Quotes from Thomas Harris

He moves smoothly and slowly, carrying his concentration like a brimming cup.

He held it at arm's length, through the bars, his forefinger along the spine. She reached across the barrier and took it. For an instant the tip of her forefinger touched Dr. Lecter's. The touch crackled in his eyes. Thank you, Clarice. Thank you, Dr. Lecter. And that is how he remained in Starling's mind. Caught in the instant when he did not mock. Standing in his white cell, arched like a dancer, his hands clasped in front of him and his head slightly to the side.

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.

Dr. Lecter, erect as a dancer and carrying Starling in his arms, came out from behind the gate, walked barefoot out of the barn, through the pigs. Dr. Lecter walked through the sea of tossing backs and bloodspray in the barn.

T]here is no consensus in the psychiatric community that Dr. Lecter should be termed a man. He has long been regarded by his professional peers in psychiatry, many of whom fear his acid pen in the professional journals, as something entirely Other. For convenience, they term him "monster".

One New Orleans officer who served with Graham commented, "Well, you can call him retired, but the feds like to know he's around. It's like having a king snake under the house. They may not see him much, but it's nice to know he's there to eat the moccasins.

the longing need to be noticed that is often miscalled ego.

He did it because he liked it. Still does. Dr. Lecter is not crazy, in any common way we think of being crazy. He did some hideous things because he enjoyed them. But he can function perfectly when he wants to.

Which do you think, Commendatore? Bowels in or out?

The lambs will stop for now. But, Clarice, you judge yourself with all the mercy of the dungeon scales at Threave; you'll have to earn it again and again, the blessed silence. Because it's the plight that drives you, seeing the plight, and the plight will not end, ever.

Discourtesy is unspeakably ugly to me.

Ready when you are Sergeant Pempbry.

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.

Crawford was home for a month from the hospital, the chest pains came again in the night. Instead of calling an ambulance and going through it all again, he chose simply to roll over to the solace of his late wife's side of the bed.

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 -

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

They tried sodium amytal on him three years ago trying to find out where he buried a Princeton student," Graham said. "He gave them a recipe for dip.

Dr. Doemling, does he want to fuck her or kill her, or eat her, or what?' Mason asked, exhausting the possibilities he could see. 'Probably all three,' Dr. Doemling said.

Baby needs a new pair of shoes,' he said. 'My baby doesn't need any shoes.

Hannibal had entered his heart's long winter. He slept soundly and was not visited in dreams as humans are.

Pachelbel's Canon filled the sun-drowned room where they learned each other and even then the fear flickered across him like an osprey's shadow: This is too good to live for long.

Killing somebody, even if you have to do it, it feels that bad?' 'Willy, it's one of the ugliest things in the world.

With Reba, his only living woman, held with her in this one bubbleskin of time, he felt for the first time that it was all right: It was his life he was releasing, himself past all mortality that he was sending into her starry darkness, away from this pain planet, ringing harmonic distances away to peace and the promise of rest.

And then, the last words Raspail ever said: 'I wonder why my parents didn't kill me before I was old enough to fool them.' The slender handle of the stiletto wiggled as Raspail's spiked heart tried to keep beating, and Dr Lecter said, 'Looks like a straw down a doodlebug hole, doesn't it?' but it was too late for Raspail to answer.