25 Mindhunter Quotes That Will Keep You Up at Night

Sometimes, the scariest stories are based on real-life, as these Mindhunter quotes show.

Some people just like to be scared, and because of that, there are tons of television series that work to accomplish just that.

But there are many real-life stories that are scarier than anything a TV writer can come up with on their own.

The Mindhunter series is one that accomplishes just that.

The two-season series is loosely based on true stories involving the FBI and their work in the 1970s and 1980s to understand the minds of serial killers and other violent criminals.

The characters are loosely based on real-life FBI agents, and the stories of the killers are loosely based on some of the serial killers that have made the news throughout the decades.

If you like to be scared, these Mindhunter quotes are for you.

Don’t forget to also check out these House of Cards quotes from the iconic show.

Mindhunter quotes from Wendy Carr

1. “Psychopaths are extremely skilled at imitating human emotions. It’s how they manipulate other people, or how they gain power over their environment.” — Wendy Carr

2. “What else is a criminal except somebody who can’t function in society?” — Wendy Carr

3. “Imagine, like truly imagine what it takes to bludgeon someone to death. The lust for control, the feeling of arousal, the decision to rape the severed head of your victim, to humiliate her corpse. How could you possibly get that from an ordinary police report?” — Wendy Carr

4. “Um, I’m teaching a class on the intersection of sociopathy and fame. People like, um, Andy Warhol, Jim Morrison. Their celebrity becomes the only thing they need to sustain their ego.” — Wendy Carr

5. “I mean, if they admitted that they rape and murder for pleasure, it would destroy them. There’s a tension. They need to be seen to have power over someone, and yet circumstance demands that they erase the only witness, which means they have to do the whole thing over again. It must be Hell.” — Wendy Carr

6. “Psychopaths are convinced that there is nothing wrong with them, so these men are virtually impossible to study.” — Wendy Carr

7. “What happens to these men is normal, but the way that they process it is not.” — Wendy Carr

8. “There’s no point in preparing questions if you don’t bother to ask them.” — Wendy Carr

Mindhunter quotes from Edmund Kemper

9. “In reality, when you stab somebody, they lose blood pressure and they leak to death, very slowly.” — Edmund Kemper

10. “You see, Bill, I knew a week before she died I was gonna kill her.” — Edmund Kemper

11. “So I got a claw hammer and I beat her to death. Then I cut her head off, and I humiliated her.” — Edmund Kemper

12. “Butchering people is hard work. Physically and mentally. I don’t think people realize. You need to vent.” — Edmund Kemper

13. “Women are born with this little hole between their legs, which every man on earth just wants to stick something into. And they’re weaker than men, so they learn strategies. They deploy their minds and their sex, and they intuitively learn to humiliate.” — Edmund Kemper

Mindhunter quotes from Bill Tench

14. “If what we’re doing doesn’t get under your skin, you’re more screwed up than I thought, or kidding yourself.” — Bill Tench

15. “Passenger seat’s not the best way to transport a corpse, I’ll give you that.” — Bill Tench

16. “The question is not only why did the killer do it, but why did the killer do it this way?” — Bill Tench

17. “Nixon was a sociopath.” — Bill Tench

18. “Guys communicate in a certain way. It can be rough, but it’s like a code. It gets out the conflict.” — Bill Tench

19. “I’ve been around crazy. I was in the Army.” — Bill Tench

20. “Fine. You want to diddle around, we’ll walk out of here. We’ll go have a nice, leisurely lunch wherever the fuck we want, and then take the picturesque drive back to Quantico. What’s the rest of your day look like?” — Bill Tench

21. “I can choke down the bile, manufacture empathy—when our subjects are at least informative.” — Bill Tench

22. “We’re trying to save women from getting pulled into vans and cut to pieces, not crucify some schoolmarm who hasn’t done anything.” — Bill Tench

23. “When you’re married, it’s a contract. There’s children, a mortgage, a house to keep up, almost like a business. Only you can’t quit. She can’t fire you. Stock goes up, stock goes down, doesn’t matter, you’re trapped. Unless you want to bring on the lawyers and open Pandora’s box. Resentment builds on both sides. A thousand tiny cuts.” — Bill Tench

24. “Marriage and fatherhood don’t make anger go away.” — Bill Tench

25. “If you want to learn how to paint, go straight to the artist.” — Bill Tench

Which of these Mindhunter quotes is your favorite?

Both seasons of the Mindhunter series had high ratings from viewers and critics.

There is just something about the stories that make you not want to know more while also feeling like you need to keep following along to find out the details.

The series focuses not only on the work of the FBI but also the collaboration with psychologists in trying to understand the way the mind of a serial killer works.

If you can handle reading through the Mindhunter quotes and sayings above and like to hear all the gory details of these types of crimes, this is a show for you.