If I saw you everyday forever, I would remember this time.

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

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

I am the dragon, and you call me insane.

It rubs the lotion on its skin. It does this whenever it is told.

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

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

… 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.

God's creatures who cried themselves to sleep stirred to cry again.

But the face on the pillow, rosy in the firelight, is certainly that of Clarice Starling, and she sleeps deeply, sweetly, in the silence of the lambs.

Back at his chair he cannot remember what he was reading. He feels the books beside him to find the one that is warm.

A census taker tried to quantify me once. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a big Amarone. Go back to school, little Starling.

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

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

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

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

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

I would not have had that happen to you. Discourtesy is unspeakably ugly to me.

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

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

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

Nothing happened to me, Officer Starling. I happened. You can't reduce me to a set of influences.

He was numb except for dreading the loss of numbness.

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

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.

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.

I have no plans to call on you, Clarice, the world being more interesting with you in it.

Don't think you can persuade me with appeals to my intellectual vanity.

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.

It occured to Starling how much Roden would benefit from an elbow smash in the hinge of his jaw.

The very air had screams smeared on it. He flinched from the noise in this silent room.

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

He knew that a middle-aged man can be so desperate for wisdom he may try to make some up, and how deadly that can be to a youngster who believes him.

The first step in the development of taste is to be willing to to credit your own opinion.

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.

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?

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

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

She wanted to go inside. She wanted to go in, wanting it as we want to jump from balconies, as the glint of the rails tempts us when we hear the approaching train.

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

There is no murder. We make murder, and it matters only to us.

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.

In making friends, she was wary of people who foster dependency and feed on it. She had been involved with a few--the blind attract them, and they are the enemy.

We don't begin to covet with imagined things. Coveting is a very literal sin–we begin to covet with tangibles, we begin with what we see every day.

It's hard and ugly to know someone can understand you without even liking you.

... the washing machine's rhythm was like a giant heartbeat, and the rush of its waters was what the unborn hear- our last memory of peace.

Ready when you are Sergeant Pempbry.

She was charming way a cub is charming, a small cub that will grow up to be like one of the big cats. One you can't play with later

He could see that he had too many flowers in the room, and must add more to make it come back right again. Too many flowers was too many, but way too many was just right.

Every person is worth your time, Hannibal. If at first appearance a person seems dull, then look harder, look into him.