Patrick Bateman > Patrick's Quotes

“I have to return some videotapes”
― Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho

“Is evil something you are? Or is it something you do?”
― Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho

“I laugh maniacally, then take a deep breath and touch my chest- expecting a heart to be thumping quickly, impatiently, but there's nothing there, not even a beat.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho

“The seals stupidly dive off rocks into swirling black water, barking mindlessly. The zookeepers feed them dead fish. A crowd gathers around the tank, mostly adults, a few accompanied by children. On the seals' tank a plaque warns: COINS CAN KILL——IF SWALLOWED, COINS CAN LODGE IN AN ANIMAL'S STOMACH AND CAUSE ULCERS, INFECTIONS AND DEATH. DO NOT THROW COINS IN THE POOL. So what do I do? Toss a handful of change into the tank when none of the zookeepers are watching. It's not the seals I hate——it's the audience's enjoyment of them that bothers me.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho

“Hip," I murmur, remembering last night, how I lost it completely in a stall at Nell's---my mouth foaming, all I could think about were insects, lots of insects, and running at pigeons, foaming at the mouth and running at pigeons.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho

“How could she ever understand that there isn't any way could be disappointed since I no longer find anything worth looking forward to?”
― Bret Easton Ellis

“At Columbus Circle, a juggler wearing a trench cloak and top hat, who is usually at this location afternoons and who calls himself Stretch Man, performs in front of a small, uninterested crowd; though I smell prey, and he seems worthy of my wrath, I move on in search of a less dorky target. Though if he’d been a mime, odds are he’d already be dead.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho

“It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“At the time, my life just seemed too complete, and maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“Stood in firelight, sweltering. Bloodstain on chest like map of violent new continent. Felt cleansed. Felt dark planet turn under my feet and knew what cats know that makes them scream like babies in night.

Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever and we are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later. Born from oblivion; bear children, hell-bound as ourselves, go into oblivion. There is nothing else.

Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them. Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world.

Was Rorschach.

Does that answer your Questions, Doctor?”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen

“Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says," Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up. "Man bursts into tears. Says," But doctor...I am Pagliacci.”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen

“We're all puppets, Laurie. I'm just a puppet who can see the strings.”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen

“Once you realize what a joke everything is, being the Comedian is the only thing that makes sense.”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen

“I sat on the bed. I looked at the Rorschach blot. I tried to make it look like a spreading tree, shadows pooled beneath it, but it didn't. It looked more like a dead cat I once found, the fat, glistening grubs writhing blindly, squirming over each other, frantically tunneling away from the light. But even that isn't the real horror. The horror is this: in the end, it is simply a picture of empty meaningless blackness.”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen

“Blake understood. Treated it like a joke, but he understood. He saw the cracks in society, saw the little men in masks trying to hold it together...he saw the true face of the twentieth century and chose to become a reflection of it, a parody of it. No one else saw the joke. That's why he was lonely.”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen

“There’s no use in denying it: this has been a bad week. I’ve started drinking my own urine.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho

“You're all trying to figure out what went wrong inside my head. Fucking idiots. You'll never crack the code that's inside my head. You'll never get into my castle. You'll never even get past the gate.”
― Brent Runyon

“This means that I don't have to run faster than the psychotic-maniac-vampire-cannibal, I just have to run faster than whoever is with me when the psychotic-maniac-vampire-cannibal starts chasing us.”
― Jim Benton, Okay, So Maybe I Do Have Superpowers

“I think a lot of psychopaths are just geniuses who drove so fast that they lost control.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“If all of your friends are morons is it a
felony, a misdemeanor or an act of God if
you blow their fucking heads off with a
thirty-eight magnum?”
― Bret Easton Ellis

“Genius - the pursuit of madness.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Glory: I look around at this world you're so eager to be a part of and all I see is six billion lunatics looking for the fastest ride out. Who's not crazy? Look around, everyone's drinking, smoking, shooting up, shooting each other, or just plain screwing their brains out 'cause they don't want 'em anymore. I'm crazy? Honey, I'm the original one-eyed chicklet in the kingdom of the blind, 'cause at least I admit the world makes me nuts.”
― Douglas Petrie

“An encouraged person will eventually get his drive from encouragement; he becomes more dependent. A person that never really receives encouragement learns to move out of spite; he becomes more independent.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Well, Daddy, I used to believe that artists went crazy in the process of creating the beautiful works of art that kept society sane. Nowadays, though, artists make intentionally ugly art that’s only supposed to reflect society rather than inspire it. So I guess we’re all loony together now, loony rats in the shithouse of commercialism.”
― Tom Robbins, Skinny Legs and All

“His thoughts inhabit a different plane from those of ordinary men; the simplest interpretation of that is to call him crazy.”
― Juliet Marillier, The Dark Mirror

“I like living in my head because in there, everyone is kind and innocent. Once you start integrating yourself into the world, you realize that people are nasty, mean creatures. They're worse than zombies. People try to crush your soul and destroy your happiness, but zombies just want to have a little nibble of your brain.”
― J. Cornell Michel, Jordan's Brains: A Zombie Evolution

“One tended to lose one’s bearings in the presence of willful and persistent acts of craziness, and the more gentle the act, the crazier it seemed, as if rage and violence, being closer to the norm, were easier to accommodate.”
― Tom Robbins, Skinny Legs and All

“Many a person over the years has tried- both successfully and unsuccessfully, to get rid of their inner demons. Those who are successful are deemed artists, those who are not are call dreamers at best and lunatics at worse. But where exactly resides that line on which two worlds collide? Does somebody know? Is somebody fit to tell? Who's to say that those deemed lunatics are not just successes on the making? Who says that those who claim to be just a tad bit crazy are not just as crazy as those that had completely lost it? Maybe, and bear with me here…everyone is as crazy as the one before them and the next one could ever possibly be. Maybe at the end- it's just that some have mastered creating a façade of calmness and collection while others don't bother going through all that trouble anymore, if they ever did. Perhaps we all have demons…it's just that some people have demons far more toxic and difficult to ignore than others.”
― Eiry Nieves

“Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.”
― Narcotics Anonymous

“The reason I talk to myself is because I’m the only one whose answers I accept.”
― George Carlin