Image via Complex Original
Since its publication 25 years ago, Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho has remained one of the most graphic novels ever written. Its brutal depiction of wealthy Wall Street banker Patrick Bateman, who relentlessly butchers and tortures everyone who comes across his path, continues to shock and thrill readers.
Told in the first person, American Psycho shocked the world when it was first published in 1991, thanks in large part to its explicit dialogue. For the controversial book's 25th anniversary this month, we revisit Bateman's most spine-tingling quotes.
“I have to return some videotapes.”
Perhaps the book’s most iconic line, antihero Patrick Bateman repeatedly says he needs to return some videotapes to the store; it demonstrates how monotonous his life is, as well as the extent to which his identity is utterly defined by material possessions.
“All it comes down to is this: I feel like shit, but look great.”
As we read countless pages describing Bateman's elaborate beauty routine, which includes some of the best and most expensive lotions and creams, it becomes clear he's self-obsessed. Bateman's narcissistic behavior is also evident when he agonizes over his appearance during and after butchering up his latest victim.
“No I’m not,” I whisper to myself. “I’m a fucking evil psychopath.”
Bateman getting called the wrong name is one way Ellis shows that people don't often pay attention to Bateman and what he's really saying to them; they either blindly agree or ignore him completely. In a world defined by the superficial, conversations offer the guise of connection, but are really just empty, meaningless exchanges.
“I’m into, uh, well, murders and executions, mostly.”
Bateman slips this line into casual conversation with someone at a nightclub, who mishears it as "mergers and acquisitions." Once again, this demonstrates how tenuous his relationships with other people are.
“The things I could do to you with a coat hanger.”
Bateman delivers this line during a violent scene in which he's acting out his brutal fantasies against women. It takes place before one of the most graphic moments in American Psycho, when Bateman mutilates a sex worker he has hired for the night with a rusted metal hanger, a dark nod to the former practice of using coat-hangers for underground abortions.
"I feel lethal, on the verge of frenzy. I think my mask of sanity is about to slip.”
Ellis often has Bateman alternate between discussing his looks and his murderous urges to illustrate how much he values his appearance, but how little he values human life.
The full quote reads as follows: “I have all the characteristics of a human being: blood, flesh, skin, hair; but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust. Something horrible is happening inside of me, and I don’t know why. My nightly bloodlust has overflown into my days. I feel lethal, on the verge of frenzy. I think my mask of sanity is about to slip."
"I simply am not there.”
Bateman has no real sense of who he is, and struggles to contain his latent rage. When the killer does release it, he commits frenzied acts of violence against anyone in his vicinity: animals, the homeless, sex workers, and co-workers.
“There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction," Bateman says. "But there is no real me: only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable...I simply am not there."
"Whitney Houston is one of the warmest and most complex and altogether satisfying rhythm-and-blues records."
One of the weirdest chapters from American Psycho is dedicated to the rise of Whitney Houston. Ellis punctuates his novel with 1980s pop culture references not only to remind us of the setting, but also to show Bateman’s more human side. Our antihero may be leading a secret serial-killing life, but he's also an average guy with a penchant for mainstream music.
“I’ve forgotten who I had lunch with earlier, and even more important, where.”
Names get blurred, changed, or completely forgotten throughout the novel, and Bateman often meets people from his office or friends of friends who call him by the wrong name. Ellis plays with this, demonstrating just how superficial and self-involved people are in the greedy, material-obsessed 1980s. Clothing, networks, and what American Express level you're on—rather than personality—form the basis of a person's identity.
"In fact some, if they noticed my absence, might feel an odd, indefinable sense of relief."
Bateman makes this conclusion after considering how inconsequential he is in the world. And prior to this line, he says, “While taking a piss in the men’s room, I stare into a thin, web-like crack above the urinal’s handle and think to myself that if I were to disappear into that crack, say somehow miniaturize and slip into it, the odds are good that no one would notice I was gone. No…one…would…care."
