"Every woman is a mystery waiting to be solved, but a woman hides nothing from a true lover. Her skin color can tell us how to proceed. A hue like the blush of a rose, pink and pale, and she must be coaxed to open her petals with a warmth like the sun. The pale and dappled skin of a redhead calls for the lust of a wave crashing to the shore so we may stir up what lies beneath her and bring up the foamy delight of love to the surface. Although there is no metaphor that truly describes making love to a woman, the closest is playing a rare musical instrument. I wonder...does a Stradivarius violin feel the same rapture as the violinist when he coaxes a single perfect note from its heart?"

"I want to know what your dreams and your hopes are that got lost along the way while I was thinking about myself."

"I just feel as though we've surrendered our lives to the momentum of mediocrity."

"There are only four questions of value in life, Don Octavio: What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for? And what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love."

"When I say that all woman are dazzling beauties, they object. This one's nose is too large... the hips of another are too wide, perhaps the breast of a third, they are too small. But I see these women for how they truly are: Glorious... radiant, spectacular and perfect because I am not limited by my eyesight. Women react on me the way that they do Don Octavio because they sense that I search out the beauty that dwells within them until it overwhelms everything else. And then they cannot avoid their desire: to release that beauty and envelop me in it."

"I know what its like to want to die. How it hurts to smile. How you try to fit in, but you can't. How you hurt yourself on the outside, to try to kill the thing on the inside."

"Alison Claire - Nurse Gretta"

"Christina Myers - Nurse Margie"

"Joanna Kerns - Annette Kaysen"

"Whoopi Goldberg - Valerie Owens, R.N."

"Angelas Bettis - Janet Webber"

"Clea DuVall - Georgina Tuskin"

"Brittany Murphy - Daisy Randone"

"Jared Leto - Tobias 'Toby' Jacobs"

"Angelina Jolie - Lisa Rowe"

"Winona Ryder - Susanna Kaysen"

"Sometimes, the only way to stay sane is to go a little crazy."

"The crazy thing is, you're not crazy."

"Based on a true story."

"Note that the poem is a quote from Dorothy Parker's "Résumé" (1925)"

"[to Daisy about going to Florida] I am going to be the Cinderella at Walt Disney's new theme park, Susanna's gonna be Snow White. You can come if you want, you can be the Cocker Spaniel that eats spaghetti."

"[Southern accent] Razors pain you, Rivers are damp / Acid stains you, Drugs cause cramps / Guns aren't lawful, Nooses give / Gas smells awful, Ya might as well live."

"[to Susanna] You think you're free? I'm free! You don't know what freedom is! I'm free! I can breathe! And you - you're gonna go choke on your average fuckin' mediocre life!"

"[narrating] Was I ever crazy? Maybe. Or maybe life is... Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It's you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever. They were not perfect, but they were my friends and by the '70s, most of them were out living lives. Some I've seen, some never again, but there isn't a day my heart doesn't find them."

"[to Lisa] I've wasted a year of my life here. Maybe everyone out there is a liar. And maybe the whole world is stupid and ignorant. But I'd rather be in it. I'd rather be fucking in it, than down here with you."

"[narrating] Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train was moving while sitting still? Maybe I was just crazy. Maybe it was the '60's. Or maybe I was just a girl... interrupted."

"Peter Mullan - Gordon Fleming"

"[reading the asylum journals] He came into her room at night wearing a black robe. He'd take her and drive her to a wooded area where her grandparents and her mother were, and they'd all have black robes on. They'd take them off and group orgies would ensue... and then they'd bring out the newborn. She was forced to watch as her mother would cut the baby's heart out with a stone dagger. She'd drink the blood; others would eat the flesh. The grandfather and father would fuck her repeatedly. She was forced to have abortions and cook the aborted fetuses."

"The icepick method. Insert a thin metal pipette into the orbital frontal cortex. Enter the soft tissue of the frontal lobe. A few simple, smooth, up-and-down jerks sever the lateral hypothalamus... all resulting in a rapid reduction of stress for our little patient here. Total time elapsed? Two minutes. Only side-effect? Black eye. Recommended treatment? Sunglasses."

"Charley Broderick - Security Guard"

"Madness is just overactive curiosity."

"It says here that 19 were committed due to disappointed expectations, Hank, they're talkin' about you."

"[crying while sitting on the floor of the mental hospital, holding a dead cellular phone] ...Wendy, it's me, please don't hang up, please! I just wanted to say that... I'm so sorry for what's happened... I'm so lonely here, I want to go home... I just want to hold you, I want to hold my baby... can you forgive me... can you forgive me?"

"Paul Guilfoyle - Bill Griggs"

"Larry Fessenden - Craig McManus"

"Jurian Hughes - Mary Hobbes"

"Brendan Sexton III - Jeff"

"Josh Lucas - Hank"

"Stephen Gevedon - Mike"

"David Caruso - Phil"

"Jennifer Jason Leigh - Dr. Lorenson"

"I was 27 years old the first time I died. I remember there was white everywhere. There was war and I felt alive, but really I was dead."

"Sometimes I think we live through things only to be able to say that it happened. That it wasn't to someone else, it was to me. Sometimes we live to beat the odds. I'm not crazy even though they thought I was. I live in the same world as everyone else. I just saw more of it, as I'm sure you have. They'll find my body tomorrow. You can check it out if you don't believe me. I've seen life after my death, and I'm telling you this because it's the only way to help you and your daughter have a better life of your own. Jean, you're gonna pass out one day smoking a cigarette and burn to death. Your daughter grows up living the same sad life you're living right now. And she misses you so much. Sometimes life can only really begin with the knowledge of death. That it can all end, even when you least want it to. The important thing in life is to believe that while you're alive, it's never too late. I promise you, Jean, no matter how bad things look, they look better awake than they do asleep. When you die, there's only one thing you want to happen. You wanna come back."

"For me... that is a really difficult question Dr. Laurenson, because the world around me is shrinking... and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are comin' to see me today, and they're not bringing flowers which... just makes it real difficult to get organized."

"Terror has a new name."

"Adrien Brody - Jack Starks"

"The real events that have happened to me have been fucked up, not my mind!"

"Keira Knightley - Jackie Price"

"Kris Kristofferson - Dr. Thomas Becker"