1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Bret Easton Ellis

Bret Easton Ellis Quotes

Bret Easton Ellis is an American author, screenwriter, and short story writer. His works have been translated into 27 languages. He was at first regarded as one of the so-called literary Brat Pack, which also included Tama Janowitz and Jay McInerney. He is a self-proclaimed satirist whose trademark technique, as a writer, is the expression of extreme acts and opinions in an affectless style. Ellis employs a technique of linking novels with common, recurring characters.

Though Ellis made his debut at age 21 with the controversial bestseller Less Than Zero , a zeitgeist novel about wealthy amoral young people in Los Angeles, the work he is most known for is his third novel, American Psycho . On its release, the literary establishment widely condemned the novel as overly violent and misogynistic. Though many petitions to ban the book saw Ellis dropped by Simon & Schuster, the resounding controversy convinced Alfred A. Knopf to release it as a paperback later that year. In later years, Ellis' novels have become increasingly metafictional. Lunar Park , a pseudo-memoir and ghost story, received positive reviews. Imperial Bedrooms , marketed as a sequel to Less Than Zero, continues in this vein.

Four of Ellis's works have been made into films. Less Than Zero was rapidly adapted for screen, leading to the release of a starkly different film of the same name in 1987. Mary Harron's adaptation of American Psycho was released to generally positive reviews in 2000 and went on to achieve cult status. Roger Avary's 2002 adaptation The Rules of Attraction made modest box office returns but went on to attract a cult following. 2008's The Informers, based on Ellis's collection of short stories, was critically panned. Ellis also wrote the screenplay for the critically derided 2013 film The Canyons, an original work.

✵ 7. March 1964
Bret Easton Ellis photo

Works

American Psycho
American Psycho
Bret Easton Ellis
The Rules of Attraction
The Rules of Attraction
Bret Easton Ellis
Lunar Park
Lunar Park
Bret Easton Ellis
American Psycho
American Psycho
Bret Easton Ellis
The Rules of Attraction
The Rules of Attraction
Bret Easton Ellis
Lunar Park
Lunar Park
Bret Easton Ellis
Bret Easton Ellis: 76 quotes2 likes

Famous Bret Easton Ellis Quotes

“I laugh maniacally, then take a deep breath and touch my chest- expecting a heart to be thumping quickly, impatiently, but there's nothing there, not even a beat.”

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

“I have to return some videotapes”

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

“And as things fell apart, nobody paid much attention”

Bret Easton Ellis

“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 The Rules of Attraction

Source: The Rules of Attraction

“After a while you learn that everything stops.”

Bret Easton Ellis

“Rock 'n' roll. Deal with it.”

Bret Easton Ellis The Rules of Attraction

Source: The Rules of Attraction

Bret Easton Ellis Quotes about people

“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.”

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

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

Bret Easton Ellis book Lunar Park

Source: Lunar Park

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

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

“You learn to move on without the people you love.”

Bret Easton Ellis book Lunar Park

Source: Lunar Park

“People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles.”

Bret Easton Ellis book Less Than Zero

Source: Less Than Zero (1985)

“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.”

Bret Easton Ellis book Less Than Zero

Source: Less Than Zero

Bret Easton Ellis: Trending quotes

“ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE”

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho (1991), p. 3; the opening of the book.
Context: ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE is scrawled in blood red lettering on the side of the Chemical Bank near the corner of Eleventh and First and is in print large enough to be seen from the backseat of the cab as it lurches forward in the traffic leaving Wall Street and just as Timothy Price notices the words a bus pulls up, the advertisement for Les Miserables on its side blocking his view, but Price who is with Pierce & Pierce and twenty-six doesn't seem to care because he tells the driver he will give him five dollars to turn up the radio, "Be My Baby" on WYNN, and the driver, black, not American, does so.

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

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

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

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

Bret Easton Ellis Quotes

“The better you look, the more you see.”

Bret Easton Ellis book Glamorama

Source: Glamorama

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

Bret Easton Ellis The Rules of Attraction

Source: The Rules of Attraction

“But this road doesn't go anywhere,” I told him.
“That doesn't matter.”
“What does?” I asked, after a little while.
“Just that we're on it, dude,” he said.”

Bret Easton Ellis book Less Than Zero

Source: Less Than Zero

“No one ever likes the right person.”

Bret Easton Ellis The Rules of Attraction

Source: The Rules of Attraction

“I like to dissect girls. Did you know I'm utterly insane?”

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

“There’s no use in denying it: this has been a bad week. I’ve started drinking my own urine.”

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

“This is not an exit.”

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

“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.”

Bret Easton Ellis book Less Than Zero

Source: Less Than Zero

“We buy balloons, we let them go.”

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

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

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

“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 book Lunar Park

Source: Lunar Park

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

Bret Easton Ellis The Rules of Attraction

Source: The Rules of Attraction

“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…”

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

“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.”

Bret Easton Ellis book Less Than Zero

Source: Less Than Zero

“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.”

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

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

Bret Easton Ellis

“I feel I'm moving toward as well as away from something, and anything is possible.”

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

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

Bret Easton Ellis The Rules of Attraction

Source: The Rules of Attraction

“Greed is good. Sex is easy. Youth is forever.”

Bret Easton Ellis book The Informers

Source: The Informers

“The seeds of love have taken hold and if we won't burn together, I'll burn alone.”

Bret Easton Ellis The Rules of Attraction

Source: The Rules of Attraction

“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”

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

“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.”

Bret Easton Ellis

“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.”

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

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

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

“I've forgotten who I had lunch with earlier, and even more important, where.”

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

“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.)”

Bret Easton Ellis book Lunar Park

Source: Lunar Park

“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.”

