Painterly colorful glass marbles arranged along chalk orbital circles on pastel lavender ground.

Original artwork, not a still

Flounder

May I have ten thousand marbles, please?

— Animal House • 1978

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

The speaker makes a very polite request for an enormous number of marbles. The courtesy of 'May I' and 'please' sits comically against the sheer size of the ask, so the line sounds earnest and absurdly greedy at once, as though ten thousand were an ordinary amount.

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