Quotes from Hannibal

“The tragedy is not to die, but to be wasted.”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“I think it's easy to mistake understanding for empathy - we want empathy so badly. Maybe learning to make that distinction is part of growing up. It's hard and ugly to know somebody can understand you without even liking you.”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“We can only learn so much and live.”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“The worm that destroys you is the temptation to agree with your critics, to get their approval.”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“If I saw you everyday forever, I would remember this time.”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“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...”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“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.”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“Dr. Fell, do you believe a man could become so obsessed with a woman, from a single encounter?
Could he daily feel a stab of hunger for her and find nourishment in the very sight of her? I think so. But would she see through the bars of his plight and ache for him?”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“You would think such a day would tremble to begin . . .”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“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.”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“There is a common emotion we all recognize and have not yet named—the happy anticipation of being able to feel contempt.”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“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.”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“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 wondered if she had the .45 on her leg beneath the gown.
Clarice Starling smiled at him then, the cabochons caught the firelight and the monster was lost in self-congratulation at his own exquisite taste and cunning.”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“On a related subject, Signore Pazzi, I must confess to you: I'm giving serious thought to eating your wife.”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“I'll confess it is pleasant to look at you asleep. You're quite beautiful, Clarice.”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“Occasionally, on purpose, Dr. Lecter drops a teacup to shatter on the floor. He is satisfied when it does not gather itself together. For many months now, he has not seen Mischa in his dreams.

Someday perhaps a cup will come together. Or somewhere Starling may hear a crossbow string and come to some unwilled awakening, if indeed she even sleeps.”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“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.”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“The first step in the development of taste is to be willing to to credit your own opinion.”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“It's easy to mistake understanding for empathy - we want empathy so badly. Maybe learning to make that distinction is part of growing up. It's hard and ugly to know somebody can understand you without even liking you.”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“He looked up and saw her and his breath stopped in his throat. His hands stopped too, still spread above the keyboard. Harpsichord notes do not carry, and in the sudden quiet of the drawing room they both heard him take his next breath.”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“We assign a moment to decision, to dignify the process as a timely result of rational and conscious thought. But decisions are made of kneaded feelings; they are more often a lump than a sum.”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“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.”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“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.”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“I'm going to cut you loose. With all due respect, Doctor, if you fuck with me I'll shoot you dead, here and now. Do you understand that?"- Clarice

"Perfectly."- Hannibal Lecter

"Do right and you'll live through this." -Clarice”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“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”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“[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”.”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“It's hard and ugly to know someone can understand you without even liking you.”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“He could feed the caterpillar, he could whisper through the chrysalis; what hatched out followed its own nature and was beyond him.”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“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.”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

“The exposition of Atrocious Torture Instruments could not fail to appeal to a connoisseur of the worst in mankind. But the essence of the worst, the true asafoetida of the human spirit, is not found in the Iron Maiden or the whetted edge; Elemental Ugliness is found in the faces of the crowd.”
― Thomas Harris, quote from Hannibal

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Popular quotes

“But she makes hungry
Where she most satisfies...”
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“It went against everything Neil knew to give in, but he'd chosen this path. He'd chosen Andrew.”
― Nora Sakavic, quote from The Foxhole Court

“I was giving up--being realistic, as people liked to say, meaning the same thing. Being realistic made me feel bitter.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from This Boy's Life

“Is there a bird among them, dear boy?” Charity asked innocently, peering not at the things on the desk, but at his face, noting the muscle beginning to twitch at Ian’s tense jaw.
“No.”
“Then they must be in the schoolroom! Of course,” she said cheerfully, “that’s it. How like me, Hortense would say, to have made such a silly mistake.”
Ian dragged his eyes from the proof that his grandfather had been keeping track of him almost from the day of his birth-certainly from the day when he was able to leave the cottage on his own two legs-to her face and said mockingly, “Hortense isn’t very perceptive. I would say you are as wily as a fox.”
She gave him a little knowing smile and pressed her finger to her lips. “Don’t tell her, will you? She does so enjoy thinking she is the clever one.”
“How did he manage to have these drawn?” Ian asked, stopping her as she turned away.
“A woman in the village near your home drew many of them. Later he hired an artist when he knew you were going to be somewhere at a specific time. I’ll just leave you here where it’s nice and quiet.” She was leaving him, Ian knew, to look through the items on the desk. For a long moment he hesitated, and then he slowly sat down in the chair, looking over the confidential reports on himself. They were all written by one Mr. Edgard Norwich, and as Ian began scanning the thick stack of pages, his anger at his grandfather for this outrageous invasion of his privacy slowly became amusement. For one thing, nearly every letter from the investigator began with phrases that made it clear the duke had chastised him for not reporting in enough detail. The top letter began,

I apologize, Your Grace, for my unintentional laxness in failing to mention that indeed Mr. Thornton enjoys an occasional cheroot…

The next one opened with,

I did not realize, Your Grace, that you would wish to know how fast his horse ran in the race-in addition to knowing that he won.

From the creases and holds in the hundreds of reports it was obvious to Ian that they’d been handled and read repeatedly, and it was equally obvious from some of the investigator’s casual comments that his grandfather had apparently expressed his personal pride to him:

You will be pleased to know, Your Grace, that young Ian is a fine whip, just as you expected…
I quite agree with you, as do many others, that Mr. Thornton is undoubtedly a genius…
I assure you, Your Grace, that your concern over that duel is unfounded. It was a flesh wound in the arm, nothing more.

Ian flipped through them at random, unaware that the barricade he’d erected against his grandfather was beginning to crack very slightly.
“Your Grace,” the investigator had written in a rare fit of exasperation when Ian was eleven,

“the suggestion that I should be able to find a physician who might secretly look at young Ian’s sore throat is beyond all bounds of reason. Even if I could find one who was willing to pretend to be a lost traveler, I really cannot see how he could contrive to have a peek at the boy’s throat without causing suspicion!”

The minutes became an hour, and Ian’s disbelief increased as he scanned the entire history of his life, from his achievements to his peccadilloes. His gambling gains and losses appeared regularly; each ship he added to his fleet had been described, and sketches forwarded separately; his financial progress had been reported in minute and glowing detail.”
― Judith McNaught, quote from Almost Heaven

“Scientists are the enemies of tradition , and tradition own all the prisons. - Victor Vigny”
― Eoin Colfer, quote from Airman

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

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