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Linda Styles: A reality is just what we tell each other it is.
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Sutter Cane: I think, therefore you are.
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John Trent: I'm sorry about the balls! It was a lucky shot, that's all!
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Sutter Cane: Did I ever tell you my favorite color was blue?
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John Trent: Every species can smell its own extinction. The last ones left won't have a pretty time with it. In ten years, maybe less, the human race will just be a bedtime story for their children. A myth, nothing more.
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Simon: Reality is not what it used to be!
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John Trent: Your books SUCK!
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John Trent: God's not supposed to be a hack horror writer.
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Axe Maniac: Do you read Sutter Cane?
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John Trent: Like the book?
Teen: I love it.
John Trent: Good. Then this shouldn't come as a surprise.
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John Trent: This shit really sells doesn't it?
Linda Styles: More than you'd think. Surprised?
John Trent: Lady, nothing surprises me anymore. We fucked up the air, the water, we fucked up each other. Why don't we just finish the job by flushing our brains down the toilet?
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Simon: [about to commit suicide] I have to, he wrote me this way.
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John Trent: Oh, Jesus, this place makes my head hurt.
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Cop: [looking at Trent after beating a bum] Do you want some too, buddy?
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John Trent: This book is going to drive people absolutely mad!
Jackson Harglow: Well, let's hope so. The movie comes out next month.
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Linda Styles: Why don't you try reading his stuff? See if you can get it.
John Trent: Got any on tape?
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John Trent: [On hearing "It's Only Just Begun" playing while in his asylum cell] Oh, no, not The Carpenters...
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John Trent: A word of advice. You want to pull a scam, don't make your wife a partner. And if you do, don't fuck around behind her back.
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John Trent: I'm not insane, you hear me! I'M NOT INSANE!
Inmate 1: I'm not if he's not!
Inmate 2: Me neither!
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John Trent: This is a rotten way to end it.
Sutter Cane: This is not the ending. You haven't read it yet.
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Little Girl: You're my mommy. Know what today is? Today is Mommy's Day.
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Saperstein: [to Dr. Wrenn] Things must be getting pretty bad out there to bring you fellas in.
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Dr. Wrenn: [re: Trent] Did he make any requests?
Saperstein: Just... one. A, uh... single black crayon.
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Dr. Wrenn: There's a guard with a pair of swollen testicles who swears you wanted out of here.
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John Trent: You're waiting to hear about my 'them', aren't you?
Dr. Wrenn: Your what?
John Trent: My 'them'. Every paranoid schizophrenic has one; a 'them', a 'they', an 'it'. And you want to hear about my 'them', don't you?
Dr. Wrenn: I want to know how you got here.
John Trent: Things are turning to shit out there, aren't they?
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John Trent: Never, Never, Never... throw chips at a driver.
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Scrawny Teen: I can see.
John Trent: Excuse me?
Scrawny Teen: He sees you.
John Trent: Great, uh... tell him I say hi.
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Reporter: [as footage of crazed Sutter Cane fans rioting outside bookstores is shown] When does fiction become religion?
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John Trent: Lady, nothing surprises me. We fucked up the air, the water, we've fucked up each other. Why don't we finish the job by flushing our brains down the toilet?
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Sutter Cane: [to Trent, while in a confessional inside the black church] Do you want to know the problem with places like this? With religion, in general? It's never known how to convey the anatomy of horror. Religion seeks discipline through fear... yet doesn't understand the true nature of creation. No one's ever believed it enough to make it real. The same cannot be said of my work.
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Linda Styles: A reality is just what we tell each other it is. Sane and insane could easily switch places, if the insane were to become the majority. You would find yourself locked in a padded cell, wondering what happened to the world.
In the Mouth of Madness Quotes
Extended Reading
