- [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: She needs *me*. It's not as if is she were a maniac, a raving thing. She just goes - a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven't you?
- Marion Crane: Yes. Sometimes just one time can be enough.
- 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.
- Marion Crane: Do you have any vacancies?
- Norman Bates: Oh, we have 12 vacancies. 12 cabins, 12 vacancies.
- 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 concerned 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!
- 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!
- 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?
- Marion Crane: A man should have a hobby.
- Norman Bates: Well, it's - it's more than a hobby. A hobby's supposed to pass the time, not fill it.
- Marion Crane: Is your time so empty?
- Sam Loomis: Bob! Run out and get yourself some lunch, will you?
- Bob Summerfield: Oh, that's okay, Sam, I brought it with me.
- Sam Loomis: Run out and eat it!
- 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.
- 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.
- Officer: And the forty thousand dollars? Who got that?
- Dr. Fred Richmond: The swamp. These were crimes of passion, not profit.
- Officer: [Ted Knight, as the officer who 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.
- Tom Cassidy: I'm buying this house for my baby's wedding present. Forty thousand dollars, cash! Now, that's... not buying happiness. That's just... buying off unhappiness.
- [waves money in front of Marion]
- Tom Cassidy: I never carry more than I can afford to lose! Count 'em.
- Caroline: I declare!
- Tom Cassidy: [staring at Marion] I don't! That's how I get to keep it!
- George Lowery: Tom, uh... cash transactions of this size! Most irregular.
- Hardware store customer: [Looking at can] They tell you what its ingredients are, and how it's guaranteed to exterminate every insect in the world, but they do not tell you whether or not it's painless. And-and I say, insect or man, death should always be painless.
- Sheriff Al Chambers: Your detective told you he couldn't come right back because he was goin' to question Norman Bates' mother. Right?
- Lila Crane: Yes.
- Sheriff Al Chambers: Norman Bates' mother has been dead and buried in Greenlawn Cenetery for the past ten years!
- Eliza Chambers: I helped Norman pick out the dress she was buried in. Periwinkle blue.
- Sheriff Al Chambers: 'Tain't only local history, Sam. It's the only case of murder and suicide on Fairvale ledgers.
- Dr. Fred Richmond: No. I got the whole story - but not from Norman. I got it - from his mother. Norman Bates no longer exists. He only half-existed to begin with. And now, the other half has taken over. Probably for all time.
- Lila Crane: Did he kill my sister?
- Dr. Fred Richmond: Yes, - and no.
- Lila Crane: Look, that old woman, whoever she is, she told Arbogast something. I want her to tell us the same thing.
- Sam Loomis: Hold it, you can't go up there.
- Lila Crane: Why not?
- Sam Loomis: Bates.
- Lila Crane: Then, let's find him. One of us can keep him occupied while the other gets to the old woman.
- Sam Loomis: You'll never be able to hold him still even if he doesn't want to be held. And, I don't like you going into that house alone.
- Lila Crane: I can handle a sick old woman!
- California Charlie: It's the first time the customer ever high-pressured the salesman. I figure roughly... your car plus seven hundred dollars.
- Marion Crane: Seven hundred dollars?
- California Charlie: You always got time to argue money, huh?
- Sam Loomis: I've been doing all the talking so far, haven't I? I thought it was the people who were alone most of the time who did all the talking when they got the chance. Here you are doing all the listening. You are alone, aren't you?
- Norman Bates: [nodding] Hm-hmm.
- Sam Loomis: Would drive me crazy.
- Norman Bates: I think that would be a rather extreme reaction, don't you?
- Sam Loomis: Just an expression. What I meant was, I'd do just about anything to get away, wouldn't you?
- Norman Bates: No.
- Norman Bates: [voice-over] Now mother, I'm going to uh, bring something up...
- Norma Bates: [voice-over] Haha... I am sorry, boy, but you do manage to look ludicrous when you give me orders.
- Norman Bates: [voice-over] Please, mother.
