American Horror Story/Asylum

American Horror Story (sometimes abbreviated as AHS) is an American anthology horror television series created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk for the cable network FX. Each season is conceived as a self-contained miniseries, following a different set of characters, settings and story line.

The second season, titled Asylum, takes place in the year 1964 at Massachusetts. This follows the stories of the staff and inmates who occupy the Briarcliff Manor sanatorium, and intercuts with events in the past and present.


 * Season 1; Season 2; Season 3; Season 4; Season 5; Season 6; Season 7

Welcome to Briarcliff [2.01]

 * Shelley: [to Sister Jude, who has shaved the side of Shelley's head as punishment] Do you think I'm full of shame and regret for what I've done now, Sister? You could shave me bald as a cue ball and I'd still be the hottest tamale in this joint.


 * Sister Jude Martin: Mental illness is the fashionable explanation for sin.


 * Pepper: [jumps behind Lana Winters and startles her] Play with me! [hands her a flower and twirls around] Play with me.
 * Lana Winters: [pricks her finger on the flower thorns] Ow.
 * Sister Mary Eunice: [approaching from the entrance] Pepper! Leave the lady alone.
 * Lana Winters: It's fine; she was just trying to make friends. It was harmless.
 * Sister Mary Eunice: She's not harmless. She drowned her sister's baby and sliced his ears off.


 * Sister Jude Martin: Here, you will repent for your crimes to the only judge that matters: the Almighty God.
 * Kit Walker: There is no God. Not a God who would create the things I saw.
 * Sister Jude Martin: Your story about little green men? That won't do here.
 * Kit Walker: They weren't human. They were monsters.
 * Sister Jude Martin: All monsters are human. You're a monster.


 * Sister Jude Martin: I've dealt with bigger monsters than you, Doctor. Let me give you fair warning: I'll always win against the patriarchal male.
 * Dr. Arthur Arden: Bully for you.


 * Dr. Arthur Arden: Hello, Mr. Walker. I'm Dr. Arthur Arden. I run this institution.
 * Kit Walker: I thought Sister Jude ran this place.
 * Dr. Arthur Arden: So does she.


 * Sister Jude Martin: [to Mary Eunice] I cared for you, I coddled you; refused to see what others thought. When they said you were stupid, I said no: that you were more pure than the others.

Tricks and Treats [2.02]

 * Shelley: Hey, Sister. I have a cucumber in my room. But not because I was hungry.


 * Dr. Arthur Arden: The last time I suggested electroshock therapy, you accused me of being a sadistic barbarian.
 * Sister Jude Martin: I prayed about it. When I wasn't praying for you to find a halfway decent haberdasher.


 * Dr. Oliver Thredson: Might we speak privately about the conditions here?
 * Sister Jude Martin: Conditions? What conditions might those be?
 * Dr. Oliver Thredson: In just the short time that I've been here, I have witnessed appalling things. Abuse. Malpractice. Candidly, I'm shocked.
 * Sister Jude Martin: It's a madhouse, Doctor. What did you expect?
 * Dr. Oliver Thredson: I expected some form of treatment!


 * Shelley: I saw you flirting with Our Lady of Perpetual Virginity. You want to see my candy apple?
 * Dr. Arthur Arden: Get your filthy hands off me!
 * Shelley: Come on, Doc. Bend me over a bread rack and pound me into shape!
 * Dr. Arthur Arden: You're a dirty little slut with a poisonous tongue.
 * Shelley: I just want to go outside for 15 minutes in the sun. Please. I just want to feel the sun on my skin. I'll do anything.
 * Dr. Arthur Arden: No. Whores get nothing.
 * Shelley: Men like sex, no one calls them whores. I hate that word. It's so ugly! I'm into pleasure. Ever since I was five years old and I slipped my fingers inside for the very first time. I could do it all day. My mother made me wear mittens to bed.
 * Dr. Arthur Arden: Because you're a little slut.
 * Shelley: No! Because she didn't understand me! So I ran away from home, met some jazz musicians, real free thinkers. I fell in love with the bass player. Mistake. As soon as he put a ring on my finger, I was his property. He could screw every Betty in town, and I had to stay home and scrub his dirty drawers. So come fleet week, he gets home and finds me in bed with two Navy guys. And I told him, "It's not for self, but for country". He decked me flat out, threw me in the car and locked me in the nuthouse. And the sickest part is, they let him. Because I like sex. That's my crime.


