Thomas Harris Quotes

And your dinner for the orchestra officials." "Haven't you ever had people coming over and no time to shop? You have to make do with what's in the fridge, Clarice. May I call you Clarice?

I'll confess it is pleasant to look at you asleep. You're quite beautiful, Clarice.

On a related subject, Signore Pazzi, I must confess to you: I'm giving serious thought to eating your wife.

You would think such a day would tremble to begin . . .

I found, and find, the scrutiny of Dr. Lecter uncomfortable, intrusive, like the humming of your thoughts when they x-ray your head.

I love myself that much and I will never apologize to you.

Intense fear comes in waves; the body can't stand it for long at a time.

It's fear, Jack. The man deals with a huge amount of fear.' Because he got hurt?' No, not entirely. Fear comes with imagination, it's a penalty, it's the price of imagination.

Good-bye Clarice. Will you let me know if ever the lambs stop screaming?" "Yes." Pembry was taking her arm. It was go or fight him. "Yes," she said. "I'll tell you." "Do you promise?""Yes.

Evil's just destructive? Then storms are evil, if it's that simple. And we have fire, and there there's hail. Underwriters lump it all under 'Acts of God.

I'm doing one of three things: I'm writing. I'm staring out the window. Or I'm writhing on the floor.

There is a common emotion we all recognize and have not yet named -- the happy anticipation of being able to feel contempt.

I expect most psychiatrists have a patient or two they'd like to refer to me.

Gratitude’s got a short half-life, Clarice.

When you feel strain, keep your mouth shut if you can.

Because it's his bad luck to be the best.

I am the dragon, and you call me insane.

Lecter is so lucid, so perceptive; he's trained in psychiatry... and he's a mass murderer.

One quality in a person doesn't rule out any other quality. They can exist side by side, good and terrible. Socrates said it a lot better.

He lives down in a ribcage in the dry leaves of a heart.

He liked the Leedses. He was sorry that he had been to the morgue. He thought the madman who visited them might have liked them too. But the madman would like them better the way they were now.

I know what you're afraid of. It's not pain, or solitude. It's indignity you can't stand, Hannibal, you're like a cat that way.

It would be so nice to be wanted by someone with the courage to get his hat or stay as he damn pleased, and who gave her credit for the same. Someone who didn't worry about her.

Can you smell his sweat? That peculiar goatish odor is trans-3-methyl-2 hexenoic acid. Remember it, it's the smell of schizophrenia.

Orion is above the horizon now, and near it Jupiter, brighter than it will ever be ... But i expect you can see it too. Some of our stars are the same.

Show Dr. Princi your teeth. That's right, let's see 'em all. Christ, Sparks, is that your tongue or are you swallowing a squirrel? Keep moving -

...the man to love rarely coincides with the hour of loving.

When I couldn't speak I was not drawn into silence, silence captured me.

Pictures ... flashed on her in sudden color, too much color, shocking color, the color that leaps out of black when lightning strikes at night.

You must understand that when you are writing a novel you are not making anything up.