Bret Easton Ellis quotes:

Completely committed to adapting 'Fifty Shades of Grey'. This is not a joke. Christian Grey and Ana: potentially great cinematic characters.

I totally relate to Tom Cruise. He's not crazy, it's just the litany of the mid-life crisis.

I went to college in Vermont, and then stayed in the East Coast.

Why would I care what other people are thinking? I don't care what an audience thinks of me.

Hope E. L .James doesn't think I'm being a prankster. I really want to adapt her novels for the screen. Christian Grey is a writer's dream.

Writing a novel is not method acting and I find it easy to step out of it at cocktail hour.

Greed is good. Sex is easy. Youth is forever

Unless you're the director on the movie, or putting up the money for the movie, you really don't have a lot of control.

Are you as much of a criminal if you don't act when there's a crime taking place in front of you as you are one of the participants? That was something that I was thinking about a lot because there are many moments in 'Less Than Zero' where horrific things happen and Clay could do something about them, but his passivity stops him.

No one is drawn to writing about being happy or feelings of joy.

No one ever likes the right person.

Everyone I know who is successful has issues with their father, regardless of whether it was sports or business or entertainment.

I feel like I'm not smart enough to answer the questions I'm asked.

At Columbus Circle, a juggler wearing a trench cloak and top hat, who is usually at this location afternoons and who calls himself Stretch Man, performs in front of a small, uninterested crowd; though I smell prey, and he seems worthy of my wrath, I move on in search of a less dorky target. Though if he'd been a mime, odds are he'd already be dead.

I keep feeling that people are becoming less human and more animalistic. They seem to think less and feel less so that everyone is operating on a very primitive level. I wonder what you and I will see in our lifetimes. It seems so hopeless yet we must keep on trying ... I guess we can't escape being a product of the times, can we?

By the time you finish reading this sentence, a Boeing jetliner will take off or land somewhere in the world.

Exploitation is a harsh word, I know that, but on a certain level, to me that is the central Hollywood story.

Baby, when you were young and your heart was an open book, you used to say live and let live. You know you did, you know you did, you know you did.

Every book for me is an exorcism in some way or another, working through my feelings at the time.

I had no idea that 'Less Than Zero' was going to be read by anyone outside of Los Angeles, and it's - believe me, as the writer of the book I'm somewhat amused and intrigued by the idea that 25 years later it's still out and people are still reading it.

I have to return some videotapes

On my way over to Park Avenue to find a cab I pass an ugly, homeless bum-- a member of the genetic underclass-- and when he softly pleads for change, for "anything," I noticed the Barnes & Noble book bag that sits next to him on the steps of the church he's begging on and I can't help but smirk, out loud, "Oh right, like YOU read...,

I think my sensibility is very literary; all my books were built as books, and I wasn't thinking about them being movies.

...there is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there.

Why was I holding on to something that would never be mine? But isn't that what people do?

But... what about us? What about the past?" she asks blankly. "The past isn't real. it's just a dream," I say. "Don't mention the past.

You don't market-research a novel; you really are writing it for yourself. It's a hobby, in many ways. The problem becomes what you do when you're confronted by criticism. You just don't listen to it.

Hello, Halberstam," Owen says, walking by. Hello, Owen," I say, admiring the way he's styled and slicked back his hair, with a part so even and sharp it... devastates me and I make a mental note to ask him where he purchases his hair-care products, which kind of mousse he uses, my final guesses after mulling over the possibilities being Ten-X.

I have all the characteristics of a human being: blood, flesh, skin, hair; but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust. Something horrible is happening inside of me and I don't know why. My nightly bloodlust has overflown into my days. I feel lethal, on the verge of frenzy. I think my mask of sanity is about to slip.

I felt lethal, on the verge of frenzy. My nightly bloodlust overflowed into my days and I had to leave the city. My mask of sanity was a victim of impending slippage. This was the bone season for me and I needed a vacation.

The better you look, the more you see.

Life is like a typographical error: we're constantly writing and rewriting things over each other.

People just... disappear," he says. "The Earth just opens up and swallows people," I say, some what sadly, checking my Rolex. "Eerie." Kimball yawns, stretching. "Really eerie." "Ominous." I nod my agreement. "It's just"- he sights, exasperated- "futile.

Hello, Halberstam, Owen says, walking by.Hello, Owen, I say, admiring the way he's styled and slicked back his hair, with a part so even and sharp it... devastates me and I make a mental note to ask him where he purchases his hair-care products, which kind of mousse he uses, my final guesses after mulling over the possibilities being Ten-X.

El silencio es una risa burlona. El silencio roba algo.

The real Julian Wells didn't die in a cherry-red convertible, overdosing on a highway in Joshua Tree while a choir soared over the sound track.

