Psycho Quotes

[last lines]
Norma Bates: [voiceover in police custody, as Norman is thinking] It's sad, when a mother has to speak the words that condemn her own son. But I couldn't allow them to believe that I would commit murder. They'll put him away now, as I should have years ago. He was always bad, and in the end he intended to tell them I killed those girls and that man... as if I

could do anything but just sit and stare, like one of his stuffed birds. They know I can't move a finger, and I won't. I'll just sit here and be quiet, just in case they do... suspect me. They're probably watching me. Well, let them. Let them see what kind of a person I am. I'm not even going to swat that fly. I hope they are watching... they'll see. They'll see and they'll know, and they'll say,

"Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly..."

Norman Bates: Where are you going?
[Marion looks uncomfortable]
Norman Bates: I didn't mean to pry.
Marion Crane: I'm looking for a private island.
Norman Bates: What are you running away from?
Marion Crane: Why do you ask that?
Norman Bates: People never

really run away from anything. The rain didn't last long, did it? You know what I think? I think that we're all in our private traps, clamped in them, and none of us can ever get out. We scratch and we claw, but only at the air, only at each other, and for all of it, we never budge an inch.
Marion Crane: Sometimes we deliberately step into those traps.
Norman

Bates: I was born in mine. I don't mind it anymore.
Marion Crane: Oh, but you should. You should mind it.
Norman Bates: Oh, I do...
[laughs]
Norman Bates: But I say I don't.
Marion Crane: You know... if anyone ever talked to me the way I heard... the way she spoke to you...

Norman Bates: Sometimes... when she talks to me like that... I feel I'd like to go up there... and curse her... and-and-and leave her forever! Or at least defy her! But I know I can't. She's ill.

Dr. Fred Richmond: Like I said... the mother... Now to understand it the way I understood it, hearing it from the mother... that is, from the mother half of Norman's mind... you have to go back ten years, to the time when Norman murdered his mother and her lover. Now he was already dangerously disturbed, had been ever since his father died. His mother was a clinging, demanding

woman, and for years the two of them lived as if there was no one else in the world. Then she met a man... and it seemed to Norman that she 'threw him over' for this man. Now that pushed him over the line and he killed 'em both. Matricide is probably the most unbearable crime of all... most unbearable to the son who commits it. So he had to erase the crime, at least in his own mind. He stole her

corpse. A weighted coffin was buried. He hid the body in the fruit cellar. Even treated it to keep it as well as it would keep. And that still wasn't enough. She was there! But she was a corpse. So he began to think and speak for her, give her half his life, so to speak. At times he could be both personalities, carry on conversations. At other times, the mother half took over completely. Now he

was never all Norman, but he was often only mother. And because he was so pathologically jealous of her, he assumed that she was jealous of him. Therefore, if he felt a strong attraction to any other woman, the mother side of him would go wild.
[Points finger at Lila Crane]
Dr. Fred Richmond: When he met your sister, he was touched by her... aroused by her. He wanted

her. That set off the 'jealous mother' and 'mother killed the girl'! Now after the murder, Norman returned as if from a deep sleep. And like a dutiful son, covered up all traces of the crime he was convinced his mother had committed!

Marion Crane: Wouldn't it be better if you put her... some place...?
[Marion does not finish the sentence as she thinks of the right thing to say. Norman leans forward with a conserned look on his face]
Norman Bates: You mean an institution? A madhouse?
Marion Crane: No, I didn't mean it like...
Norman

Bates: [suddenly angry] People always call a madhouse "someplace", don't they? "Put her in someplace!"
Marion Crane: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound so uncaring.
Norman Bates: What do you know about caring? Have you ever seen the inside of one of those places? The laughing, and the tears, and those cruel eyes studying you? My mother THERE?

[subdued tone]
Norman Bates: Oh, but she's harmless. She's as harmless as one of those stuffed birds.
Marion Crane: I'm sorry. I felt that... well, from what you told me about your mother is that she might be hurting you. I meant well.
Norman Bates: People always mean well. They cluck their thick tongues, and shake

their heads and suggest, oh, so very delicately!

Norman Bates: Well, a son is a poor substitute for a lover.
Marion Crane: Why don't you go away?
Norman Bates: What, to a private island like you?
Marion Crane: No, not like me.
Norman Bates: I couldn't do that. Who would look after her? The fire in her fireplace would go out. It would

be cold and damp up there like a grave. If you love sombody, you wouldn't leave them even if they treat your badly. Do you understand? I don't hate my mother. I hate at what she's become. I hate her illness.

Sam Loomis: You mean the old woman I saw tonight wasn't Mrs. Bates?
Sheriff Al Chambers: Now wait a minute, Sam, are you *sure* you saw an old woman?
Sam Loomis: Yes! In the house behind the motel! I called and I pounded, but she just ignored me!
Sheriff Al Chambers: You mean to tell me you saw Norman Bates'

mother?
Lila Crane: It had to be - because Arbogast said so too. And the young man wouldn't let him see her because she was too ill.
Sheriff Al Chambers: Well, if the woman up there is Mrs. Bates... who's that woman buried out in Greenlawn Cemetery?

Norma Bates: [voice-over] No! I tell you no! I won't have you bringing some young girl in for supper! By candlelight, I suppose, in the cheap, erotic fashion of young men with cheap, erotic minds!
Norman Bates: [voice-over] Mother, please...!
Norma Bates: [voice-over] And then what? After supper? Music? Whispers?

Norman Bates: [voice-over] Mother, she's just a stranger. She's hungry, and it's raining out!
Norma Bates: [voice-over] "Mother, she's just a stranger"! As if men don't desire strangers! As if... ohh, I refuse to speak of disgusting things, because they disgust me! You understand, boy? Go on, go tell her she'll not be appeasing her ugly appetite with MY

food... or my son! Or do I have tell her because you don't have the guts! Huh, boy? You have the guts, boy?
Norman Bates: [voice-over] Shut up! Shut up!

Officer: He's a tranvestite!
Dr. Fred Richmond: Ah, not exactly. A man who dresses in women's clothing in order to achieve a sexual change, or satisfaction, is a transvestite. But in Norman's case, he was simply doing everything possible to keep alive the illusion of his mother being alive. And when reality came too close, when danger or desire threatened

that illusion - he dressed up, even to a cheap wig he bought. He'd walk about the house, sit in her chair, speak in her voice. He tried to be his mother! And, uh... now he is.
[pause]
Dr. Fred Richmond: Now, that's what I meant when I said I got the story from the mother. You see, when the mind houses two personalities, there's always a conflict, a battle. In

Norman's case, the battle is over... and the dominant personality has won.
Sheriff Al Chambers: And the forty thousand dollars? Who got that?
Dr. Fred Richmond: The swamp. These were crimes of passion, not profit.
Officer: [enters room with blanket on arm] He feels a chill. Can I bring him this blanket?
Dr. Fred

Richmond: [lighting cigarette] Oh, sure.
Police Chief James Mitchell: All right.

Norman Bates: You-you eat like a bird.
Marion Crane: [Looking around at the stuffed birds while eating] And you'd know, of course.
Norman Bates: No, not really. Anyway, I hear the expression 'eats like a bird' - it-it's really a
[stammers]
Norman Bates: fals-fals-fals-falsity. Because birds really eat a

tremendous lot. But -I-I don't really know anything about birds. My hobby is stuffing things. You know - taxidermy.