SE7EN

MILLS: Wait, I thought all you did was kill innocent people.

JOHN DOE: Innocent? Is that supposed to be funny? An obese man...a disgusting man who could barely stand up; a man who if you saw him on the street, you'd point him out to your friends so that they could join you in mocking him; a man, who if you saw him while you were eating, you wouldn't be able to finish your meal! After him, I picked the lawyer, and I know you both must have been secretly thanking me for that one. This is a man who dedicated his life to making money by lying with every breath that he could muster, to keeping murderers and rapists on the streets!

MILLS: Murderers?

JOHN DOE: A woman...

MILLS: Murderers, John, like yourself?

JOHN DOE: A woman...so ugly on the inside she couldn't bear to go on living if she couldn't be beautiful on the outside. A drug dealer - a drug-dealing pederast, actually! And let's not forget the disease-spreading whore! Only in a world this shitty could you even try to say these were innocent people and keep a straight face. [Pause.] But that's the point. We see a deadly sin on every street corner, in every home, and we tolerate it. We tolerate it because it's common, it's trivial. We tolerate it morning, noon, and night. Well, not anymore. I'm setting the example. What I've done is going to be puzzled over and studied and followed...forever.

AMADEUS

SALIERI: Astounding! It was actually beyond belief. These were first and only drafts of music, yet they showed no corrections of any kind. Not one. Do you realize what that meant? He'd simply put down music already finished in his head. Page after page of it, as if he was just taking dictation. And music...finished as no music is ever finished. Displace one note and there would be diminishment. Displace one phrase, and the structure would fall. It was clear to me. That sound I had heard in the Archbishop's palace had been no accident. Here again was the very voice of God! I was staring through the cage of those meticulous ink-strokes at an absolute, inimitable beauty. [Pause. Salieri speaks aloud to God.] From now on, we are enemies, you and I. Because you will not enter me, with all my need for you; because you scorn my attempts at virtue; because you choose for your instrument a boastful, lustful, smutty infantile boy and give me for reward only the ability to recognize the Incarnation; because you are unjust, unfair, unkind, I will block you! I swear it! I will hinder and harm your creature on earth as far as I am able.

AMERICAN PSYCHO

BATEMAN: You like Huey Lewis and the News?

OWEN: They're okay.

BATEMAN: Their early work was a little too New Wave for my taste. But then Sports came out in 1983, I think they really came into their own, commercially and artistically.

[Bateman walks to his bathroom, taking a large axe out of the shower. He takes two Valium.]

BATEMAN: The whole album has a clear, crisp sound and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that gives the songs a big boost.

[Bateman comes back out and leans the axe against the wall. He walks to the foyer and puts on a raincoat, watching Owen from behind ail the time.]

BATEMAN: He's been compared to Elvis Costello but I think Huey has a more bitter, cynical sense of humor.

OWEN: Hey, Halberstam?

BATEMAN: Yes, Owen?

OWEN: Why are there copies of the Style section all over the place? Do you have a dog? A chow or something?

BATEMAN: [With a cheery smile.] No, Owen.

OWEN: [Confused.] Is that a raincoat?

BATEMAN: [Almost a laugh.] Yes, it is!

[Bateman puts on "Hip to be Square".]

BATEMAN: [Rising joyous hysteria, speaking louder over the music.] In 1987 Huey released this, Fore!, their most accomplished album. I think their undisputed masterpiece is "Hip To Be Square," a song so catchy that most people probably don't listen to the lyrics. But they should because it's not just about the pleasures of conformity and the importance of trends. It's also a personal statement about the band itself.

[Bateman crosses the room and picks up the axe. He walks up to Owen, the axe raised over his head.]

BATEMAN: [At the peak of his hysteria, a wild smile on his face.] Hey, Paul?

[As Owen turns around, Bateman swings the axe toward his face. Blood sprays onto the white raincoat. Bateman yanks the axe out. Owen drops to the floor. Blood pulses onto the newspaper sheets.]

BATEMAN: [Raising the axe and screaming.] Try getting a reservation at Dorsia now, you ****ing stupid bastard!