 * Monsignor Timothy Howard: The times may have changed, Doctor, but the nature of evil has not.


 * Jed Potter: [speaking to Sister Jude, while possessed by the Devil] It drives you crazy, doesn't it; to be the smartest person in the room with no real power because of that smelly clam between your legs? That's why you became a whore, isn't it, Sister?! You're wearing red knickers right now. Come on, sister, put me in your mouth. You've had fifty-three cocks in there already!

Nor'easter [2.03]

 * Sister Mary Eunice McKee: Sister Jude has asked me to make an announcement: There's a big storm heading our way. And when it hits, half of you are going to be too afraid to move. And other half won't be able to stop moving. It would be chaos. And that won't do. So, Sister Jude has arranged for a distraction. A movie, on Friday night, when the storm will be at it's worst. We're all going to be together in the dark, watching the Sign of the Cross''. a movie full of fire, sex, and the death of Christians. What fun.


 * Dr. Arthur Arden: [about Sister Mary Eunice] I admired her purity. Her innocence. I never had any, even as a boy. Now it's gone. It's been taken from her.


 * Sister Jude Martin: [drunk] Now settle in, relax, and return with me now to ancient Rome as we present the 1932 Cecil B. DeMille classic, The Sign of the Cross, starring Miss Claudette Colbert as the Empress Poppea or "Po-ppea," and as the Emperor Nero, the incomparable Mr. Charles Laughton, who I understand is an enormous whoopsie.


 * Sister Mary Eunice McKee: [Frank interrupts 'The Sign of the Cross' to tell Sister Mary Eunice that patients are missing] Now? But the Christians are about to be eaten!


 * Dr. Arthur Arden: [to Shelley] You were a very naughty girl last night. You tried to fly away, so I had to clip your wings.

I Am Anne Frank (Part 1) [2.04]

 * Sister Jude Martin: So, "Anne Frank," is it? What a relief it will be to millions of schoolchildren to know you survived.


 * Dr. Arthur Arden: I was never in Auschwitz; I'm from Scottsdale!

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Sister Jude Martin: Are the police pursuing a case against him?
 * Monsignor Timothy Howard: No, I don't believe so, but Sister, this obsession with Dr. Arden has to stop.
 * Sister Jude Martin: But there's mounting evidence that this man is a war criminal.
 * Monsignor Timothy Howard: Just a moment. Where are you getting this information?
 * Sister Jude Martin: There is a patient who survived the death camps. She remembers him.
 * Monsignor Timothy Howard: Which patient is this?
 * Sister Jude Martin: Her name is Anne.
 * Monsignor Timothy Howard: Anne who?
 * Sister Jude Martin: [beat] Anne Frank. I know it I know how it sounds, but you--
 * Monsignor Timothy Howard: No, I really don't think you do.
 * Sister Jude Martin: I saw a prison tattoo. She was in Auschwitz.
 * Monsignor Timothy Howard: Where's she now, hiding in the attic?

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Grace Bertrand: I was so young when it started. My father would come into my room at night and do things. Sometimes I felt like I was in a dream, watching him do it to a stranger, or a corpse. I finally got the courage to tell my stepmother. She gave me candy to keep quiet.

I Am Anne Frank (Part 2) [2.05]

 * Sister Jude Martin: When I was a child, I'd come home after school to an empty house. My father had flown the coop. My mother worked as a maid in a hotel. It was lonely, so I brought in a baby squirrel I'd found and kept him in a shoe box. And then one day when I came home, he looked sickly. He was dead already, but I didn't know that. I'd forgotten to... feed him for a couple days. So I took him out of the box, and I laid him on the table, and I prayed my heart out for several hours. And when my mother came home and found us, she screamed bloody murder, and she picked him up and threw him in the garbage. She worked hard, my mother. She was exhausted, and she couldn't have known how cruel that was. But I cried and cried, saying, "God didn't answer my prayers." I remember, my mother was pouring herself a whiskey- the Martin family cure for everything. She looked at me and laughed. "God always answers our prayers, Judy. It's just rarely the answer we're looking for."

