Psycho Quotes

“I think perhaps all of us go a little crazy at times.”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“Funny how we take it for granted that we know all there is to know about another person, just because we see them frequently or because of some strong emotional tie.”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“We're all not quite as sane as we pretend to be.”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“Magic--that's just a label, you know. Completely meaningless. It wasn't so very long ago that people were saying that electricity was magic.”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“That's the way girls were--they always laughed. Because they were bitches.”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“We all go a little mad sometimes.”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“She was the only one left, and she was real.
To be the only one, and to know that you are real - that's sanity, isn't it?
But just to be on the safe side, maybe it was best to keep pretending that one was a stuffed figure. Not to move. Never to move. Just to sit here in the tiny room, forever and ever.
If she sat there without moving, they wouldn't punish her.
If she sat there without moving, they'd know that she was sane, sane, sane.
She sat there for quite a long time, and then a fly came buzzing through the bars.
It lighted on her hand.
If she wanted to, she could reach out and swat the fly.
But she didn't swat it.
She didn't swat it, and she hoped they were watching, because that proved what sort of a person she really was.
Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly...”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“Mothers sometimes are overly possessive, but not all children allow themselves to be possessed.”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“Then she did see it there - just a face, peering through the curtains, hanging in midair like a mask. A head-scarf concealed the hair and the glassy eyes stared inhumanly, but it wasn’t a mask, it couldn’t be. The skin had been powdered dead-white and two hectic spots of rouge centered on the cheekbones. It wasn’t a mask. It was the face of a crazy old woman. Mary started to scream, and then the curtains parted further and a hand appeared, holding a butcher’s knife. It was the knife that, a moment later, cut off her scream.

And her head.”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“Forget the past, let the dead bury the dead. Things were working out fine, and that was the only thing he had to remember.”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“Norman Bates heard the noise and a shock went through him.”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“Mary started to scream, and then the curtains parted further and a hand appeared, holding a butcher's knife. It was the knife that, a moment later, cut off her scream.

And her head.”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“Everything in this business makes sense, because it serves a real purpose, fills a need that's a part of living. Even a single nail, like this one, fulfills a function. Drive it into a crucial place and you can depend on it to do a job, keep on doing it for a hundred years to come. Long after we're dead and gone, both of us.”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“All at once she could hear the sullen patter of the rain and sense the sigh of the wind behind it. She remembered the sound, because it had rained like that the day Mom was buried, the day they lowered her into that little rectangle of darkness.”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“The room was plainly but adequately furnished; she noted the shower stall in the bathroom beyond. Actually, she would have preferred a tub, but this would do. ”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“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...”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“Talk about not knowing other people—why, when you came right down to it, you didn't even know yourself!”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“The light shone down on his plump face, reflected from his rimless glasses, bathed the pinkness of his scalp beneath the thinning sandy hair as he bent his head to resume reading.”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho: A Novel

“It's all right", he said, wondering at the same time why there were no better words, why there never are any better words to answer fear and grief and loneliness. "It's all right, believe me.”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“She'd thrown something at the mirror, and then the mirror broke into a thousand pieces and she knew that wasn't all; she was breaking into a thousand pieces, too.”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“You hate people. Because, really, you’re afraid of them, aren’t you? Always have been, ever since you were a little tyke. Rather snuggle up in a chair under the lamp and read. You did it thirty years ago, and you’re still doing it now. Hiding away under the covers of a book.”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“Lila closed her mouth, but the scream continued. It was the insane scream of an hysterical woman, and it came from the throat of Norman Bates.”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“The thought came creeping, just as the numbness came creeping, stealing over his senses, softly, smoothly, there in the silken silence.”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“He pressed a switch and the bedside lamp blossomed and sent forth yellow petals of light.”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“All at once that was the most important thing—to get out of the dark.”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“Mother would be in real trouble right now.”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho: A Novel

“But first he was going to take a drink, a big drink, because he needed one. And it didn't matter whether he drank or not, nothing mattered now; it was all over. All over, or just beginning.”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“It was really a fascinating book—no wonder he hadn’t noticed how fast the time had passed.”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho

“Norman stirred, turned, and then fell into a darkness deeper and more engulfing than the swamp.”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho: A Novel

“Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly...”
― Robert Bloch, Psycho