A character in Mindhunter
Played by Holt McCallany
Mindhunter · 54 quotes
2nd most-quoted character in Mindhunter: in 25 of its 54 quotes
Most scenes with: Holden Ford (14), Wendy Carr (2), Montie Rissell (2)
Bill TenchWe're from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Behavioral Science Unit.
Scientists?
Bill TenchWe're from the Behavioral Science Unit. We're doing research. Interviewing men like you.
Men like me?
Bill TenchMurderers with multiple victims. To better understand why you do what you do.
I'd like to know, too.
You know what? I don't think I'm interested.
Bill TenchFine. 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?
His given name is Benjamin Barnwright, but everybody calls him Benji. He came back to town, just like I told you he would. Benji was home watching TV the night Beverly Jean was killed?
That's what he told us and I believe him. He let us search his car, no warrant. And we didn't find a thing except for some of Beverly Jean's hair, but in the passenger seat, like you'd expect it.
Bill TenchPassenger seat's not the best way to transport a corpse, I'll give you that. But you said he was home alone watching TV? That's not much of an alibi.
Why? Isn't that what most people do most nights of the week?
[brushing his teeth at a hotel] Here's a question, if it is Benjamin or some other boyfriend who freaked out on her, does the case merit our involvement? We still can't rule out a sequence killer, but if the perpetrator was a townie, then the crime is random, and there's no expectation that he'll be repeating it.
Bill TenchHere's my question, shouldn't our funding cover separate rooms?
You don't like my company?
Bill TenchWe'll get connecting doors.
The mutilation of her body alone justifies our involvement.
Bill TenchWould you mind sitting on your own bed, please?
Bill TenchIt's always the mother. They all have a crazy, angry mother.
Or an absent father. Benjamin only changed after his father took off. Maybe this has nothing to do with the mother.
Bill TenchAren't all fathers absent in some way? I know my old man was never around. Imagine how different Benjamin and Rose's lives might have been if their father never left.
What's the point if we don't apply it to the real world?
Bill TenchWe're trying to save women from getting pulled into vans and cut to pieces, not crucify some schoolmarm who hasn't done anything.
Yet! Certainly our goal is to be preemptive.
Bill TenchWe're the FBI, Holden. That is not our goal. Yet.
[holding Richard Speck newspaper clippings] It's like meeting a movie star.
Bill TenchCould be as anti-climactic.
"Crime of the Century."
Bill TenchUntil Charles Whitman two weeks later...
I remember staring at this wanted poster of him, trying to figure out if I saw him on the street, would I know he was insane?
Bill TenchYou clip all these?
Everything I could get my hands on. Even went to my neighbors who subscribed to newspapers outside of Milwaukee.
Bill TenchHolden and his first criminal crush!
You would really turn down the chance to meet Richard Speck? He's almost up there with Manson.
Bill TenchWell, maybe he'll give you an autograph.
That would be inappropriate, right?
I did not direct anyone to do anything that isn't what they wanted to do.
Bill TenchYou didn't stop them, either.
I always let children go. If he falls, that is how we learn. You become strong by falling.
Bill TenchYou're not supposed to let children fall. You're supposed to guide them!
Guide them into what? Guide them into what you've guided them into?
Bill TenchYou fucking midget.
Bill!
[laughs] This anger that you're feeling, Agent Tench, this is just the anger that you have got for you. Find someone else to put yourself on; I'm tired of being your goat. I'm tired of being your reflection.
Bill TenchYou're not my reflection.
I've always been yours. I've been in your cell since I was eight years old. I don't even have a name. I'm B-33920. A bell rings, I get up! A bell rings, I go out! A bell rings, I do what that bell says! I'm Pavlov's dog, man, I'm anything you want me to be! But what you want is a fiend... 'Cause that's what you are. See, I never had any say in your world; you created it. How do you feel about those murders? That's what counts. Happened in your world. Not in mine.
Bill TenchWhat counts is that you ordered the deaths of seven people. Eight, if you count the death of an unborn baby.
And now you can reflect it back on me. And you can lock me up in your penitentiary and you can say that your world's better! But prison's a frame of thought. We're all our own prisons, we're each our own wardens, we do our own time. Prison's in your mind. Can't you see I'm free?
Bill TenchYou don't look so free to me, Charlie.
You don't look free to me! You look like a composite of what someone told you you are! You live for other people's opinion, you got pain on your face, and you wonder if you look okay.
There are no rights and wrongs. Only "is"es. What life is, it is. Right and wrong got nothing to do with it.
Bill TenchSo, the murder of seven people just "is"?
Well, it is, isn't it?
These quotes come from Wikiquote's Mindhunter pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
