American Psycho Book Quotes

So…” Kimball looks at his book helplessly. “There’s nothing you can tell me about Paul Owen?” “Well.” I sigh. “He led what I suppose was an orderly life, I guess. “ Really stumped, I offer, “He...ate a balanced diet.

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?

On my way over to Park Avenue to find a cab I pass an ugly, homeless bum-- a member of the genetic underclass-- and when he softly pleads for change, for "anything," I noticed the Barnes & Noble book bag that sits next to him on the steps of the church he's begging on and I can't help but smirk, out loud, "Oh right, like YOU read...,

So…” Kimball looks at his book helplessly. “There’s nothing you can tell me about Paul Owen?” “Well.” I sigh. “He led what I suppose was an orderly life, I guess.” Really stumped, I offer, “He… ate a balanced diet.

there were two Patrick Batemans: there was the handsome and socially awkward boy next door whose name no one could remember because he seemed like everybody else—having conformed like everybody else—and there was the nocturnal Bateman who roamed the streets looking for prey, asserting his monstrousness, his individuality. At the end of the ’80s I saw this as an appropriate response to a society obsessed with the surface of things and inclined to ignore anything that even hinted at the darkness lurking below. The novel seemed an accurate summation of the Reagan era, with the Iran-Contra affair being obliquely referenced in the last chapter, and the violence unleashed inside was connected to my frustration, and at least hinted at something real and tangible in this superficial age of surfaces. Because blood and viscera were real, death was real, rape and murder were real—though in the world of American Psycho maybe they weren’t any more real than the fakery of the society being depicted. That was the book’s bleak thesis.

The more I paid attention, the more I noticed just how often 'apathy,' 'lack of feeling,' and the word 'sociopath' were associated with evil. Everywhere. From celebrated books like East of Eden and The Sociopath Next Door to award-winning films like The Silence of The Lambs and American Psycho, the 'sociopath' character composite was almost exclusively reserved for the 'bad' guys (and girls). These one-dimensional portrayals weren't limited to fiction, either. Anytime there was a sensational crime that captured national attention, or a politician who displayed callous indifference for their constituents, even respected journalists would to jump to invoke a diagnosis of 'sociopathy.' This despite having no training or qualifications to do so.

WHO IS- OR WAS- YOUR FAVORITE WRITER? For style and consistency, I would have to say John Updike. No one else in the world writes the way that he does, and very few have enjoyed the longevity of career or employed the breadth of scope that he has. Mailer’s a close second, but they are completely different animals. Bret Easton Ellis, whom I unintentionally left off of my answer to the previous question, is good as well- he creates a goodly number of inimitable situations, and his dexterity of language produces many, many killer lines- lines that belong in any literate person’s lexicon. I would say the same for Jay McInerney as well. But Easton’s output is spotty: every other book is crap. He did Less Than Zero, and that was fucking amazing, and then he did The Rules Of Attraction. After that, he wrote American Psycho- a brilliant but sadly misunderstood book at the time- but the follow-up, Glamorama, sucked horribly. At least, in my humble opinion. After that, I kind of lost interest. If you occasionally throw off a collection of shitty writing, it does affect your credibility when you seek to speak with your constituency about matters of life and death. Fiction is a deadly serious business, and if you’re dry and out of ideas, then just fucking say so and keep working at it until you’re finally writing something that it would be a crime not to let other people read.

Yet this is precisely the advice that William James, dean of American psychologists, gave us years ago, if we would but have listened to him. In his little essay “The Gospel of Relaxation” (collected in his book On Vital Reserves), he said that modern man was too tense, too concerned for results, too anxious (this was in 1899), and that there was a better and easier way: If we wish our trains of ideation and volition to be copious and varied and effective, we must form the habit of freeing them from the inhibitive influence of reflection upon them, of egoistic preoccupation about their results. Such a habit, like other habits, can be formed. Prudence and duty and self-regard, emotions of ambition and emotions of anxiety, have, of course, a needful part to play in our lives. But confine them as far as possible to the occasions when you are making your general resolutions and deciding on your plans of campaign, and keep them out of the details. When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome. Unclamp, in a word, your intellectual and practical machinery, and let it run free; and the service it will do you will be twice as good.

Don’t imagine psychopaths to be monsters with horns. They’re not. They’re people like Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. They’re well camouflaged most of the time. That’s why they fool you so easily.