“The fantasy that accompanies and generates the anticipation that precedes the crime is always more stimulating than the immediate aftermath of the crime itself.”

“I don’t want to beat around the bush with you anymore. I’m just tired.”

“I’m no social scientist, and I don’t pretend to believe what John Q. Citizen thinks.”

“It was like coming out of some horrible trance or dream. I can only liken it to (and I don’t want to overdramatize it) being possessed by something so awful and alien, and the next morning waking up and remembering what happened and realizing that in the eyes of the law, and certainly in the eyes of God, you’re responsible.”

“I went down the road, throwing everything I had, the briefcase, out the window. Throwing the briefcase, the crutches, the rope, the clothes.”

“You take the individual we are talking about and then you subject him to stress. Stress happens to come randomly, but its effect on the personality is not random; it’s specific. That results in a certain amount of chaos, confusion, and frustration. That person begins to seek out a target for his frustrations. The continued nature of this stress this person was under — the nature of the flaw or weakness in his personality, together with other elements in the environment that offer him a logical target for his frustrations or escapes from reality — yields the situation we’re discussing. There is no trigger, it is truly more sophisticated than that.”

“Possessing them physically as one would possess a potted plant, a painting, or a Porsche. Owning, as it were, this individual.”

“I’m talking about going beyond retribution, which is what people want with me.”

“Countless millions who have walked this earth before us have gone through this, so this is just an experience we all share.”

“I just liked to kill, I wanted to kill.”

“It’s a moment-by-moment thing. Sometimes I feel very tranquil and other times I don’t feel tranquil at all. What’s going through my mind right now is to use the minutes and hours I have left as fruitfully as possible. It helps to live in the moment, in the essence that we use it productively. Right now I’m feeling calm, in large part because I’m here with you.”