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Dave Cullen QUOTES

Dave Cullen QUOTES

61 " The pastor walked through Clement Park and sniffed the air. Satan. The pastor could smell him wafting through the park. It was an acrid odor—had it been a little stronger, it might have singed his nose hairs. The Enemy had swept in with this madness on Tuesday, but the real battle was only now under way. “I smell the presence of Satan,” Reverend Oudemolen thundered from the pulpit Sunday morning. “What we saw Tuesday came from Satan’s home office. Satan had a plan. Satan wants us to live in fear in Littleton. He wants us to see black trench coats or people in Goth attire and makeup and here’s what he wants us to feel: Look how powerful and scary Satan is! "

― Dave Cullen , Columbine

62 " I feel like God,” Eric announced. “I am higher than almost anyone in the fucking world in terms of universal intelligence.” In time, his superiority would be revealed. In the interim, Eric dubbed his journal “The Book of God.” The breadth of his hostility was equally melodramatic. "

― Dave Cullen , Columbine

63 " Apparently, Columbine was a horrible place. It was terrorized by a band of reckless jock lords and ruled by an aristocracy of snotty rich white kids in the latest Abercrombie & Fitch line. Some of that was true—which is to say, it was high school. "

― Dave Cullen , Columbine

64 " Dr. Fuselier had the opposite reaction. Insanity was marked by mental confusion. Eric Harris expressed cold, rational calculation. Fuselier ticked off Eric’s personality traits: charming, callous, cunning, manipulative, comically grandiose, and egocentric, with an appalling failure of empathy. It was like reciting the Psychopathy Checklist. "

― Dave Cullen , Columbine

65 " Prom was more about acting out some weird facsimile of adulthood: dress up like a tacky wedding party, hold hands and behave like a couple even if you’ve never dated, and observe the etiquette of Gilded Age debutantes thrust into modern celebrity: limos, red carpets, and a constant stream of paparazzi, played by parents, teachers, and hired photo hacks. "

― Dave Cullen , Columbine

66 " If we care about ending this, we in the media need to see our role as clearly as the perps have. We did not start this, nor have we pulled any triggers. But the killers have made us reliable partners. We supply the audience, they provide the show. "

― Dave Cullen , Columbine

67 " Oddballs are not the problem. They do not fit the profile. There is no profile. "

― Dave Cullen , Columbine

68 " Eric Dutro, Chris Morris, and a handful of other boys were pretty much the core of the TCM, but a dozen more were often associated with the TCM as well, whether they sported trench coats or not. Eric and Dylan were not among them. Each of them knew some of the TCM kids, and Eric, especially, would become buddies with Chris. That was as close as they came. Eventually, after the TCM heyday was over, Eric got himself a trench coat. Dylan followed. They wore them to the massacre, for both fashion and functional considerations. The choice would cause tremendous confusion. "

― Dave Cullen , Columbine

69 " Parkland changed everything—for the survivors, for the nation, and definitely for me. I flew down the first weekend, but not to depict the carnage or the grief. What drew me was the group of extraordinary kids. I wanted to cover their response. There are strains of sadness woven into this story, but this is not an account of grief. These kids chose a story of hope. "

― Dave Cullen

70 " We remember Columbine as a pair of outcast Goths from the Trench Coat Mafia snapping and tearing through their high school hunting down jocks to settle a long-running feud. Almost none of that happened. No Goths, no outcasts, nobody snapping. No targets, no feud, and no Trench Coat Mafia. Most of those elements existed at Columbine—which is what gave them such currency. They just had nothing to do with the murders. The lesser myths are equally unsupported: no connection to Marilyn Manson, Hitler’s birthday, minorities, or Christians. "

― Dave Cullen , Columbine

71 " film crew up there, enraptured by the charming rodents. The crew had come to shoot a documentary about the massacre; they had expected teen angst and American social Darwinism. They were seduced by the tranquillity—less than a hundred yards from the school. They shot hours of footage of the twelve-inch prairie dogs. The Japanese crew saw this place somewhat differently than Americans did. Their depiction was by turns tumultuous, brutal, explosive, and serene. "

― Dave Cullen , Columbine

72 " Local churches felt a surge following Columbine. Attendance spiked, fervor was unprecedented. It faded. Pastors reported no long-term impact. ____ "

― Dave Cullen , Columbine

73 " Jeffco had a problem. Before Eric and Dylan shot themselves, officers had discovered files on the boys. The cops had twelve pages from Eric’s Web site, spewing hate and threatening to kill. For detectives, a written confession, discovered before the killers were captured, was a big break. It certainly simplified the search warrant. But for commanders, a public confession, which they had sat on since 1997—that could be a PR disaster. "

― Dave Cullen , Columbine

74 " a counselor interrupted his meeting with faculty down the hall. "Frank, they need you," he said. "You need to go out there."
Frank walked the hallway to the nave of the church, contemplating what to say. And again he faced the dilemma of how to act at the microphone. Several of his friends, and staff, too, had warned him not to cry again. "God, you're going to be in the national media," they said. "You can't show that, it's a sign of weakness." He had gotten away with it once, but the media would crucify him if they discovered he was buckling.
The trauma specialists disagreed. These kids had been raised in a western mentality, they argued: real men fend for themselves; tears are for weaklings; therapy is a joke. "Frank, you are the key," one counselor advised him. "You're an emotional person, you need to show those emotions. If you try to hold your emotions inside, you're going to set the image for other people." The boys, in particular, would be watching him. DeAngelis felt. They were already dangerously bottled up. "Frank, they need to know it's all right to show emotion," the counselor said. "Give them that permission."...
"I walked on that stage and I saw those kids cheering and the tears started coming down."
This time he decided to address the tears. "Guys, trust me, now is not the time to show your manliness," he told them. "Emotion is emotion, and keeping it inside doesn't mean you're strong."
That was the last time Mr. D worried about crying in public. p117-18 "

― Dave Cullen , Columbine

75 " Civilians always believe a good psychopath. "

― Dave Cullen , Columbine

76 " When I fell out the window, I knew somebody would catch me,” he said. “That’s what I need to tell you: that I knew the loving world was there all the time. "

― Dave Cullen , Columbine

77 " The warrants were typed up in Golden, the county seat, delivered to a judge, signed, driven out to the killers’ homes, and exercised within four hours of the first shots—before the SWAT team reached the library and discovered the attack was over. "

― Dave Cullen , Columbine

78 " Love was the most common word in Dylan’s journal. Eric was filling his Web site with hate. "

― Dave Cullen , Columbine

79 " Eric turned slowly and gazed over his shoulder with his trademark detachment. He studied the guy and turned back with less interest than he had shown toward the phone. “I hate almost everyone,” he replied blankly. “Ah, yes. I wanna rip his head off and eat it. "

― Dave Cullen , Columbine

80 " Human nature was smothered by society; healthy instincts were smothered by laws. They were training us to be assembly-line robots; that's why they lined the school desks up in rows and trained kids to respond to opening and closing bells. The monotonous human assembly line squelched the life out of individual experience. "

― Dave Cullen , Columbine