Patrick Melrose Quotes

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Debbie: How did he die?
Patrick: I forgot to ask. I was too dizzy with glee. I'm sorry, I mean dazed with grief.

Debbie: You're probably not interested but we have been invited to Gregory and Rebecca's for dinner.
Patrick: Suffering's what take place when other people are eating.

Debbie: It was a complicated relationship.  A lot to think about.
Patrick: Yes. I'm not sure the heroin is helping either.

Debbie: Do you think now that he's dead that you could be a little less like him?
Patrick: Unlikely. I'll merely have to do the work of two.

Patrick: By the way, I think I'm going to give up drugs.
[Julia laughs]
Patrick: You don't think I can?
Julia: I'm a little skeptical.
Patrick: I've done it before.
Julia: Exactly.

Patrick: Here come the quaaludes!

Patrick: I'll have another of your very refreshing martinis and some salmon tartare followed by some steak tartare. Tartare ta ta!

Waiter: Would sir care for a dessert?
Patrick: Care for it? How do you care for a dessert? Feed it? Visit it on Sundays?

Heroin's the cavalry, the missing chair leg. Heroin is love.

Waiter: Is everything okay, sir?
Patrick: You keep asking that but how can everything be okay? It's simply too much to hope for.
Waiter: Because there have been some complaints.
Patrick: You mean the voices aren't just in my head? Oh, fuck.

Patrick: Chilly says you might have a new syringe.
Mrs. Willy: Well, it ain't exactly new but I boiled it and everything.

Patrick: In [my father's] world, it was better if you could have been prime minister or a surgeon or a concert pianist. To have tried and actually achieved something would have shown vulgar ambition.

Pierre: Do you regret that [your father]'s dead?
Patrick: I regret that he lived.
Pierre: Without him, you wouldn't exist.
Patrick: One mustn't be too egotistical about these things.

Patrick: Cruelty's the opposite of love, not some inarticulate expression of it.

Marianne: They fuck you up, your mom and dad. They may not mean to but they do.
Patrick: Who says they don't mean to?

Patrick: What's the point of a fucking window if you can't jump out of it?

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Victor: Well, come on. Breakfast then.
Anne: Darling! You shouldn't have!
Victor: Have what?
Anne: Made breakfast.
Victor: No, I mean, I, um, um, I mean I'm ready for breakfast.
[Anne rolls her eyes]

Anne: Did you know Caligula tortured his wife to find out why he was so devoted to her? What's David's excuse, I wonder?

Victor: At Eton, [David] was an extraordinarily gifted young man, very distinguished, held in awe.
Anne: I'm sure it's very American of me but I fail to see what's so glamorous about lost promise. Distinguished for what? For doing nothing for a long time in the same place?

Eleanor: Why do people think they'll please me by asking about Patrick? I don't know how he is. Only he knows.

Eleanor: We were going to marvelous things [with the house]. We were going to turn it into a home for alcoholics - which, in a sense, we have.

David: Are you going to weddings or memorial services?
Nicholas: I still go to weddings, but I enjoy the memorials more.
David: Because you don't have to bring a present.

David: Only the best or go without.
Nicholas: Always. Provided we don't have to go without.

Nicholas: Sometimes I think I should be done with and settle down with a well-bred, well-educated, well-informed woman whose conversation I can bear, and then I remember I've divorced two of them already.

Eleanor: Patrick, don't skulk. Either enter a room or leave.

Victor: Don't ask people what they do for a living. Don't ask the staff how they feel. And don't provoke David.
Anne: Fine. But will you do one thing for me tonight? Don't suck up to them. Don't let them bully you. Don't try to fit in.
Victor: Isn't that three things?
Anne: They're all connected.

Eleanor: Let's drink to....let's drink!

David: I do like you in pink. It matches your eyes.

David: Vodka, my dear?
Bridget: Do you have a Coke? Alcohol's such a crude high.

Victor: It's only natural that those are terrified become terrifying given the opportunity.

Anne: Why do you think it's superior to be amoral?
Nicholas: It's not a question of being superior. It's a question of not being a bore or a prig.
David: What one aims for is ennui.

David: Eleanor, what a marvelous memory you have to be able to duplicate the dinner we had last time.

