Quotes from Thomas Harris

Shiloh isn't haunted – men are haunted. Shiloh doesn't care.

And be grateful. Our scars have the power to remind us that the past was real.

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 ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti

How seldom we recognize the sound when the bolt of our fate slides home.

… It is not healing to see your childhood home, but it helps you measure whether you are broken, and how and why, assuming you want to know.

Human emotions are a gift from our animal ancestors. Cruelty is a gift humanity has given itself.

Problem-solving is hunting; it is savage pleasure and we are born to it.

Fear comes with imagination, it's a penalty, it's the price of imagination.

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.

He sees very clearly - he damn sure sees through me. It's hard to accept that someone can understand you without wishing you well. At Starling's age it hadn't happened to her much.

Life's too slippery for books, Clarice; anger appears as lust, lupus presents as hives.

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

Hannibal Lecter: We live in a primitive time - don't we, Will? - neither savage nor wise. Half measures are the curse of it. Any rational society would either kill me or give me my books.

We routinely leave our small children in day care among strangers. At the same time, in our guilt we evince paranoia about strangers and foster fear in children.

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

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

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

You know how cats do. They hide to die. Dogs come home.

Hello Clarice...

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

One can only see what one observes, and one observes only things which are already in the mind.

I am the dragon, and you call me insane.

Did you ever think, Clarice, why the Philistines don't understand you? It's because you are the answer to Samson's riddle. You are the honey in the lion.