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Mental Illness / Madness ("We shook hands; his hand was drier than…
Mental Illness / Madness
"We shook hands; his hand was drier than mine. Clean, polite, nice voice, good diction, a pretty decent-looking fellow, with a very disarming smile - and in the beginning he smiled a lot" (Harold Nye's view of Dick)
"I know it is wrong. But at the time I never give any thought to whether it is right or wrong. The same with stealing. It seems to be an impulse"
"He was sorry he felt as he did about her, for his sexual interest in female children was a failing of which he was "sincerely ashamed" - a secret that he'd not confessed to anyone" (about a twelve-year-old girl)
"They both laughed loudly, and a cameraman photographed them" (at the verdict)
"There are four killers up here and one railroaded man. I'm no goddamn killer. I never touched a hair on a human head" (Dick in jail)
"All I can hope is that some day we'll get a new trial, and Perry will testify and tell the truth. Only I doubt that"
"But Dick became convinced that Perry was that rarity - 'a natural killer' - absolutely sane, but conscienceless, and capable of dealing, with or without motive, the coldest-blooded deathblows"
"Dick loves to steal. It's an emotional thing for him - a sickness" (Perry)
"With a knife in his hand, he, Dick, had power. Big-shot bastards like that had better be careful or he might "open them up and let a little of their luck spill on the floor" " (of the man at the Fontainebleau, of whom Dick was envious)
" 'Boy!' he said - and it was what he always said after running down a dog, which was something that he did whenever the opportunity arose. 'Boy! We sure splattered him!: "
"Dick, because he didn't care to hear Perry "get going on that subject", shrugged and grinned and trotted down to the ocean's edge..."
"Before I ever went there to their house I knew there would be a girl there. I think the main reason that I went there was not to rob them but to rape the girl" (in written confession)
" 'A cinch,' said Dick. 'I promise you, honey, we'll blast hair all over them walls' "
"I'm going to bust that little girl" (Dick about Nancy" "And I [Perry] said, Uh-uh. But you'll have to kill me first"
"Ain't that what I promised you, honey - plenty of hair on them-those walls?"
"Deal me out baby. I'm a normal" (to Perry)
" 'No wonder you got leaps,' Dick told him. 'Aw, come on, baby. Get the bubbles out of your blood. We scored. It was perfect' "
"Dick said, 'I'm normal. I only dream about blonde chicken' "
"One farmer's wife said "Dick Hickock! Don't talk to be about Dick Hickock! If I ever met the devil! Steal? Steal the weights off a dead man's eyes! [...] Dick would've gone to jail more times than you can count, except nobody around here ever wanted to prosecute. Out of respect for his folks." "
"You people are sending me to a better world than this ever was" (At the hanging)
"Dick said, "The trouble with you, Andy, you've got no respect for human life. Including your own" " (To Lowell Lee Andrews)
"And suddenly he saw the truth: it was Perry he ought to have silenced. On a mountain road in Mexico. Or walking across the Mojave"
"Aw, Roy, the guy was a pun. A mean bastard. He deserved it" (a fellow witness)
"And his eyes not only situated at uneven levels but of uneven size, the left eye being truly serpentine, with a venomous, sickly-blue squint that although it was involuntarily acquired, seemed nevertheless to warn of bitter sediment at the bottom of his nature"
"Not long ago I had a piece of glass work out of my head. It came out the corner of my eye"
"His self-esteem is very low, and he feels secretly inferior to others and sexually inadequate" ... "In summary, he shows fairly typical characteristics of what would be psychiatrically called a severe character disorder"
"But Smith, though he was the true murderer, aroused another response, for Perry possessed a quality, the aura of an exiled animal, a creature walking wounded, that the detective could not disregard"
"I told him [Herb] it wasn't long till morning, and how in the morning somebody would find them, and that all of it, me and Dick an all, would seem like something they dreamed. I wasn't kidding him. I didn't want to harm the man"
" 'Know what I think?' said Perry, 'I think there must be something wrong with us. To do what we did.' "
"It was Perry. I couldn't stop him. He killed them all" (Dick)
"When he was seven years old, a hated, hating half-breed living in a California orphanage run by nuns - shrouded disciplinarians who whipped him for wetting his bed"
"A sign of approaching panic - "Bubbles in my blood" "
"Drove like hell, Dick driving. I think we both felt very high. I did. Very high and relieved at the same time. Couldn't stop laughing, neither of us; suddenly it all seemed very funny - I don't know why, it just did"
"They both laughed loudly, and a cameraman photographed them. The picture appeared in a Kansas newspaper above a caption entitled: "The Last Laugh?" "
"By the way, it was like picking off targets at a shooting gallery"
"As a child he had often thought of killing himself"
"He seems to have grown up without direction, without love, and without ever absorbing any fixed moral values..." (Dr Jones' potential but unheard testimony)
"Goodbye, Perry. Dick was sick of him - his harmonica, his aches and ills, his superstitions, the weepy, womanly eyes, the nagging, whispering voice. Suspicious, self-righteous, spiteful, he was like a wife that must be got rid of"
"Maybe we're not human"
"But Perry - there was, in Dick's opinion, "something wrong" with Little Perry"
"He cries so easily... he used to cry because he thought a sunset was so beautiful... He can make you feel sorry for him" (sister Barbara speaking)
"Happy disposition - yes and no, very serious if mistreated he never forgets" (Perry's father)
"Perry Smith. My God. He's had such a rotten life"