Quotes from Thomas Harris

The sun's a mattress fire her God died in.

Do not say 'Thanks.'" A fractional turn of his head was enough to dash his annoyance like a glass thrown into the fireplace. "I say what I mean," Starling said. "Would you like it better if I said 'I'm glad you find me so.' That would be a little fancier, and equally true." She raised her glass beneath her level prairie gaze, taking back nothing.

Dark swarmed behind her eyelids and, in jerky seconds of sleep, she dreamed the dark came into her. Dark came insidious, up her nose and into her ears, damp fingers of dark proposed themselves to each of her body openings. She put her hand over her mouth and nose, put her other hand over her vagina, clenched her buttocks, turned one ear to the mattress and sacrificed the other ear to the intrusion of the dark.

You said that I, who see more than you, am insane. I, who pushed the world so much further than you, am insane. I have dared more than you, I have pressed my unique seal so much deeper in the earth, where it will last longer than your dust...you owe me awe.

He viewed his own mentality as grotesque but useful, like a chair made of antlers.

They sat in a row on the couches and in wheelchairs listening to the radio, their faded eyes fixed on the fish or on nothing or something they saw a long time ago. Francis would always remember the shuffle of feet on linoleum in the hot and buzzing day, and the smell of stewed tomatoes and cabbage from the kitchen, the smell of old people like meat wrappers dried in the sun, and always the radio.

Death and danger do not have to come with trappings.

It occurred to Dr. Lecter in the moment that with all his knowledge and intrusion, he could never entirely predict her, or own her at all. He could feed the caterpillar, he could whisper through the chrysalis; what hatched out followed its own nature and was beyond him.

He was a person who agreed with everything his victim said before he killed him.

You'd better go now; I don't think Miggs could manage again so soon, even if he is crazy, do you?

If you believe you are beyond harm, will you go inside? Will you enter this palace so prominent in blood and glory, follow your face through the web-spanned dark, toward the exquisite chiming of the clavier? The alarms cannot see us. The wet policeman lurking in the doorway cannot see us. Come …

The enemy inside Graham agreed with any accusation.

Dolarhyde bore screams as a sculptor bears dust from the beaten stone.

How do you behave when you know the conventional honors are dross? When you have come to believe with Marcus Aurelius that the opinion of future generations will be worth no more than the opinion of the current one? Is it possible to behave well then? Desirable to behave well then?

His empty hands hanging palms forward at his sides, he stood at the window looking to the empty east. He did not look for dawn; east was only the way the window faced.

Was that job offer you worked into the blessing? I never saw such tact.

The emperor counsels simplicity. First principles. Of each particular thing, ask: What is it in itself, in its own constitution? What is its causal nature?

He follows several trains of thought at once, without distraction from any, and one of the trains is always for his own amusement.

that there had to be a place in the world for Mischa, a prime place vacated for her, and I came to think, Clarice, that the best place in the world was yours.

They had me taking the fall for the raid, Mr. Crawford. For Evelda Drumgo's death, all of it. They were like hyenas and then suddenly it stopped and they slunk away. Something drove them off." "Maybe you have an angel, Starling." "Maybe I do. What did it cost you, Mr. Crawford?

En este extraño mundo, esta mitad del mundo que ahora está a oscuras, tengo que perseguir a un ser que se alimenta de lágrimas

Graham had stared through the bars for about five seconds when Lecter opened his eyes and said, "That's the same atrocious aftershave you wore in court." "I keep getting it for Christmas.

He was alone because he was Unique.

Curious how things can work on you even when you recognize them.