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Johnny Barrett: Who killed Sloan in the kitchen?
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Johnny Barrett: Nymphos!
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Trent: There's one of 'em now! Let's get 'im before he marries my daughter!
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Psycho: I am impotent... and I like it!
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Cathy: Hamlet was made for Freud. Not you.
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Johnny Barrett: [interior monologue] Right about now is when he's supposed to ask me if I hear voices...
Dr. L.G. Cristo: Do you hear voices, John?
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Psycho: Don't strike me! I'm pregnant! I've been carrying my baby for FIVE months now!
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Pagliacci: I didn't want my wife to die like Sloan. So I gently sang her to death... Good night, Mr. Barret.
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Pagliacci: [Feeding John numerous pieces of gum] Come on, John. Chew, chew, chew!... See, if you chew, your jaw muscles, they get tired, see? And then the other muscles, they get the message, and they get tired too, see? And before you know it, you're sleeping. And, when we're asleep, nobody can tell a sane man from an insane man, huh?
Pagliacci: [Chuckles] Good night, Mr. Barret.
Johnny Barrett: Good night, Mr. Pagliacci.
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Cathy: [Appearing in John's dream] All of the men want me, Johnny. But I want you. And you - you want the Pulitzer Prize.
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Johnny Barrett: My yen for you goes up and down like a fever chart. I love you, Cathy.
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Dr. J.L. Menkin: Did you ever want your mother?
Johnny Barrett: [Becoming outraged] What? What did you say? That's a filthy thing to say to me!
Dr. J.L. Menkin: Please. We're here to help.
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Dr. L.G. Cristo: [to Cathy, in reference to her work as a stripper] Was he ever jealous of the way you revealed your body to other men?
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Pagliacci: Life is a messy weapon.
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Pagliacci: You know why so many people came to my funeral? They wanted to make sure I was dead.
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Lloyd: Born phonies, all you newspapermen.
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Wilkes: Don't mind Lloyd. He doesn't mean anything by that chip on his shoulder. It's just his way of fighting everybody because he can't cure the patients.
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Wilkes: I used to work in the Female Wing. But the "Nympho Ward" got too dangerous for me.
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Johnny Barrett: Am I the only loony in this ward?
Wilkes: No, Mr. Barret, your roommates are in the "street." Oh, if you don't mind, we never use words here like "nuts, bugs, screwy, goofy, loony"... We'd like it very much if you didn't use them, either.
Johnny Barrett: [Sarcastically] I'm sorry - - I'm a "greenhorn inmate."
Wilkes: [Calmly] You're a patient, not an inmate.
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Cathy: Do you think I like singing in that sewer with a hot light on my navel? I'm doing it because it pays more than shorthand or clerking or typing.
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Cathy: Johnny, you've gotta' be crazy to want to be committed to an insane asylum to solve a murder.
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Cathy: You're on a hopped up, lunatic stage. Get off it! Don't be Moses leading your lunatics to the Pulitzer Prize.
Johnny Barrett: [Ignoring her completely] Would you care for a cigarette?
Cathy: You make me sick! Sick at the thought of you playing games with your mind and riding that crazy horse.
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Pagliacci: [John has just let out an ear-piercing scream] That was *such* a sour note, John.
Pagliacci: [Chuckling] You were *way* off key!
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Johnny Barrett: [Screaming, to Dr. Cristo] Doctor, I'm not nuts! I'm here for the paper! I'm a PLANT!
Dr. L.G. Cristo: [Totally unconcerned] Now, forget all about Sloan, huh? Why don't you keep Pagliacci company? Have him sing "La Boheme" for ya'.
Johnny Barrett: [Quietly and submissively] Yes, sir.
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Dr. L.G. Cristo: [to John] You're suffering from a form of Dementia Praecox, incident to the age of puberty, characterized by childish behavior, hallucinations, and emotional deterioration.
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Dr. L.G. Cristo: [to Cathy] John is a catatonic schizophrenic.
[Pausing, shaking his head]
Dr. L.G. Cristo: What a tragedy. An insane mute will win the Pulitzer Prize.
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Johnny Barrett: We made a deal.
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Cathy: Mark Twain didn't psychoanalyze Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer. Dickens didn't put Oliver Twist on the couch because he was hungry. Good copy comes out of people, Johnny, not out of a lot explainatory medical terms!
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Wilkes: [while getting his ears pulled on by Johnny] I KILLED SLOANE!
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Lloyd: Trent!
Trent: Yes, sir.
Lloyd: A pillow case is missing.
Trent: I don't have it, sir.
Lloyd: It's from your bed.
Trent: I don't have it, sir.
Lloyd: You want to go back into the hall?
Trent: I don't have it, sir!
Wilkes: [Trying to end the argument] Let him keep it.
Lloyd: Keep out of this, Wilkes!
Wilkes: Dr. Cristo said not to get him excited.
Lloyd: You know what that pillow case means.
Wilkes: [Puts a hand on Trent's shoulder to comfort him] It's all right, Trent. We know you don't have it.
Trent: Thank you, sir.
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Dr. L.G. Cristo: A man can't tamper with a mind by living in a mental hospital and go through all kinds of tests and expects to come out of it sane.
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Cathy: He was sane enough to write that story. He's been sane for weeks. Don't you stand there and tell me there's nothing you can do for him. Why? Why does he look like that?
[Pan left to see Johnny sitting there motionless]
Cathy: Oh, god in heaven...
Shock Corridor Quotes
Extended Reading
