Catherine Black quotes from Millennium

Catherine

Frank went back to work because he had to. It's who he is. Sometimes I think of Frank as the catcher in the rye... standing at the edge of the cliff trying to save the world... but he can't change anything. All he can do is catch these horrible men before they kill again. And that's why I can never let him think that Jordan and I aren't perfectly safe in this perfect house and perfect world that he's tried to give us... Because I know, if he ever thought differently... next time he'd never be able to leave.

Catherine

Just because it's hard to imagine or hard to accept, people don't want to deal with this because it's easier to believe that it couldn't really happen.

Catherine

I can handle imposition, Frank. What I can't handle is secrecy.

Frank

I don't keep secrets, Catherine. I'll tell you anything you want.

Catherine

You think you're protecting me but you make it worse, Frank. You can't shut the world out for me. You can't ask me to pretend that I don't know what you do.

Frank

Everyone pretends. We all make believe. These men I help catch... make us.

Catherine

We're raising a daughter, Frank. The real world starts to seep in. You can't stop it.

Frank

It seems that the old biblical concept of the devil's influence has lost any currency.

Catherine

I just think the language has changed. I think science and psychology have given us a clearer idea of why people commit evil acts. I see it everyday, abused kids become abusive adults.

Frank

So the true source of evil is us.

Catherine

You mean, are we all capable of it?

Frank

Or is there something out there - a force or a presence - waiting until it can create another murder, another rape, another holocaust.

Catherine

I think it's something that everyone who looks deeply at life wonders.

Frank

What would you tell a child? What would I tell Jordan?

Catherine

Maybe you should just tell her good-night.

Catherine

They play well together.

Yeah. It's great to watch them, huh? They have no idea. Things we see... things we know are out there. I hope I'm not screwing him up... I never ever dreamed at that perfect moment that... my time with him would be regulated by petitions, attorney retainers, orders of the court... that mother, father and son would become nothing more than a case number... that as a father, I risk adding nothing to his life. I could become nothing but... face covered in gray tape.

Frank

When I read Dostoevsky there was a passage, something like: 'There's nothing more sad than a life that ends and no one knows or cares.' Hair today, gone tomorrow. The subject is angry that his life will go unnoticed... that he will have left nothing. The hatred of himself is directed toward the world which has held him back because it objectified him... reduced him, reduced us all to universal bar codes. We are animals in a caged shelter, controlled by dog catchers. The gray tape makes the victims look like how he feels -- faceless -- a dead letter lost at the post office. He's killed before... when he was young... most likely a female prostitute, after an early setback... a girlfriend, a job. He sought out a woman that wouldn't turn him away. The solicitation increased his feelings of nothingness and so he killed her before sex. My guess? He was never caught. He got away with it. Subject has felt guilt ever since, angered at a world that should have punished him but didn't. The murder, however, was the most significant event in his life. He's returned to this place, to the event. He wants nothing more than to be stopped. But he will do everything in his control to remain significant.

Frank

The man I had Bletcher pick up has filed a half a dozen law suits. City's attorney's ordered the police to stay away from him. [Offers his sandwich to Catherine.] Want this?

Catherine

No, thanks. There's nothing to be done, to bring this man to justice?

Frank

He flaunts the system and gets away with it, as if his private justice was a higher, purer form.

Catherine

Then he uses conventional law to protect himself.

Frank

When you believe in nothing, everything is acceptable. It's a game to him. He sits at home a free man. He's taunting us.

Frank

Yeah. I was just thinking on the plane about this man Calloway. I felt how human he was... so inundated by pain, fragmented by grief. It led him to surrender his humanity.

Catherine

I know, Frank. It scares me.

Frank

We can't stop evil but we can't lose our faith either.

Catherine

And you're thinking that's what we need to teach Jordan.

Frank

I'm going to tell Jordan that bad things happen. And even though the bird died and it upset her, we have to balance sadness... with a sense of hope... and faith.

Catherine

I still have faith, Frank... even in a world where men like that exist.

Frank

So do I.

Catherine

How could anyone abandon a child? But millions of people do it. Millions. God, it's scary. We have home after home filled with kids like James. And we know they'll turn violent. How do I tell the survivors that no one saw it coming? They're out there, Frank.

Frank

Thousand points of darkness.

Catherine

People full of holes. Like James. Living off the fantasy that his mother will somehow make everything better. Frank?

Frank

It doesn't make any sense. James never gave up. He never stopped looking.

Catherine

It was fantasy.

Bletcher

So, what we have here is a guy that goes to funerals for fun and kills people.

Plus carves them up.

Bletcher

Does Social Service have a name for that?

Catherine

He's a classic lost child. And there's an army of them just like him... Put up for adoption at one and a half. Never placed... In and out of foster care, reform school, abuse. He essentially raised himself.

Bletcher

Then he didn't do a very good job.

Catherine

They never do. No one showed him how to connect with the world. Odd as this may sound, going to funerals is his attempt.

Attempt at what?

Catherine

Finding human contact. Family.

Family? Please!

Catherine

Read his diary... Decide for yourself... but I'm telling you, at some level, he wants what we all have.

He wants to destroy what we have.

Bletcher

I read once the first two weeks of a kitten's life seal its fate. If it has human contact... it's domestic. If it doesn't... it goes feral.

Catherine

Tough room.

Catherine

You've got to let him see his wife.

Bletcher

I'm not jerking him around here. She was cut up... viciously. All the evidence is under wraps until I get my game plan in order.

Catherine

It won't be real to him until he sees the body.

Bletcher

I seriously doubt that that's the way he wants to remember his wife.

Catherine

Then don't expect his cooperation. It would help to have him on your side.

Bletcher

Oh, I could definitely stand to have someone on my side.

Catherine

Maybe someone else should have picked up the phone when you called our house this morning.

Bletcher

You should have waited for us, damn it.

Frank

She'd be dead now.

Bletcher

He should have waited. You tell him.

Catherine

I know... I know you had to go in there... Because of who you are... Because you had no choice. Frank... I can't lose you.

Frank

I'm not going anywhere.

Catherine

Promise me? I don't want to ask myself 'am I strong enough to be alone?'

Frank

It's okay. Nobody is.

Catherine

We all have secrets, Mrs. Bangs.

Maybe that's what they're best kept as.

Catherine

Tell me honestly, Frank. Am I going too far?

Frank

We live in a world where too many people won't go far enough, won't do what they know is right, what they believe. I don't know how or why it got this way but the world has become so complicated that to involve yourself in someone else's problems is to invite them needlessly on yourself.

Frank

Yeah. Thinking about my parents, my grandparents -- forty or fifty years ago, they never locked their doors, day or night. We seem to have accepted it so... gracefully, so naturally -- the security systems. We've allowed ourselves to become almost besieged by our own fear.

Catherine

If you're not afraid, you're living in denial. The world's changed.

Frank

Yeah, I know. Can't turn it back. But we wonder... where are we headed from here?