Success Quote by Dennis Nilsen

The chill in Nilsen's line is its absolute ordinariness. No boasting, no gothic flourish, just the flat diction of a man filing his conscience down to nothing: sleep undisturbed, no nightmares, no inner theater of guilt. That banality is the point. It frames atrocity as something that either does or does not produce discomfort, as if moral reckoning were a side effect like indigestion. The implied argument is brutal: if remorse is merely a feeling, then the absence of feeling becomes a kind of exoneration.

The specific intent reads as self-mythmaking under the guise of confession. Nilsen isn’t only describing his inner life; he’s positioning himself as ungovernable by ordinary human sanctions. Prison, public revulsion, psychiatric diagnosis - all are made secondary to the claim that the one punishment that truly counts (the mind turning against itself at night) never arrives. It’s a flex disguised as neutrality, a way of saying: you can lock me up, but you can’t make me sorry.

The subtext is also defensive. By preempting the expected script of nightmares and regret, he controls the narrative and denies the audience the comfort of believing evil must be self-tormenting. Historically and culturally, serial killers often perform for attention, but Nilsen’s performance is colder: a refusal of the moral economy where suffering balances harm. The line lands because it weaponizes emotional vacancy, turning the absence of guilt into a final act of domination.