"There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is
no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold
gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can
even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there. It
is hard for me to make sense on any given level. Myself is fabricated, an
aberration. I am a noncontingent human being. My personality is sketchy and
unformed, my heartlessness goes deep and is persistent. My conscience, my
pity, my hopes disappeared a long time ago (probably at Harvard) if they ever
did exist. There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the
uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have
caused and my utter indifference toward it, I have now surpassed. I still,
though, hold on to one single bleak truth: no one is safe, nothing is
redeemed. Yet I am blameless. Each model of human behavior must be assumed to
have some validity. Is evil something you are? Or is it something you do? My
pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In
fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape. But
even after admitting this - and I have countless times, in just about every
act I've committed - and coming face-to-face with these truths, there is no
catharsis. I gain no deeper knowledge about myself, no new understanding can
be extracted from my telling. There has been no reason for me to tell you any
of this. This confession has meant nothing." 

-- Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho)