Psycho

Tom Cassidy: You know what I do about unhappiness? I buy it off. Are, uh, are you unhappy? [waving around his $40,000] Now, that's, that's not buying happiness. That's just buying off unhappiness. I never carry more than I can afford to lose. Hardware store customer: So far of those I've used, I haven't had much luck with any of them. Well, let's see what they say about this one. They tell you what it's 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 I say, insect or man, death should always be painless.

Psycho (1960 film), CC BY-SA 4.0

Marion: Sam, this is the last time. Sam: For what? Marion: For this. Meeting you in secret so we can be secretive. You come down here on business trips, the occasional lunch hour, and I wish you wouldn't even come. Sam: All right, what do we do instead? Write each other lurid love letters? I can come down next week. Marion: No. Sam: Not even just to see you? Have lunch? [smiles] In public. Marion: Oh, we can see each other. We can even have dinner, but respectably — in my house with my mother's picture on the mantle, and my sister helping me broil a big steak for three. Sam: And after the steak, do we send sister to the movies? Turn mama's picture to the wall? Marion: Sam! Sam: [begrudgingly] All right. Marion, whenever it's possible I want to see you and under any circumstances, even respectability. Marion: You make respectability sound disrespectful. Sam: Oh no, I'm all for it. But it requires patience, temperance, with a lot of sweating out. Otherwise though, it's just hard wo

Psycho (1960 film), CC BY-SA 4.0

Mother: 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: Mother, please! Mother: And then what? After supper? Music? Whispers? Norman: Mother, she's just a stranger. She's hungry, and it's raining out! Mother: [mockingly] "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 to tell her because you don't have the guts! Huh, boy? You have the guts, boy? Norman: [shouts] Shut up! Shut up!

Psycho (1960 film), CC BY-SA 4.0

Marion: [about Norman's taxidermy] A man should have a hobby. Norman: Well, it's, it's more than a hobby. [He fondles a stuffed bird on the bureau next to him] A hobby's supposed to pass the time, not fill it. Marion: Is your time so empty? Norman: No, uh. Well, I run the office and uh, tend the cabins and grounds and, and do a little, uh, errands for my mother. The ones she allows I might be capable of doing. Marion: Do you go out with friends? Norman: Well, a boy's best friend is his mother. You've never had an empty moment in your entire life, have you? Marion: Only my share. Norman: Where are you going? I didn't mean to pry. Marion: I'm looking for a private island. Norman: What are you running away from? Marion: Wh-why do you ask that? Norman: People never run away from anything.

Psycho (1960 film), CC BY-SA 4.0

Norman: The rain didn't last long, did it? [Pause] 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 claw, but only at the air, only at each other, and for all of it, we never budge an inch. Marion: Sometimes, we deliberately step into those traps. Norman: I was born in mine. I don't mind it anymore. Marion: Oh, but you should! You should mind it! Norman: Oh, I do, [laughs] but I say I don't. Marion: You know, if anyone ever talked to me the way I heard — the way she spoke to you... Norman: 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: She sounded strong. Norman: No, I mean... ill. She had to raise me all by herself after my father died. I was only five and it must have been quite a strain for her. She didn't have to go to work or anything like that.

Psycho (1960 film), CC BY-SA 4.0

Marion: Wouldn't it be better if you put her... someplace? Norman: [alarmed] You mean an institution? A madhouse? [suddenly cold] People always call a madhouse "someplace", don't they? "Put her in someplace." Marion: I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean it to sound uncaring. Norman: [intense] What do you know about caring? Have you ever seen the inside of one of those places? The laughing, and the tears, and the cruel eyes studying you? My mother there? But she's harmless! She's as harmless as one of those stuffed birds! Marion: I am sorry. I only felt... it seems she's hurting you. I meant well. Norman: People always mean well! They cluck their thick tongues, and shake their heads and suggest, oh, so very delicately! [sighs] Of course, I've suggested it myself. But I hate to even think about it. She needs me. It-it's not as if she were a... a maniac — a raving thing. She just goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven't you? Marion: Yes. Sometimes just one time c

Psycho (1960 film), CC BY-SA 4.0