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Sister Jude Martin: It's over for me, Frank. My goose is cooked.
 * Frank McCann: I certainly hope you're not blaming yourself. Men are never gonna accept a woman taking charge, especially not a woman as strong as you are.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Dr. Oliver Thredson: You're gonna write about this. You're gonna win a Pulitzer Prize. I just know it, Lana. You are the person to tell my story.
 * Lana Winters: Your story?

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Dr. Oliver Thredson: I see you found my little ... hobby.
 * Lana Winters: You make furniture?
 * Dr. Oliver Thredson: Lamps mainly. I make the shades myself.
 * Lana Winters: What kind of material do you use?
 * Dr. Oliver Thredson: Skin.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Dr. Oliver Thredson: Normally, by now, I would've removed the skin and head. No, we need to keep her around a little longer for our purposes. We're going to continue our therapy now, Lana. You can begin by kissing her cold lips. Don't worry. She won't bite.[Thredson puts on the Bloody Face mask which now has teeth on it] I took her teeth.

The Origins of Monstrosity [2.06]

 * Dr. Oliver Thredson: A mother's touch. Skin to skin contact. That's what I was craving, that's what I was missing. My whole life. But she smelled of formaldehyde. And her skin, even after I removed it, was cold. And stiff.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Monsignor Timothy Howard: Jude was right about you. You're a monster.
 * Dr. Arthur Arden: Why do you look for the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own?

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Dr. Arthur Arden: My aim was to give these wasted lives purpose, meaning, and I've succeeded beyond my wildest imagination. My experiments with a combination of syphilis and tuberculosis have produced results unseen in the history of medical science. When they arrived here, these patients were less than men. Now, because of me, they're more than human.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Jenny Reynolds: She thinks I killed Josie.
 * Sister Mary Eunice McKee: Did you?
 * Jenny Reynolds: No.
 * Sister Mary Eunice McKee: Did so.
 * Jenny Reynolds: How do you know?
 * Sister Mary Eunice McKee: I know everything. I'm the Devil.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Dr. Arthur Arden: I am not a monster! I'm a visionary.

Dark Cousin [2.07]

 * Sister Mary Eunice McKee: [to Dr. Arden about Grace] All of her girl parts have been scooped out.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Dr. Oliver Thredson: [to Lana] I can either cut your throat or I can strangle you. I don't believe in guns.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Sister Jude Martin: Never trust a drunk.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Angel of Death/Shachath: I come when I'm called. That's what I do, Jude. I don't judge. I never judge.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Angel of Death/Shachath: Are you ready for me?
 * Grace Bertrand: Yes. [Angel kisses Grace as she dies] I'm free.

Unholy Night [2.08]
<hr width="50%"/>
 * Leigh Emerson: Where's your Christmas spirit, Sister?
 * Sister Jude Martin: What do you take me for, an idiot? Huh? You killed 18 people from five families in one night. You might expect to remain in irons for the rest of your life.
 * Leigh Emerson: Well, I don't want to be in your shitty picture, then. I don't want to be any part of your damn lie.
 * Sister Jude Martin: Yeah, what lie is that?
 * Leigh Emerson: Nothing like a picture of happy, shiny faces to take away the guilt of locking us away.
 * Sister Jude Martin: You got that backwards, Mr. Emerson. The picture is to remind the public that without Briarcliff, you would be out there, living among them. And that's why you will be front and center, shackled and under control.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Sister Mary Eunice McKee: Rubies are the most glamorous of all. You couldn't have found them in this dreary town. Are they family heirlooms?
 * Dr. Arthur Arden: They belonged to a Jewess in the camp. She was always reminding people that she was a woman of considerable means, and that her husband was an influential and wealthy doctor in Berlin. She was constantly complaining to me about her stomach problems, and as a doctor, I thought I ought to do something about it. So I followed her, one day, to the latrine, thinking I might diagnose her condition if I had a stool sample. She was in there, on her hands and knees, picking through her own feces to retrieve those earrings. She confessed to me that she swallowed them every day, day after day, carrying them around inside of her, as if, someday, she might return to her former grandeur. Poor, ridiculous woman, she died from internal bleeding. The earrings were very hard on her intestines. Obviously, I retrieved them. I knew someday I'd meet someone who was worthy of their exceptional beauty.
 * Sister Mary Eunice McKee: You were very clever to retrieve them, Arthur. Look how beautiful they are on me. They bring out the rose in my cheeks. Oh, you're such a sap!
 * Dr. Arthur Arden: Not exactly for the reasons you may think, but a sap nonetheless. I so dearly hoped you'd throw them back in my face, that you couldn't bring yourself to touch those shit-stained earrings. I was hoping there'd be a glimmer of horror, a glimmer of that precious girl who was too afraid even to take a bite of my candy apple.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Dr. Arthur Arden: I don't believe in God. But I do believe in evil. I've seen it up-close and personal.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Leigh Emerson: [dressed as Santa Claus with a woman on his lap] What do you say we blow this pop stand, go savage a few elves, and then suck on each other?