I kept staring into the blackness of the woods, drawn into the darkness as I always had been. I suddenly realized how alone I was. (But this is how you travel, the wind whispered back, this is how you've always lived.)

What? Did we end up hating each other? Did we end up the way we thought we always knew would? Did I end up wearing khakis because of that fucking ad?

My pain is constant and sharp, and I do not hope for a better world for anyone.

I think a lot of snowflakes are alike...and I think a lot of people are alike too.

It strikes me profoundly that the world is more often than not a bad and cruel place.

She said that you--" "I don't care what she said." I stand up. "Everyone lies." "Hey," he says softly. "It's just a code." "No. Everyone lies." I stub the cigarette out. "It's just another language you have to learn." Then he delicately adds, "I think you need some coffee, dude." Pause. "Why are you so angry?

He was simply someone who floated through our lives and didn't seem to care how flatly he perceived everyone or that he'd shared our secret failures with the world, showcasing the youthful indifference, the gleaming nihilism, glamorizing the horror of it all.

What else is there to do in college except drink beer or slit one's wrists?

The images I had were of people being driven mad by living in the city. Images of parents who were so hungry and unfulfilled that they ate their own children.

Sex is mathematics. Individuality no longer an issue. What does intelligence signify? Define reason. Desire - meaningless. Intellect is not a cure. Justice is dead.

what's right? If you want something, you have the right to take it. If you want to do something, you have the right to do it.

What else is there to do in college except drink beer or slit one's wrists~?

A vast and abandoned world laid out in anonymous grids and quadrants, a view that confirmed you were much more alone than you thought you were, a view that inspired the flickering thoughts of suicide.

I have no problems or issues with screenwriting in general.

If I want to write a movie, I'll write a screenplay, but if I have an idea for a book, it's something that I think can only be done novelistically.

Disappear Here. The syringe fills with blood. You're a beautiful boy and that's all that matters. Wonder if he's for sale. People are afraid to merge. To merge.

If you start looking at movies on a moral level - "I don't like that, that hurts, that's mean, that's bad" - then I don't even want to talk to you. Or like, someone that says "I don't like science-fiction movies," or "I don't want to sit through a Western," or "I don't like violence in movies," then I completely tune out.

Writing a novel that works is an extremely difficult thing to do. It requires a level of skill and dedication that always surprises me.

When the going gets tough, the tough go drinking.

What do you do?' she asks, holding out the vest. 'What do you do?' 'What do you do?' she asks, her voice shaking. 'Don't ask me, please. Okay, Clay?' 'Why not?' She sits on the mattress after I get up. Muriel screams. 'Because... I don't know,' she sighs. I look at her and don't feel anything and walk out with my vest.

But this was what happened when you didn't want to visit and confront the past: the past starts visiting and confronting you.

Regardless of the business aspect of things, is there a reason that there isn't a female Hitchcock or a female Scorsese or a female Spielberg? I don't know. I think it's a medium that really is built for the male gaze and for a male sensibility.

I don't know why I write what I write.

I just sort of write the book I feel like writing given the emotional place I am in my life at the time.

Is evil something you are? Or is it something you do?

And as the elevator descents, passing the second floor, and the first floor, going even father down, I realize that the money doesn't matter. That all that does is that I want to see the worst

What does that mean know me, know me, nobody ever knows anybody else, ever! You will never know me.

Disintegration---I'm taking it in stride.

I like the idea of a writer being haunted by his own creation, especially if the writer resents the way the character defines him.

After a while you learn that everything stops.

All of my books come from pain.

I think we've all lost some kind of feeling.

A child should never even think about being a "good son." A parent decides that fate for the child. The parent encourages that. Not the child himself. And the "perfect dad"? I shudder at thinking what that may be.

History is sinking and only a very few seem dimly aware that things are getting bad.

Price. You're priceless.

I think in life, there are certain choices you make that are timeless and universal, and don't necessarily have anything to do with the particulars of a certain decade.

I want to take you away from this," I say, motioning around the kitchen, spastic. "From sushi and elves and... STUFF.

I am gripped by an existential panic.

Do you wear a diaphragm everywhere you go?' I want to scream, but stop myself because the idea really excites me.

And though the coldness I have always felt leaves me, the numbness doesn't and probably never will. this relationship will probably lead to nothing... this didn't change anything. I imagine her smelling clean, like tea...

Where there was nature and earth, life and water, I saw a desert landscape that was unending, resembling some sort of crater, so devoid of reason and light and spirit that the mind could not grasp it on any sort of conscious level and if you came close the mind would reel backward, unable to take it in. It was a vision so clear and real and vital to me that in its purity it was almost abstract. This was what I could understand, this was how I lived my life, what I constructed my movement around, how I dealt with the tangible.

Look how black the sky is, the writer said. I made it that way.

How could she ever understand that there isn't any way could be disappointed since I no longer find anything worth looking forward to?

