Mysterious Skin (2005) - Quotes

Memory and Forgetting in Childhood Trauma

Tagline: Two boys. One can't remember. The other can't forget.

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

Experiencing Alcohol for the First Time

Brian: I'm drunk. I've never been drunk in my life.

Eric: I'm corrupting you. Finally.

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

Communication Struggles Between Friends

Eric: I got a postcard from Wendy.

Neil: I think she's mad at me because I owe her like 3 letters.

Eric: Yeah, her last P.S. is "Tell Fuckface to write me.

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

The Complexities of Attraction and Warning

Wendy: You'd better be careful.

Eric: Of what?

Wendy: [[W:Modesto|Modesto] I'm serious, Eric. You're not in ] anymore. I see the way you look at him.

Eric: He's so beautiful. I can't help it. He's like a god.

Wendy: You don't have to tell me, I was infatuated with him too once. But I know all Neil's secrets and there's shit there you don't even want to know about. Trust me. Once I'm gone, you'll be all Neil has and you have to understand one thing. Where normal people have a heart, Neil McCormick has a bottomless black hole. And if you don't watch out, you can fall in and get lost forever.

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

A Confession About Childhood Experience

Neil: You're the only one I ever told.

Wendy: I know.

Neil: I never told Eric or my Mom. And I know some people might think it's fucked up, or whatever? But what happened that summer... is a huge part of me. No one ever made me feel that way, before or since. Like I was special.

Wendy: Neil, you were eight years old.

Neil: Yeah, but he really loved me. I mean, there were other kids sometimes, but... I was his prize. I was his one true love.

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

Strange Encounters and Alien Theories

Eric: [in a postcard to Neil] So you still haven't written - big surprise - but Wendy says you're doing OK, which is cool. I've been wanting to tell you about this strange guy I met 3 weeks ago. No, we're not fucking, get your mind out of the gutter, perv. He's not even gay, I don't think - in fact, his vibe is kinda weirdly asexual. His name is Brian Lackey. He lives in Little River and, like yours truly, attends Hutchinson Loser Community College... So anyways, the day you left, your mom and I found him literally on your doorstep, looking for you. He says you and him played Little League together like 10 years ago. He was the worst player on the team, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah... He's full of questions about you. But, of course, I haven't told him much, i.e. about your "line of work". I did say you were queer like me, only cause I figured you wouldn't care. But now, are you ready for the good part? He thinks that when you and him were little, you were both abducted and examined by space aliens. How brilliant is that? But he was completely serious when he told me this. Like you should've seen the look in his eyes. So, what's the story, dude? Were you abducted by a UFO or what? P.S. - Are your crabs gone yet?

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

Unaddressed Pain and Trauma in Silence

Brian: [to his father] I was bleeding, I kept passing out, I wet my bed, and you never asked why!

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

Lost Time and Unanswered Questions

Brian: [voiceover] The summer I was 8 years old, 5 hours disappeared from my life. 5 hours. Lost. Gone without a trace. Last thing I remember I was sitting on the bench at my Little League game. It started to rain. What happened after that remains a pitch black void.

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

Yearning for Escape from Painful Reality

Neil: [voiceover] And as we sat there listening to the carolers, I wanted to tell Brian it was over now and everything would be okay. But that was a lie, plus, I couldn't speak anyway. I wish there was some way for us to go back and undo the past. But there wasn't. There was nothing we could do. So I just stayed silent and trying to telepathically communicate... how sorry I was about what had happened. And I thought of all the grief and sadness... and fucked up suffering in the world... and it made me want to escape. I wished with all my heart that we could just... leave this world behind. Rise like two angels in the night and magically... disappear.

Frustration with Small Town Life

Neil: I am so sick of this stinkin little buttcrack of a town!

Discrepancy Between Appearance and Sound

Neil: [[Tarzan] I hate it when they look like ] but sound like Jane.

Struggling with Identity and Relationships

Neil: [[Angels|angel] You called me your fucking... ].

Embracing Individuality and Diverse Perspectives

Neil: Different folks, different strokes.

A Chance Encounter with Lasting Impact

Neil: [[queer] I met Wendy Peterson when I was 10. She was 11, one grade ahead of me in school. If I wasn't ] we would have ended up having sloppy teenage sex and getting pregnant, contributing more fucked-up unwanted kids to society. But instead, she became my soulmate. And... one true partner in crime.