Quotes From "Imperial Bedrooms" By 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

He wasn't, I realized when I read those scenes concerning Blair and myself, close to any of us-- except of course to Blair, and really not even to her. He was simply someone who floated through our lives and didn't seem to care how flatly he perceived everyone or that he'd shared our secret failures with the world, showcasing the youthful indifference, the gleaming nihilism, glamorizing the horror of it all. But there was no point in being angry with him. 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

The audience-- the book's actual cast-- quickly realized what had happened. The reason the movie dropped everything that made the novel real was because there was no way the parents who ran the studio would ever expose their children in the same black light the book did. The movie was begging for our sympathy whereas the book didn't give a shit. And attitudes about drugs and sex had shifted quickly from 1985 to 1987 (and a regime change at the studio didn't help) so the source material-- surprisingly conservative despite its surface immorality-- had to be reshaped. . Bret Easton Ellis

She said that you--" "I don't care what she said." I stand up. "Everyone lies." "Hey, " he says softly. "It's just a code." "No. Everyone lies." I stub the cigarette out. "It's just another language you have to learn." Then he delicately adds, "I think you need some coffee, dude." Pause. "Why are you so angry? 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

It's basically a joke." "I think it's cool, " Julian says. "It's all about control, right?" He considers something. "It's not a joke. You should take it seriously. I mean, you're also one of the producers--" I cut him off. "Why have you been tracking this?" "It's a big deal and--" "Julian, it's a movie, " I say. "Why have you been tracking this? It's just another movie." "Maybe for you." "What does that mean?" "Maybe for others it's something else, " Julian says. "Something more meaningful." "I get where you're coming from, but there's a vampire in it. 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

How do I know you're not crazy?" she asks. "How do I know you're not the craziest dude I've ever met?" "You'll have to test me out." "You have my info, " she says. "I'll think about it." "Rain, " I say. "That's not your real name." "Does it matter?" "Well, it makes me wonder what else isn't real." "That's because you're a writer, " she says. "That's because you make things up for a living." "And?" "And"-- she shrugs--" I've noticed that writers tend to worry about things like that. Bret Easton Ellis

Her need is so immense that you become surrounded by it; this need is so enormous that you realize you can actually control it, and I know this because I've done it before. Bret Easton Ellis

In the movie I was played by an actor who actually looked more like me than the character the author portrayed in the book: I wasn't blond, I wasn't tan, and neither was the actor. I also suddenly became the movie's moral compass, spouting AA jargon, castigating everyone's drug use and trying to save Julian. (I'll sell my car, " I warn the actor playing Julian's dealer. "Whatever it takes.") This was slightly less true of Blair's character, played by a girl who actually seemed like she belonged in our group-- jittery, sexually available, easily wounded. Julian became the sentimentalized version of himself, acted by a talented, sad-faced clown, who has an affair with Blair and then realizes he has to let her go because I was his best bud. "Be good to her, " Julian tells Clay. "She really deserves it." The sheer hypocrisy of this scene must have made the author blanch. Smiling secretly to myself with perverse satisfaction when the actor delivered that line, I then glanced at Blair in the darkness of the screening room. Bret Easton Ellis