured her with a man. She’s been my rock, and I would not have made it this far without her.

I guess Nancy’s kinda my hero, too. Cause she got out of a terrible marriage, and found a great spiritual strength. I don’t know what happened to that husband of hers, but in my book I sent him into outer space.

When Becky brought David home a few years ago, I thought “This is wrong!” He was much more Darlene’s type. When Darlene met Mark, I thought he went better with Becky. I guess I was wrong. But, I still think they’d be more compatible the other way around. So, in my writing, I did what any good mother would do. I fixed it.

I lost Dan last year, when he had his heart attack. He’s still the first thing I think about when I wake up. And the last thing I think about before I go to sleep. I miss him.

Dan and I always felt that it was our responsibility as parents to improve the lives of our children by 50% over our own. And we did. We didn’t hit our children, as we were hit. We didn’t demand their unquestioning silence. And we didn’t teach our daughters to sacrifice more than our sons. As a modern wife, I walked a tightrope between tradition and progress, and usually, I failed by one outsider's standards or another. But I figured out that neither winning nor losing count for women like they do for men. We women are the ones who transform everything we touch. And nothing on earth is higher than that.

My writing’s really what got me through the last year after Dan died. I mean, at first I felt so betrayed, as if he had left me for another woman. When you’re a blue-collar woman, and your husband dies, it takes away your whole sense of security. So, I began writing about having all the money in the world. And I imagined myself going to spas, and swanky New York parties, just like the people on TV, where nobody has any real problems, and everything is solved within 30 minutes. I tried to imagine myself as Mary Richards, Jeannie, That Girl. But I was so angry I was more like a female Steven Seagal wanting to fight the whole world.

For a while I lost myself in food, and a depression so deep that I couldn’t even get out of bed. Until I saw that my family needed me to pull through, so that they could pull through.

One day I actually imagined being with another man. But then I felt so guilty, I had to pretend that it was for some altruistic reason.

And then Darlene had the baby, and it almost died. I snapped out of the mourning immediately, and all of my life energy turned into choosing life. In choosing life, I realized that my dreams of being a writer wouldn’t just come true, I had to do the work. And as I wrote about my life, I relived it, and whatever I didn’t like, I re-arranged.
I made a commitment to finish my story, even if I had to write in the basement, in the middle of the night, while everyone else was asleep. But, the more I wrote, the more I understood myself and why I had made the choices I made, and that was the real jackpot.

I learned that dreams don’t work without action. I learned that no one can stop me, but me. I learned that love is stronger than hate.
And most important, I learned that God does exist. He, and/or She, is right inside you, underneath the pain, the sorrow, and the shame.

I think I’ll be a lot better now that this book is done.