MEMORABLE MOVIE QUOTES:  PSYCHO (1960)

By

Michael Arruda

“A boy’s best friend is his mother.”

 

So says Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) in PSYCHO (1960), Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece shocker, the film that changed the way people take showers.

Welcome to another edition of MEMORABLE MOVIE QUOTES, the column where we look at memorable quotes from the movies.  Today we look at PSYCHO, the classic thriller starring Anthony Perkins as everybody’s favorite cross-dresser and knife-wielding maniac, Norman Bates.  The film also stars Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, and John Gavin.

There are a lot of neat quotes in this movie, most of them coming from Perkins’ Bates.  So here are some of the better ones for your reading pleasure, quotes from PSYCHO, screenplay by Joseph Stefano, based on the book of the same name by Robert Bloch.

Some of my favorite exchanges are between Anthony Perkins’ Norman Bates and Janet Leigh’s Marion Crane, after she makes the fateful decision to stop and spend the night at the Bates Motel.  Speaking of which, she should have known immediately that the place was trouble, as soon as she asked Norman her initial question.

MARION CRANE:  Do you have any vacancies?

NORMAN BATES:  Oh, we have twelve vacancies. Twelve cabins, Twelve vacancies.

 Run for the hills!  Run for the hills!

But alas, Marion doesn’t run away.  She spends the night.  Her last night alive, as it turns out.

But before she takes that fateful shower, she accepts Norman’s invitation to join him in his office for a small simple dinner.

NORMAN:  You eat like a bird.

MARION (looks at the stuffed birds in the room):  And you’d know, of course.

NORMAN:  No, not really. Anyway, I hear the expression ‘eats like a bird’ is really a fals-fals-falsity. Because birds really eat a tremendous lot. But  I don’t really know anything about birds. My hobby is stuffing things. You know – taxidermy.

Run for the hills!  Run for the hills!

Just before this dinner get-together, Marion overhears an argument between Norman and his mother up at the main house.

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:  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:  Shut up! Shut up!

And then later at dinner, Norman tries to explain his mother’s behavior to Marion.

NORMAN:  It’s not like my mother is a maniac or a raving thing. She just goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven’t you?

Run for the hills!  Run for the hills!

Some of the more intriguing exchanges occur when Marion’s boyfriend Sam Loomis (John Gavin) and sister Lila (Vera Miles) talk to Sheriff Chambers, as they investigate Marion’s disappearance.

SHERIFF:  Your detective told you he couldn’t come right back because he was going to question Norman Bates’ mother. Right?

LILA:  Yes.

SHERIFF:  Norman Bates’ mother has been dead and buried in Greenlawn Cenetery for the past ten years!

SAM:  You mean the old woman I saw tonight wasn’t Bates’ mother?

SHERIFF:  Now wait a minute, Sam, are you sure you saw an old woman?

SAM:   Yes! In the house behind the motel! I called and I pounded, but she just ignored me!

SHERIFF:   You mean to tell me you saw Norman Bates’ mother?

LILA:  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:  Well, if the woman up there is Mrs. Bates… who’s that woman buried out in Greenlawn Cemetery?

Who, indeed?

And of course my favorite quote of the entire movie might be its last line, as Norman sits in a prison cell, thinking thoughts in his mother’s voice.

NORMAN (as Mother):  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!

 

Well, that’s it for now.  Thanks for joining me on MEMORABLE MOVIE QUOTES, the PSYCHO edition.

Thanks for reading!

—Michael

Books by Michael Arruda:

TIME FRAME,  science fiction novel by Michael Arruda.  

Ebook version:  $2.99. Available at http://www.neconebooks.com. Print version:  $18.00.  Email your order request to mjarruda33@gmail.com. Also available at Amazon.com.

IN THE SPOOKLIGHT, movie review collection by Michael Arruda.

 Ebook version:  $4.99.  Available at http://www.neconebooks.com.  Print version:  $18.00.  Email your order request to mjarruda33@gmail.com. Also available at Amazon.com.

FOR THE LOVE OF HORROR, short story collection by Michael Arruda.  

Ebook version:  $4.99.  Available at http://www.neconebooks.com. Print version:  $18.00.  Email your order request to mjarruda33@gmail.com. Also available at Amazon.com.