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Leigh Emerson: [to Sister Jude] There is no God, but there is a Santa Claus!

The Coat Hanger [2.09]

 * Johnny Morgan/Thredson: You see, my name isn't Morgan. It's Thredson. I'm the son of Bloody Face.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Sister Jude Martin: Make it tight, Frank.
 * Leigh Emerson: Make it tight. I like it tight. Just ask Sister Chastity.
 * Sister Jude Martin: I'll deal with Sister Chastity.
 * Leigh Emerson: You might start by picking a new name for her.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Sister Jude Martin: So you'll spend the next couple days here, reflecting on your behavior.
 * Leigh Emerson: How can I reflect when my hand's tied down? [tries to simulate masturbating]
 * Sister Jude Martin: You're disgusting.
 * Leigh Emerson: We all got our crosses to bear.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Sister Jude Martin: [to Lana] Come on, goddammit, give me a cigarette. I think I've earned it.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Sister Jude Martin: There's going be some changes around here, starting with that. [walks up to the record player and smashes the record that constantly plays in the rec room]
 * Lana Winters: [after Sister Jude returns to her seat] Well, hot damn.

The Name Game [2.10]

 * Dr. Arthur Arden: How did you get in here?
 * Pepper: I go where Grace goes. I've been charged to protect her.
 * Dr. Arthur Arden: Have you? You can't even protect yourself. They may have given you speech, Pepper. Even a parrot can be taught to mimic. But did they give you the capacity to think? I sincerely doubt it. Tell me, Polly- What did they put inside her?
 * Pepper: I won't tell you anything.
 * Dr. Arthur Arden: If you're not going to tell me then I'll just have to find out for myself, won't I?
 * Pepper: X-rays will harm the life growing inside of her.
 * Dr. Arthur Arden: That's a chance I'm willing to take.
 * Pepper: Stupid man. You think they'd allow you to continue your barbaric practice? She's protected. Your X-rays won't penetrate her body. You'll see nothing. Oh, but they've been watching you. You think you're like them, with your clumsy experiments. But they laugh at you, Dr. Arden. They make jokes. Here's a good one. Knock, knock. Who's there? Arden. Arden who? Arden you the quack who'd make a better duck? [laughs]
 * Dr. Arthur Arden: Huh. Well, if taking X-rays won't work... perhaps more invasive observation will. I think her condition calls for an emergency C-section, don't you?
 * Pepper: You can't do that.
 * Dr. Arthur Arden: Watch me. [Scalpel flies out of his hand and clatters on the floor]
 * Pepper: Dr. Arden, you still see me as microcephalic. No one takes a pinhead seriously. When my sister's husband drowned her baby and sliced his ears off, he told everyone I did it. They tied me up and paraded me in front of a judge. He took one look at the shape of my head, and I was locked up for good. That's how it works for us freaks. We get blamed for everything. But if something happens to Grace in here and she's harmed in any way, there won't be anyone else to blame. They'll take you, open up your head, and stir your brain with a fork. And when you're returned, you'll experience firsthand how people treat us freaks.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Shacath, the Angel of Death: The devil is at Briarcliff in your favorite young nun. Guard your thoughts, use your rosary. Each bead is His name. This is your moment, Timothy.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Monsignor Timothy Howard: Why didn't I listen to you? Why was I so stubborn? She's destroyed you. And now she's destroyed me. My virtue is gone, Jude. She took it from me, violated me. I tried to resist, but I don't know where else to turn. I'm struggling with whether I should renounce my vows. I need your counsel. Should I confess and walk away from my beloved Church and my dream? What should I do?
 * Sister Jude Martin: Kill her.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Sister Mary Eunice McKee: You're mine now. Body and soul.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Dr. Arthur Arden: It's a farce. [putting a gun to his head] Finita la commedia.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Dr. Arthur Arden: [to Sister Mary Eunice] You have no idea what it means to have lost you.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Sister Mary Eunice McKee: You're being pitiful, Arthur.
 * Dr. Arthur Arden: Then have pity on me.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Lana Winters: I'm goddamn plucky, remember?

