What did Lionel say?

It sounds like he says something like "That's why they call them 'chippies'. They chip away at your art..." etc. Then, he seems to be suddenly inspired.

It seems like he uses his women to create problems, which in turn, inspire his work.

" You know why they call them chippies? Cause they chip away art your art. At your art form-"
Then he grabs his face though it's full of paint as though the magnitude of his life has hit him

Of course we realize that he has learned a thing. At the end he finds another young muse who he will inevitably drive away and drive nut in the end.

There's an interview with the screenwriter Richard Price in the book Scorsese : A Journey, he says that what happens is that Lionel, an artist who goes through so many women for a brief moment realizes how desperately alone he is, his great loneliness that he tries to fill with art. Basically how old he is, that she's still young and she's leaving him and what that does to him is that he realizes that she didn't mean anything to him as a person. She could have been any other woman and he realizes that he's never going to get any comfort from love.


"Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs." - Nathanael West