- Norma Bates: [voice-over] No! I will not hide in the fruit cellar! Ha! You think I'm fruity, huh? I'm staying right here. This is my room and no one will drag me out of it, least of all my big, bold son!
- Norman Bates: [voice-over] They'll come now, mother! He came after the girl, and now someone will come after him. Please mother, it's just for a few days, just for a few days so they won't find you!
- Norma Bates: [voice-over] "Just for a few days"? In that dark, dank fruit cellar? No! You hid me there once, boy, and you'll not do it again, not ever again; now get out! I told you to get out, boy.
- Norman Bates: [voice-over] I'll carry you, mother.
- Norma Bates: [voice-over] Norman! What do you think you're doing? Don't you touch me, don't! NORMAN! Put me down, put me down, I can walk on my own...
- Milton Arbogast: Now, if this girl, Marion Crane, were here - you wouldn't be hiding her would you?
- Norman Bates: No.
- Milton Arbogast: Not even if she paid you?
- Norman Bates: No.
- Milton Arbogast: Lets just say, just for the sake of argument, that she wanted you to gallantly protect her, you'd know that you were being used. That you wouldn't be made a fool of, would you?
- Norman Bates: Well, I'm not a fool. And I'm not capable of being fooled! Not even by a woman.
- Marion Crane: Oh, we can see each other. We can even have dinner but respectably in my house with my mother's picture on the mantel and my sister helping me broil a big steak for three.
- Sam Loomis: And after the steak, do we send Sister to the movies? Turn mama's picture to the wall?
- [first lines]
- Sam Loomis: You never did eat your lunch, did you?
- Marion Crane: [on the bed in her underwear] I better get back to the office. These extended lunch hours give my boss excess acid.
- Sam Loomis: Why don't you call your boss and tell him you're taking the rest of the afternoon off? It's Friday anyway - and hot.
- Marion Crane: What do I do with my free afternoon? Walk you to the airport?
- Sam Loomis: Well, we could laze around here a while longer.
- Marion Crane: Checking out time is 3 P.M. Hotels of this sort are interested in you when you come in, but when your time is up... oh Sam, I hate having to be with you in a place like this.
- Sam Loomis: Married couples deliberately spend occasional night in a cheap hotels.
- Marion Crane: When you're married you can do - a lot of things - deliberately.
- Caroline: [taking pill bottle out of purse] I've got something - not aspirin. My mother's doctor gave them to me the day of my wedding. Teddy was furious when he found out I had taken tranquilizers!
- Marion Crane: [applying lipstick] Any calls?
- Caroline: Teddy called me - my mother called to see if Teddy called. Oh, your sister called to say she's going to Tucson to do some buying and she'll be gone the whole weekend, and...
- California Charlie: [Marion is imagining various conversations between the people she believes will be looking for her] Heck, Officer, that was the first time I ever saw the customer high-pressure the salesman! Somebody chasin' her?
- Highway Patrol officer: I better have a look at those papers, Charlie.
- California Charlie: She look like the wrong-one to you?
- Highway Patrol officer: Acted like one.
- California Charlie: The only funny thing, she paid me seven hundred dollars in cash.
- Caroline: [Marion imagines another conversation] Yes, Mr. Lowery?
- George Lowery: Caroline? Marion still isn't in?
- Caroline: No, Mr. Lowery. But then, she's always a bit late on Monday mornings.
- George Lowery: Buzz me the minute she comes in. Then call her sister - if no one's answering at the house.
- Caroline: [Marion imagines the conversation later resuming] I called her sister, Mr. Lowery, where she works, - the Music Makers Music Store, you know, - and she doesn't know where Marion is any more than we do.
- George Lowery: You'd better run out to the house. She may be, well - unable to answer the phone.
- Caroline: Her sister's going to do that. She's as worried as we are.
- George Lowery: [Marion imagines Lowery speaking to her sister Lila] No, I haven't the faintest idea. As I said, I last saw your sister when she left the office on Friday. She said she didn't feel well and wanted to leave early; I said she could. That was the last I saw... Now wait a minute. I did see her sometime later, driving - Ah, I think you'd better come over here to my office - quick! Caroline, get Mr. Cassidy for me!
