Thomas Harris Quotes
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And be grateful. Our scars have the power to remind us that the past was real.
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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.
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There is a common emotion we all recognize and have not yet named -- the happy anticipation of being able to feel contempt.
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What does he do, Clarice? What is the first and principal thing he does, what need does he serve by killing? He covets. How do we begin to covet? We begin by coveting what we see every day.
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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.
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In the vaults of our hearts and brains, danger waits. All the chambers are not lovely, light and high. There are holes in the floor of the mind, like those in a medieval dungeon floor - the stinking oubliettes, named for forgetting, bottle-shaped cells in solid rock with the trapdoor in the top. Nothing escapes from them quietly to ease us. A quake, some betrayal by our safeguards, and sparks of memory fire the noxious gases - things trapped for years fly free, ready to explode in pain and drive us to dangerous behavior.
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Intense fear comes in waves; the body can't stand it for long at a time.
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The most stable elements, Clarice, appear in the middle of the periodic table, roughly between iron and silver. Between iron and silver. I think that is appropriate for you.
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On a related subject, Signore Pazzi, I must confess to you: I'm giving serious thought to eating your wife.
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Ready when you are, Sergeant Pempbry.
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You will not persuade me with appeals to my intellectual vanity.
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When Will Graham could open his right eye, he saw the clock and knew where he was- an intensive-care unit. He knew to watch the clock. Its movement assured him that this was passing, would pass. That's what it was there for.
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Whenever feasible, one should always try to eat the rude.
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I'm doing one of three things: I'm writing. I'm staring out the window. Or I'm writhing on the floor.
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There is no murder. We make murder, and it matters only to us.
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What do you look at while you’re making up your mind? Ours is not a reflective culture, we do no raise our eyes up to the hills. Most of the time we decide the critical things while looking at the linoleum floor of an institutional corridor, or whispering hurriedly in a waiting room with a television blatting nonsense.
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He moves smoothly and slowly, carrying his concentration like a brimming cup.
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You know how cats do. They hide to die. Dogs come home.
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I expect most psychiatrists have a patient or two they'd like to refer to me.
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Gratitude’s got a short half-life, Clarice.