David: You can't just treat human beings like things.
Bridget: Definitely.
David: You agree with me?
Bridget: Definitely. You see, I feel that so strongly, that the problem with the world is people treating other people like things.
David: I so agree. Something else we have in common. Things should be treated with great care.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Nicholas: Remember - it's a party. You're not meant to enjoy it.

Nanny: You are a naughty, naughty girl!
Bridget: Oh, dear. I do wish nanny wasn't so had on Belinda.
Tony: Why don't you just sack the old hag?
Bridget: She's terrifying!

Patrick: [Amanda]'s not an addict. She just likes a bit of coke. Amateur.

Belinda: Is Granny upset?
Bridget: What on earth makes you say that?
Belinda: She looked sad when she left.
Bridget: Oh, well, that's just the way her face looks when it relaxes.

Patrick: It's been years since I talked to strangers without drugs.
Johnny: Even when we did take drugs, all we ever did see was the inside of loos.
Patrick: Yes. Nowadays when I go to the loo, I say to myself, "What are you doing ehre? You don't take drugs anymore." It's only after I storm out that I remember I need a piss.

Patrick: I suppose the young will be taking ecstasy tonight.
Johnny: Ecstasy, the nonaddictive high.
Patrick: Call me old fashioned but I don't really see the attraction of nonaddictive drugs. If it doesn't fuck you up, what's the point?

Patrick: There's an air of palpable stupidity that comes off that man like opening the door to a sauna.

Patrick: I remember these people from my childhood - hard and dull.
Johnny: The last Marxists. The last people to believe class is a total explanation.

Patrick: Of course, the other danger is that without bitterness, spite, sarcasm, snobbery, and self-loathing, there might be nothing left.
Johnny: Perhaps. Or think what you could put there instead.

Johnny: Thank you for telling me.
Patrick: No need to get California about it.
Johnny: No need to be so English.

Edited May 27, 2018 by ElectricBoogaloo

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Julia: I think you can be too nice to children. If you want them to grow up to be corporate lawyers or chief executives, no use filling their heads with ideas of trust and truth telling and reliability. They won't be able to compete in the real world.

Nancy: Best to assume you're always in danger.
Patrick: A rule to live by.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Patrick: An orphan at last. It's what I always dreamed of.

Nicholas: What else is there to do with money but spend it when you have it and be bitter when you don't?

Nancy: Patrick, of all the days to have a funeral, it's Prince Charles' wedding!
Patrick: Well, feel free to pop down with your cardboard periscope and a plastic Union Jack if you think it will be more entertaining.

Patrick: I think my mother's death is the best thing to have happened to me since my father's death.

Nicholas: What utter utter nonsense. One of was bound to die first and I'm delighted it was you!

Julia: Squalor is not an aphrodisiac, not at our age.

Nicholas: Whatever his drawbacks as a parent, [David] never lost his sense of humor.
Patrick: Easy not to lose what you never had.
Nicholas: I disagree. He saw the funny side in everything.
Patrick: He only saw the funny side of things that didn't have one.
Nicholas: Cruelty and laughter have always been close.
Patrick: Close without being incestuous.

Rehab guy: I think we need to be aware of the alcoholic behind the alcohol. You can take the brandy out of the fruitcake, but you've still got the fruitcake.
Patrick: I don't think you can.
Rehab guy: What?
Patrick: Take the brandy out of the fruitcake. Same as you can't eggs out of a soufflé.
Rehab guy: Well, it's only a metaphor.
Patrick: Only a metaphor? But it doesn't work!

Becky: Becky. Self harming resistant depressant.
Patrick: Patrick. Narcissistic schizoid suicidal alcoholic.
Becky: How many types of medication do they have you on?
Patrick: Three. Two antidepressants and a tranquilizer.
Becky: I'm on eight.
Patrick: Then I suppose you win.

Jill: I think a lot of my relationship problems stem from the fact that the person I'm having a relationship with doesn't know we're in a relationship.
Becky: Fuck, Jill. No wonder you're here for the ninth time.
[Jill runs out crying]
Rehab guy: You're going to have to apologize for that.
Becky: Why? I meant it.
Rehab guy: That's why you have to apologize.