Courtesy of The Lair, we present 25 striking quotes from Jeffrey Dahmer. Unlike Ted Bundy, Dahmer does not make excuses. Rather, he reaches for answers to the unanswerable horror that he perpetrated. Dare we give him marginal credit for honesty? That’s a question each reader will have to answer for themselves.
“I think in some way I wanted it to end, even if it meant my own destruction.”
“It’s just a nightmare, let’s put it that way. It’s been a nightmare for a long time, even before I was caught … for years now, obviously my mind has been filled with gruesome, horrible thoughts and ideas … a nightmare.”
“I couldn’t find any meaning in my life when I was out there. I’m sure as hell not going to find it in here. This is the grand finale of a life poorly spent and the end result is just overwhelmingly depressing … it’s just a sick, pathetic, wretched, miserable life story, that’s all it is. How it can help anyone, I’ve no idea.”
“I don’t even know if I have the capacity for normal emotions or not because I haven’t cried for a long time. You just stifle them for so long that maybe you lose them, partially at least. I don’t know.”
“I don’t know why it started. I don’t have any definite answers on that myself. If I knew the true, real reasons why all this started, before it ever did , I wouldn’t probably have done any of it.”
” … Like arrows, shooting through my mind from out of the blue.” …Fantasies
“That night in Ohio, that one impulsive night. Nothing’s been normal since then. It taints your whole life. After it happened I thought that I’d just try to live as normally as possible and bury it, but things like that don’t stay buried. I didn’t think it would, but it does, it taints your whole life.” …Hicks
“Yup, she’s lived in that house a long time.” …’Do you love your grandmother?’
“At about eleven o’clock at night, when everyone was gone and the store was locked up from the outside, I went out and undressed the mannequin and I had a big sleeping bag cover. I put it in that, zipped it up and carried it out of the store, which was a pretty dangerous thing to do. I never thought of them maybe having security cameras or being locked in the store, but I walked out with it and took it back home. I ended up getting a taxi and brought it back and kept it with me a couple of weeks. I just went through various sexual fantasies with it, pretending it was a real person, pretending that I was having sex with it, masturbating, and undressing it.”
“I felt in complete shock. I just couldn’t believe it happened again after all those years when I’d done nothing like this… I don’t know what was going through my mind. I have no memory of it. I tried to dredge it up, but I have no memory whatsoever.” …Steven Toumi
“Am I just an extremely evil person or is it some kind of satanic influence, or what? I have no idea. I have no idea at all. Do you…? These thoughts are very powerful, very destructive, and they do not leave. They’re not the kind of thoughts that you can just shake your head and they’re gone. They do not leave.”
“After the fear and terror of what I’d done had left, which took about a month or two, I started it all over again. From then on it was a craving, a hunger, I don’t know how to describe it, a compulsion, and I just kept doing it, doing it and doing it, whenever the opportunity presented itself.”
“He just wants to make people feel as guilty and lousy as possible. The guy is such a prick.” …His opinion of Geraldo (woohoo!), a statement made prior to the Geraldo Rivera Talk Show broadcast concerning Dahmer’s crimes.
“I decided I wasn’t ever going to get married because I never wanted to go through anything like that”. On his parents marriage
“It was nice, with African cichlids and tiger barbs in it and live plants, it was a beautifully kept fish tank, very clean … I used to like to just sit there and watch them swim around, basically. I used to enjoy the planning and the set-up, the filtration, read about how to keep the nitrate and ammonia down to safe levels and just the whole spectrum of fish-keeping interested me … I once saw some puffer fish in the store. It’s a round fish, and the only ones I ever saw with both eyes in front, like a person’s eyes, and they would come right up to the front of the glass and their eyes would be crystal blue, like a person’s, real cute… It’s a fun hobby. I really enjoyed that fish tank. It’s something I really miss.”
“Yes, I do have remorse, but I’m not even sure myself whether it is as profound as it should be. I’ve always wondered myself why I don’t feel more remorse.”
The following three quotes concern murders that weighed the most heavily on his conscience
“I wish I hadn’t done it.” …Steven Hicks
“I had no intention of doing it in the first place.” …Steven Tuomi
“He was exceptionally affectionate. He was nice to be with.” …Jeremiah Weinburger
…I was very careful for years and years, you know. Very careful, very careful about making sure that nothing incriminating remained, but these last few months, they just went nuts… It just seemed like it went into a frenzy this last month. Everything really came crashing down…
“Something stronger than my conscious will made it happen. I think some higher power got good and fed-up with my activity and decided to put an end to it. I don’t really think there were any coincidences. The way it ended and whether the close calls were warning to me or what, I don’t know. If they were, I sure didn’t heed them…
“When you’ve done the types of things I’ve done, it’s easier not to reflect on yourself. When I start thinking about how it’s affecting the families of the people, and my family and everything, it doesn’t do me any good. It just gets me very upset. ”
” … If I was killed in prison. That would be a blessing right now.”
“I should have gone to college and gone into real estate and got myself an aquarium, that’s what I should have done.”
” This is the grand finale of a life poorly spent and the end result is just overwhelmingly depressing….. a sick pathetic, miserable life story, that’s all it is.”