That’s Going In The Quote Book #s 49-50

I try to limit the number of quotes that go into my book from a single source to one. This is generally to keep the book from spiraling out of control and getting really huge really fast, as well as to prevent the meaningfulness of the quotes I choose from getting diluted.

It’s not a hard-and-fast rule, though. Usually, when more than one quote makes it into the book, there’s a time gap between them, because different things speak to me at different times in my life. But on occasion, they come back-to-back.

Can’t say I would’ve expected a rather mediocre movie like Red Dragon to be the first source of a double quote, yet here we are.

I don’t remember much about the film, beyond it being a prequel to Silence of the Lambs starring Edward Norton. There’s a serial killer who begins a romantic relationship with a blind woman, and things end about as well as you’d expect.

Near the end of the movie, after shit’s gone down, Norton’s character, in an attempt to reassure the woman that none of it is her fault, comes out with an absolute gem.

You didn’t draw a freak, okay? You drew a man with a freak on his back.

I’m sure that if I was drinking, I snorted said drink up my nose. It’s just such a inherently weird thing to say. Even though it may have been plot-driven – I seem to remember the serial killer having a tattoo on his back – it’s still just … why? And at the time, I figured anything that made me make the face that line did deserved a place in the book.

I think the second line from Red Dragon that got into the book may be from the same scene. (Although don’t quote me on that. (Ba-dum tsh!)) If not, considering that the movie was nearly over, it couldn’t have been much further on.

Anyway, it’s once again Norton’s character who says it. But instead of a spit-take, my reaction was more of an, “Awww, I like that!”

Our scars have the power to remind us that the past really happened.

I was happy to add it to the book, as well. Even so, it was this moment at which my ‘guideline’ was born. I mean, yes I enjoyed both quotes on their own merits, albeit it in very different ways, and I found the dichotomy between them entertaining. But I could see how, if I wasn’t at least a little bit picky in the future, the quote book could get very unwieldy, indeed.

To see previous posts in my Quotes series, click here.