Bret Easton Ellis

“I wasn't acting on passion. I was simply acting.”

Bret Easton Ellis The Rules of Attraction

Source: The Rules of Attraction

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

Bret Easton Ellis The Rules of Attraction

Source: The Rules of Attraction

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

Bret Easton Ellis

“Adjust my dreams for me.”

Bret Easton Ellis book The Informers

Source: The Informers

“Price. You're priceless.”

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

American Psycho

“What keeps me interested--and it always does--is how can she be a bad actress on film but a good one in reality?”

Bret Easton Ellis book Imperial Bedrooms

Source: Imperial Bedrooms

“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.”

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

“… if you're alone nothing bad can happen to you.”

Bret Easton Ellis book Imperial Bedrooms

Source: Imperial Bedrooms

“but I don't want to wear a condom because I don't feel anything," and she says calmly… glaring at me,"If you don't use one you're not going to feel anything anyway.”

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

“Specks—specks all over the third panel, see?—no, that one—the second one up from the floor and I wanted to point this out to someone yesterday but a photo shoot intervened and Yaki Nakamari or whatever the hell the designer's name is—a master craftsman not—mistook me for someone else so I couldn't register the complaint, but, gentlemen—and ladies—there they are: specks, annoying, tiny specks, and they don't look accidental but like they were somehow done by a machine—so I don't want a lot of description, just the story, streamlined, no frills, the lowdown: who, what, where, when and don't leave out why, though I'm getting the distinct impression by the looks on your sorry faces that why won't get answered—now, come on, goddamnit, what's the story?”

Bret Easton Ellis book Glamorama

Glamorama (1998)

“…and it's a story that might bore you but you don't have to listen, she told me, because she always knew it was going to be like that, and it was, she thinks, her first year, or actually weekend, really a Friday, in September, at Camden, and this was three or four years ago, and she got so drunk that she ended up in bed, lost her virginity (late, she was eighteen) in Lorna Slavin's room, because she was a Freshman and had a roommate and Lorna was, she remembers, a Senior or Junior and usually somestimes at her boyfriend's place off-campus, to who she thought was a Sophomore Ceramics major but who was actually either some guy from N. Y. U., a film student, and up in New Hampshire just for The Dressed to Get Screwed party, or a townie.”

Bret Easton Ellis The Rules of Attraction

The Rules of Attraction (1987)

“When I was bullied: you manned-up. You learned something. You realized: I'm not getting the gold star. You realized: you lose. Deal with it.”

Bret Easton Ellis

On being bullied and the It Gets Better Project <br class="br"> http://twitter.com/#!/BretEastonEllis/status/143539970307653632

“She staggers over to the bathroom door and grabs the edge of it to balance herself and blood starts running down her legs in thin rivulets and when she lifts up the robe we both can see her underwear soaked with blood and she pulls it off, panicking, and suddenly a huge gush of blood expels itself from beneath the robe, splashing all over the bathroom floor.She gasps, a thick noise comes out of her throat and she doubles over, grabbing her stomach, then she screams. Looking surprised and still clutching her stomach, she vomits will staggering backwards, collapsing onto the bathroom floor. There are strands of tissue hanging out of her.”

Bret Easton Ellis book Glamorama

Glamorama (1998)

“I just had my makeup done, so you can't make me cry.”

Bret Easton Ellis book Glamorama

Glamorama (1998)

“I reread that book in the summer of '03.... And I hadn't looked at that book either since '91. And I was dreading it. I thought it was going to be a really terrible novel. Everything everyone had ever said about it was going to be true.... And I started reading it… and I was surprised. It was good. It was fun. It was not nearly as pretentious as I remember I wanted it to be when I was writing it. Not nearly as weighted down with the importance that I thought I was investing it with. I found it really fast-moving. I found it really funny. And I liked it a lot. The violence was… it made my toes curl. I really freaked out. I couldn't believe how violent it was. It was truly upsetting. I had to steel myself to reread those passages.”

Bret Easton Ellis

On American Psycho <br class="br"> http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=571852

“It's definitely the book that I can tell—I don't know if other people can tell but I can tell as a writer–-is probably the most divisive that I've written. It has an equal number of detractors as it does fans. It doesn't really hold true with the other books. It was the one that took the longest to write, and the one that seemed the most important at the time. It's an unwieldy book… I like it.”

Bret Easton Ellis

On Glamorama <br class="br"> http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=571852

“I read it for the first time in about 20 years this year–-recently. It wasn't so bad. I get it. I get fan mail now from people who weren't really born yet when the book came out. I don't think it's a perfect book by any means, but it's valid. I get where it comes from. I get what it is. I know that sounds so ambiguous. It's sort of out of my hands and it has its reputation so what can you do about it? There's a lot of it that I wish was slightly more elegantly written. Overall, I was pretty shocked. It was pretty good writing for someone who was 19. I was pretty surprised by the level of writing.”

Bret Easton Ellis

On Less Than Zero <br class="br"> http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=571852

Similar authors

Chuck Palahniuk photo
Chuck Palahniuk555
American novelist, essayist None
Nicholas Sparks photo
Nicholas Sparks646
American writer and novelist None
Laurell K. Hamilton photo
Laurell K. Hamilton261
Novelist None
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon752
Novelist None
Carlos Ruiz Zafón photo
Carlos Ruiz Zafón149
Spanish writer None
John Green photo
John Green103
American author and vlogger None
Joanne K. Rowling photo
Joanne K. Rowling29
British novelist, author of the Harry Potter series None
Jenny Han photo
Jenny Han226
American writer None
Cassandra Clare photo
Cassandra Clare2041
American author None
P. C. Cast photo
P. C. Cast136
American writer None