Psycho (1960)

Anthony Perkins: Norman Bates

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Quotes 

• 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.

• Marion Crane : Do you go out with friends?

  Norman Bates : Well, a boy's best friend is his mother.

• Norman Bates : She might have fooled me, but she didn't fool my mother.

• 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.

• Norman Bates : I think I must have one of those faces you can't help believing.

• Norman Bates : Mother! Oh God, mother! Blood! Blood!

• 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!

• 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.

• 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?

• Norman Bates : Uh-uh, Mother-m-mother, uh, what is the phrase? She isn't quite herself today.

• 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!

• Marion Crane : Thank you.

  Norman Bates : Thank you, Norman.

  Marion Crane : Norman.

• 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...

• Norman Bates : Hate the smell of dampness, don't you? It's such a, I don't know, creepy smell.

• 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.

• Norman Bates : Are you sure you wouldn't like to stay just a little while longer? Just for talk?

• Norman Bates : I don't set a fancy table, but the kitchen's awful homey.

• Norman Bates : Dirty night.

• Norman Bates : [while in drag, screaming]  I'm Norma Bates!

• Norman Bates : People always mean well. They cluck their thick tongues and shake their heads and suggest oh, so very delicately...

• 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.

• Norman Bates : You're not going back to your room already?

  Marion Crane : I'm very tired - and I have a long drive tomorrow. All the way back to Phoenix.

  Norman Bates : Really?

  Marion Crane : I - stepped into a private trap back there. I'd like to go back and try to pull myself out of it. Before it's too late for me too.

• Milton Arbogast : I'm a private investigator. I've been trying to trace a girl that's been missing for - oh - about a week now from Phoenix. It's a private matter. The family wants to forgive her. She's not in any trouble.

  Norman Bates : I don't think the police went looking for people who aren't in trouble.

  Milton Arbogast : Oh, I'm not the police.

• Milton Arbogast : Did she make any phone calls even...

  Norman Bates : [nervously]  No.

  Milton Arbogast : locally?

  Norman Bates : No.

  Milton Arbogast : Did you spend the night with her?

  Norman Bates : No.

  Milton Arbogast : Well, how would you know she didn't make any phone calls?

• Norman Bates : Well, gee, I don't even much both with guest registering any more, you know. One by one, you drop the formalities. I shouldn't even bother to change the sheets; but, old habits die hard.

• Norman Bates : You out to buy a motel?

  Milton Arbogast : No.

• Norman Bates : This place happens to be my only world. I grew up in that house up there. I had a very happy childhood. My mother and I we were *more* than happy.

• Norman Bates : Now look sir I didn't lie to you I didn't know.

• Norman Bates : look why don't you just leave ok? just get in your car and go find another motel.