And then, as he ripped back the shower curtains and stared down at the hacked and twisted thing sprawled on the floor of the stall, he realized that Mother had used her keys.
Norman took another drink, just a sip. He could feel the wetness trickle down the side of his chin. He must be drunk. All right, he was drunk, what did it matter? As long as Mother didn’t know. As long as the girl didn’t know. It would all be a big secret. Impotent, was he? Well, that didn’t mean he couldn’t see her again.
Looking back, looking back and trying to figure what made you that way, several things stand out in your mind. There may have been more than several. Maybe there were a hundred. Maybe a thousand. Small events, little episodes, all pointing you in the same direction, so that you might think you had free will when you wobbled from side to side on the track, but there were no switches for you to throw, no turnings to choose.
And here, all along, she’d thought of herself as being so calm, so cool, so composed.
All at once she could hear the sullen patter of the rain and sense the sigh of the wind behind it.
There are times when you must stop analyzing and depend on your emotions.
It was the knife that, a moment later, cut off her scream.
All at once that was the most important thing – to get out of the dark.
The thought came creeping, just as the numbness came creeping, stealing over his senses, softly, smoothly, there in the silken silence.
Once you began speculation about that, once you admited to yourself that you didn’t really know how another person’s mind operated, then you came up against the ultimate admission – anything was possible.
But first he was going to take a drink, a big drink, because he needed one. And it didn’t matter whether he drank or not, nothing mattered now; it was all over. All over, or just beginning.
As she reached the landing, the thunder came. The whole house seemed to shake with it.
He managed to retain a cheerful smile at all times – though, in the dreams, he screamed.
Evil exists everywhere. Sometimes I think our limited senses are designed to protect us from awareness of its presence. We trust them to provide us with knowledge but it may be that they block out realization of horrors we cannot bear.
No trouble at all. Mother’s gone back to bed, and she won’t be doing any cooking – I was only going to set out some cold cuts and make some coffee. If that’s all right with you.” “Well – –.
The sun surrendered its splendor – why, it was like poetry; he was a poet; Norman smiled. He was many things. If they only knew – – But.
Norman Bates heard the noise and a shock went through him. It sounded as though somebody was tapping on the windowpane.
Twelve years had passed, and now he’d come full circle. The whole business had started here, and here it must end. That was simple justice.
You make yourself sick.
You didn’t really forget. It’s just that you don’t want anyone to come, you hope they don’t come.