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.

— Bret Easton Ellis

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.

— Bret Easton Ellis

Athens on thee lathe syllable.

— Bret Easton Ellis

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.

— Bret Easton Ellis

... Because the writer resented that she had turned to me, I became the handsome and dazed narrator, incapable of love or kindness. 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.

— Bret Easton Ellis

‏@BretEastonEllis 31 Mar After watching the delirious Room 237 I realized that the worst thing happening to movies was the empowerment of the viewer via technology.

— Bret Easton Ellis

But the thing I remember most about the screening in October twenty years ago was the moment Julian grasped my hand that had gone numb on the armrest separating our seats. He did this because in the book Julian Wells lived but in the movie's new scenario he had to die. He had to be punished for all of his sins. That's what the movie demanded. (Later, as a screenwriter, I learned it's what all movies demanded.) When this scene occurred, in the last ten minutes, Julian looked at me in the darkness, stunned. "I died," he whispered. "They killed me off." I waited a bit before sighing, "But you're still here." Julian turned back to the screen and soon the movie ended, the credits rolling over the palm trees as I (improbably) take Blair back to my college while Roy Orbison wails a song about how life fades away.

— Bret Easton Ellis

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

— Bret Easton Ellis

But you don't need anything. You have everything,' I tell him. Rip looks at me. 'No I don't.'' What?'' No I don't.' There's a pause, and then I ask, 'Oh, shit, Rip, What don't you have?'' I don't have anything to lose.

— Bret Easton Ellis

Careless and not particularly biting, it was easier to shrug off than anything in the first book which depicted me as an inarticulate zombie confused by the irony of Randy Newman's "I Love L.A.

— Bret Easton Ellis