Psycho (1960) · 48 quotes
3rd most-quoted character in Psycho (1960): in 10 of its 48 quotes
Most scenes with: Norman Bates (3), Marion Crane (3), Lila Crane (3)
Scenes with Sam Loomis
10 scenes
Your detective told you he couldn't come right back because he was goin' to question Norman Bates' mother. Right?
Yes.
Norman Bates' mother has been dead and buried in Greenlawn Cemetery for the past ten years!
I helped Norman pick out the dress she was buried in. Periwinkle blue.
It ain't only local history, Sam. It's the only case of murder and suicide on Fairvale ledgers. Mrs. Bates poisoned this guy she was involved with when she found out he was married. Then took a helpin' of the same stuff herself. Strychnine. Ugly way to die.
Norman found them dead together in bed.
Sam Loomis You mean the old woman I saw tonight wasn't Mrs. Bates?
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 pounded but she just ignored me!
You mean to tell me you saw Norman Bates' mother?
But it had to be, because Arbogast said so too. And the young man wouldn't let him see her because she was too ill.
Well if the woman up there is Mrs. Bates, who's that woman buried out in Greenlawn Cemetery?
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.
Why not?
Sam Loomis Bates.
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.
I can handle a sick old woman!
She left home on Friday. I was in Tuscon over the weekend and I haven't heard from her since -- not even a phone call. Look if you two are in this thing together, I don't care -- It's none of my business -- but I want to talk to Marion and I want her to tell me it's none of my business! And then I'll go--
Sam Loomis Bob! Run out and get yourself some lunch, will you?
Oh, that's okay, Sam, I brought it with me.
Sam Loomis Run out and eat it!
Sam Loomis You never did eat your lunch, did you?
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.
What do I do with my free afternoon? Walk you to the airport?
Sam Loomis Well, you could laze around here a while longer.
Hmm. Checking out time is 3 PM. 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 an occasional night in a cheap hotel.
I know marriage can do a lot of things deliberately.
Sam Loomis You sure talk like a girl who's been married.
Sam, this is the last time.
Sam Loomis For what?
For this, meeting you in secret so we can be secretive. You come down here on business trips. We steal lunch hours. I wish you wouldn't even come.
Sam Loomis All right, what do we do instead? Write each other lurid love letters?
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?
Sam!
Sam Loomis All right.
Sam Loomis I've been doing all the talking so far, haven't I? I thought it was the people who were all alone all the time who did most of the talking when they got the chance. Here you are doing all the listening. You're alone here aren't you? Drive me crazy.
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?
No.
Sam Loomis I'm not saying that you shouldn't be contended here, I'm just doubting that you are. I think if you saw the chance to get out from under you would unload this place.
This place? This place happens to be my only world. I grew up in that house up there. I happen to have a very happy childhood. My mother and I were more than happy.
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 them 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 in 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 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. [to Lila] 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!
Sam Loomis Why was he dressed like that?
He's a tranvestite!
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 mother! And uh now he is. 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.
And the forty thousand dollars? Who got that?
The swamp. These were crimes of passion, not profit.
Police Officer [entering room with blanket on arm] He feels a little chill. Can I bring him this blanket?
Oh, sure.
All right.
Sam You look frightened. Have I been saying something frightening?
I-I-I don't know what you've been saying.
Sam I've been talking about your mother. About your motel. How you're gonna do it?
Do what?
Sam Buy a new one in a new town where you won't have to hide your mother.
Why don't you just get in your car and drive away from here, OK?
Sam Where will you get the money to do that, Bates? Or do you already have it, socked away?
Shut up!
Sam A lot of it, $40,000. I bet your mother knows where the money is and what you did to get it. I think she'll tell us.