Our lives are not all interconnected. That theory is a crock. Some people truly do not need to be here.

...if you're alone nothing bad can happen to you.

Not being able to find meaning can be just as powerful as finding meaning,

People are afraid to merge.

That's how I became the damaged party boy who wandered through the wreckage, blood streaming from his nose, asking questions that never required answers. That's how I became the boy who never understood how anything worked. That's how I became the boy who wouldn't save a friend. That's how I became the boy who couldn't love the girl.

You learn to move on without the people you love.

I don't want to care. If I care about things, it'll just be worse, it'll just be another thing to worry about. It's less painful if I don't care.

No one will ever know anyone. We just have to deal with each other. You're not ever gonna know me.

The Smiths are singing and someone says "Turn that gay angst music off.

The snowy owl has eyes that look just like mine, especially when it widens them. And while I stand there, staring at it, lowering my sunglasses, something unspoken passes between me and the bird - there's this weird kind of tension, a bizarre pressure, that fuels the following, which starts, happens, ends, very quickly.

I stare into a thin, web-like crack above the urinal's handle and think to myself that if I were to disappear into that crack, say somehow miniaturize and slip into it, the odds are good that no one would notice I was gone. No... one... would... care. In fact some, if they noticed my absence, might feel an odd, indefinable sense of relief. This is true: the world is better off with some people gone. Our lives are not all interconnected. That theory is crock. Some people truly do not need to be here.

I needed something--the distraction of another life--to alleviate fear.

She laughs and looks out the window and I think for a minute that she's going to start to cry. I'm standing by the door and I look over at the Elvis Costello poster, at his eyes, watching her, watching us, and I try to get her away from it, so I tell her to come over here, sit down, and she thinks I want to hug her or something and she comes over to me and puts her arms around my back and says something like 'I think we've all lost some sort of feeling.

I'm on the verge of tears by the time we arrive at Pastels since I'm positive we won't get seated but the table is good, and relief that is almost tidal in scope washes over me in an awesome wave.

Thereâ??s no use in denying it: this has been a bad week. Iâ??ve started drinking my own urine.

Do you know what Ed Gein said about women?" [...] "'When I see a pretty girl walking down the street I think two things. One part of me wants to take her out and talk to her and be real nice and sweet and treat her right.'" I stop finish my J&B in one swallow. "What does the other part of him think?" Hamlin asks tentatively. "What her head would look like on a stick

I could stay living in this city if they just installed Blaupunkts in the cabs.

I tried to make meat loaf out of the girl but it becomes too frustrating a task and instead I spend the afternoon smearing her meat all over the walls, chewing on strips of skin I ripped from her body

Rock 'n' roll. Deal with it.

We buy balloons, we let them go.

Women aren't very bright," Rip says. "Studies have been done.

A curtain of stars, miles of them, are scattered, glowing, across the sky and their multitude humbles me, which I have a hard time tolerating. She shrugs and nods after I say something about forms of anxiety. It's as if her mind is having a hard time communicating with her mouth, as if she is searching for a rational analysis of who I am, which is, of course, an impossibility: there... is... no... key.

And as things fell apart, nobody paid much attention

I had dreamed of something so different from what reality was now offering up, but that dream had been a blind man's vision. That dream was a miracle. The morning was fading. And I remembered yet again that I was a tourist here.

The numbing lists of things you were supposed to have as an American to make you happy, which ultimately, of course, don't. Those aren't the things that make you happy.

Adjust my dreams for me.

A great numb feeling washes over me as I let go of the past and look forward to the future. Pretend to be a vampire. I don't really need to pretend, because it's who I am, an emotional vampire. I've just come to expect it. Vampires are real. That I was born this way. That I feed off of other people's real emotions. Search for this night's prey. Who will it be?

People can get accustomed to anything, right? Habit does things to people.

And it struck me then, that I liked Sean because he looked, well, slutty. A boy who had been around. A boy who couldn't remember if he was Catholic or not.

I'm into, oh murders and executions mostly. It depends.

I do not feel I have a legacy to protect.

I'm not a big believer in disciplined writers. What does discipline mean? The writer who forces himself to sit down and write for seven hours every day might be wasting those seven hours if he's not in the mood and doesn't feel the juice. I don't think discipline equals creativity.

With Taipei Tao Lin becomes the most interesting prose stylist of his generation.

Yes. Yes I am. I am a completely demented misogynist.

It's the rare book that's able to transport you in a way that a movie does.

It's like my characters, all my men are Dad and me in a mess; all my female characters are smart and hopeful, like Mom just trying to make the best of things.

Hip," I murmur, remembering last night, how I lost it completely in a stall at Nell's---my mouth foaming, all I could think about were insects, lots of insects, and running at pigeons, foaming at the mouth and running at pigeons.