Spilt Milk [2.11]

 * Lana Winters: You want this place closed.
 * Mother Superior Claudia: I want it burned down and the Earth salted!

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Dr. Oliver Thredson: I knew this would happen one day. I wondered how I would feel. I thought I would go crazy, but I'm actually relieved. Living with secrets is not healthy. I was right, Lana. I knew you were the one.
 * Lana Winters: I am the one. I am the one that's going to put your ass in that electric chair. You're gonna pay for every sick thing you did to me, to Wendy, and to every other woman you murdered.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Johnny Morgan: [about his mother] Every time I think about her, I wanna do things! Bad things!

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Lana Winters: You're gonna fry in that chair.
 * Dr. Oliver Thredson: I hardly think so, Lana. I'm clearly insane. I'll be institutionalized. At the very worst, I'll live a long life in prison. Maybe I'll even start some therapy groups. God knows, there are some disturbed individuals behind bars.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Lana Winters: [about reporters] We are vultures, attracted to the scent of rotted meat.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Sister Jude Martin: [to Timothy Howard] It's an extraordinary thing. You know that? You throw me in the madhouse, you strip away everything I have, everything I know, you treat me like a rabid dog, like a madwoman. And you know what happens? I'm blessed with the gift of total clarity. I am more sane now as a madwoman than I ever was as the head of Briarcliff.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Detective Byers: That's his baby, isn't it? Bloody Face- he's the father.
 * Lana Winters: This baby doesn't have a father.
 * Detective Byers: You're one tough cookie, you know that?
 * Lana Winters: I am tough, but I'm no cookie.

Continuum [2.12]

 * Monsignor Timothy Howard: Don't be childish, Jude.
 * Sister Jude Martin: Childish? Hell, I'm the Queen of Candyland.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Shacath (as Judy's cellmate): Babycakes, I'm only just starting to toy with you.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Lana Winters: [to Kit, regarding a book about Leigh] I thought of calling it Santa and the Seven Nuns. Too campy?

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Sister Jude Martin: [after seeing The Flying Nun on TV] They don't know, but I don't need the hat. I can fly without it. One of these days I'm gonna fly my ass right outta here!

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Johnny Morgan: I gave you a chance to name your price. Now I'll tell you mine. There's nothing you could say to make me change my mind. You're going to give me that book, because it's my fate to have it. You see, I have a plan to meet my mother. And when I see her, I'm gonna greet her with a polite, "Hello, Ms. Winters. Do you know who I am?" And she'll shake her head in ignorance, and then I'll present this book of lies. And then I'll say, "I'm in your book, except I didn't die. I'm the piece of trash you threw away 48 years ago. I'm your son." And when she fully understands who it is standing in front of her, I'll take out my nine-millimeter handgun, point it at her face and pull the trigger. And finally I will have completed my father's work. But first, I'm gonna need that book.

Madness Ends [2.13]

 * April Mayfield: I'd like to go back and start with the early years. The awful Bloody Face saga.
 * Lana Winters: I said I wouldn't talk about that.
 * April Mayfield: People want to hear about it. It's what made you famous.
 * Lana Winters: My point exactly. He's become a goddamn household name. Like some kind of Heath Ledger, Hollywood movie star villain. He was an evil monster who used murder and torture to keep himself from feeling like a eunuch. End of story. I refuse to give him one more second of air time.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Lana Winters: [on Timothy Howard] That man was a particular kind of liar, the kind who lies to himself about being a liar. He was so corrupt and deluded, he believed his own lies.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Johnny Morgan: So I guess you've had a pretty great life, huh?
 * Lana Winters: It's been eventful.
 * Johnny Morgan: It's about to end. You get that, right?
 * Lana Winters: I knew it the moment I saw you.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Sister Jude Martin: I do hope you know what you are in for. The loneliness, the heartbreak, the sacrifice you will face as a woman with a dream on her own.
 * Lana Winters: You don't have any idea of what I'm capable of.
 * Sister Jude Martin: Well, then, look at you, Ms. Lana Banana. Just remember if you look in the face of evil, evil's gonna look right back at you.