- [pause]
- George Lowery: [Marion imagines another conversation] After all, Cassidy, I told you - all that cash! I'm not taking the responsibility! Oh, for heaven's sake! A girl works for you for ten years, you trust her! All right. Yes. You better come over.
- Tom Cassidy: Well, I ain't about to kiss off forty thousand dollars! I'll get it back, and if any of it's missin' I'll replace it with her fine, soft flesh! I'll track her, never you doubt it!
- George Lowery: Oh, hold on, Cassidy! I-I still can't believe - it must be some kind of mystery. I-I can't...
- Tom Cassidy: You checked with the bank, no? They never laid eyes on her, no? You still trustin'? Hot creepers! She sat there while I dumped it out! Hardly even looked at it! Plannin'! And - even flirtin' with me!
- Highway Patrol officer: Uh... hold it there. In quite a hurry.
- Marion Crane: [nervously] Yes. Uh... I didn't intend to sleep so long. I almost had an accident last night, from sleepiness. So I decided to pull over.
- Highway Patrol officer: You slept here all night?
- Marion Crane: Yes. As I said, I couldn't keep my eyes open.
- Highway Patrol officer: There are plenty of motels in this area. You should've... I mean, just to be safe.
- Marion Crane: I didn't intend to sleep all night! I just pulled over. Have I broken any laws?
- Highway Patrol officer: No, ma'am.
- Marion Crane: Then I'm free to go?
- Highway Patrol officer: Is anything wrong?
- Marion Crane: Of course not. Am I acting as if there's something wrong?
- Highway Patrol officer: Frankly, yes.
- Marion Crane: Please... I'd like to go.
- Highway Patrol officer: Well, is there?
- Marion Crane: Is there what? I've told you there's nothing wrong, except that I'm in a hurry and you're taking up my time.
- [starts car engine]
- Highway Patrol officer: Now, just a moment! Turn off your motor, please. May I see your license?
- Marion Crane: Why?
- Highway Patrol officer: Please.
- Norman Bates: People always mean well. They cluck their thick tongues and shake their heads and suggest oh, so very delicately...
- California Charlie: I'm in no mood for trouble.
- Marion Crane: What?
- California Charlie: There's an old saying, "First customer of the day is always the trouble!" But like I say, I'm in no mood for it, so I'm gonna treat you so fair and square that you won't have one human reason to give me...
- Marion Crane: Can I trade my car in and take another?
- California Charlie: Do anything you've a mind to. Bein' a woman, you will. That yours?
- Marion Crane: Yes, it's just that - there's nothing wrong with it. I just...
- California Charlie: Sick of the sight of it! Well, why don't you have a look around here and see if there's somethin' that strikes your eyes, and meanwhile I'll have my mechanic give yours the once over. You want some coffee? I was just about...
- Marion Crane: No, thank you. I'm in a hurry. I just want to make a change, and...
- California Charlie: One thing people never oughtta be when they're buyin' used cars, and that's in a hurry. But like I said, it's too nice a day to argue. I'll uh - shoot your car in the garage here.
- Sam Loomis: When I send my ex-wife her alimony, you can lick the stamps.
- Marion Crane: I'll lick the stamps.
- Tom Cassidy: What you need is a weekend in Las Vegas. The playground of the world!
- Marion Crane: I'm going to spend this weekend in bed.
- Tom Cassidy: You know what I do about - unhappiness? I buy it off. Are - are you unhappy?
- Marion Crane: Not inordinately.
- Milton Arbogast: The last two days I've been to so many motels, my eyes are bleary with neon; but, this is the first place that looks like it's hiding from the world.
- Norman Bates: The mattress is soft and there're hangers in the closet and stationary with "Bates' Motel" printed on it in case you want to make your friends back home envious.
- [nervous laughter]
- Norman Bates: And, the, eh, over there.
- Marion Crane: The bathroom.
- Norman Bates: Yeah.