American Psycho Quotes & Sayings

I had all the characteristics of a human being - flesh, blood, skin, hair - but my depersonalization was so intense, had gone so deep, that my normal ability to feel compassion had been eradicated, the victim of a slow, purposeful erasure. I was simply imitating reality, a rough resemblance of a human being, with only a dim corner of my mind functioning — Bret Easton Ellis

I did not have a mobile phone in 1993. No one did, except the occasional banker or Hollywood star seeming smart, or the main character in 'American Psycho.' In 1993, every day was 'let's get lost.' I could walk Greenwich Village for hours and not be found. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

I glance at the book he's holding. It is American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis. There is a deep, dark irony to this and I wonder if he realises it or not. I want to ask him why he's bought it but what if he's bought it as a text book? — Sarah Alderson

Do you know what Ed Gein said about women?"
[ ... ]
"'When I see a pretty girl walking down the street I think two things. One part of me wants to take her out and talk to her and be real nice and sweet and treat her right.'" I stop finish my J&B in one swallow.
"What does the other part of him think?" Hamlin asks tentatively.
"What her head would look like on a stick — Bret Easton Ellis

Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it'd find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it.
[Q&A with Larry McCaffery, Review of Contemporary Fiction, Summer 1993, Vol. 13.2] — David Foster Wallace

It wasn't until the show was almost over that I figured out what it was: the crack above my David Onica that I had asked the doorman to tell the superintendent to fix. On my way out this morning, I stopped at the front desk, about to complain to the doorman, when I was confronted with a NEW doorman, my age but balding and homely and FAT. Three glazed jelly doughnuts AND two steaming cups of extra-dark HOT CHOCOLATE lay on the desk in front of him beside a copy of the Post opened to the comics and it struck me that I was infinitely better-looking, more successful and richer than this poor bastard would ever be and so with a passing rush of sympathy I smiled and nodded a curt though not impolite good morning without lodging a complaint. — Bret Easton Ellis

Duncan Sheik and I are trucking along on 'American Psycho,' which is sort of the anti-Superman, you know? But it's a lot of fun, too, in a much, much darker way, obviously. — Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa

[American Psycho] is throughout numbingly boring, and for much of the time deeply and extremely disgusting. Not interesting-disgusting, but disgusting-disgusting: sickening, cheaply sensationalist, pointless except as a way of earning its author some money and notoriety. — Andrew Motion

One of the major mistakes people make is that they think manners are only the expression of happy ideas. There's a whole range of behavior that can be expressed in a mannerly way. That's what civilization is all about - doing it in a mannerly and not an antagonistic way. One of the places we went wrong was the naturalistic, Rousseauean movement of the Sixties in which people said, "Why can't you just say what's on your mind?" In civilization there have to be some restraints. If we followed every impulse, we'd be killing one another. — Judith Martin

I recently spoke at a university where a student told me it was such a shame that Nigerian men were physical abusers like the father character in my novel. I told him that I had recently read a novel called American Psycho,and that it was a shame that young Americans were serial murderers. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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

I felt lethal, on the verge of frenzy. My nightly bloodlust overflowed into my days and I had to leave the city. My mask of sanity was a victim of impending slippage. This was the bone season for me and I needed a vacation. — Bret Easton Ellis

I remain a fan of my friend Bret Easton Ellis's 'American Psycho.' I think as a book about New York in the '80s it was pretty excellent. — Jay McInerney

What do you think I do?" And frisky too.
"A model?" She shrugs. "An actor?"
"No," I say. "Flattering, but no."
"Well?"
"I'm into, oh, murders and executions mostly. It depends." I shrug.
"Do you like it?" she asks, unfazed.
"Um ... It depends. Why?" I take a bit of sorbet.
"Well, most guys I know who work in mergers and acquisitions don't really like it," she says.
"That's not what I said," I say, adding a forced smiled, finishing my J&B. "Oh, forget it. — Bret Easton Ellis

Less Than Zero and American Psycho were both really different, so I was just like, Okay, he's just really doesn't have anything pleasant to say, you know? But I get it. I get at least why it's difficult and what he's really doing. — Shannyn Sossamon

I have to return some videotapes — Bret Easton Ellis

ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE is scrawled in blood red lettering on the side of the Chemical Bank near the corner of Eleventh and First and is in print large enough to be seen from the backseat of the cab as it lurches forward in the traffic leaving Wall Street and just as Timothy Price notices the words a bus pulls up, the advertisement for Les Miserables on its side blocking his view, but Price who is with Piece and Piece and twenty-six doesn't seem to care because he tells the driver he will give him five dollars to turn up the radio, "Be My Baby" on WYNN, and the driver, black, not American, does so. — Bret Easton Ellis

There is a moment of sheer panic when I realize that Paul's apartment overlooks the park ... and is obviously more expensive than mine. — Patrick Bateman