Thomas Harris Quotes

Quotes about:

• You must understand that when you are writing a novel you are not making anything up. It's all there and you just have to find it.

  Thomas Harris

  Writing, Novel

  Thomas Harris (2009). “Red Dragon”, p.10, Penguin

  54 Copy quote

• 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.

  Thomas Harris

  School, Littles, Bigs

  The Silence of the Lambs ch. 3 (1991)

  37 Copy quote

• Fear comes with imagination, it’s a penalty, it’s the price of imagination.

  Thomas Harris

  Fear, Imagination, Penalties

  Thomas Harris (2009). “Red Dragon”, p.190, Penguin

  13 Copy quote

• When the Fox hears the Rabbit scream he comes a-runnin', but not to help.

  Thomas Harris

  Rabbits, Foxes, Helping

  "Hannibal". www.imdb.com. 2001.

  30 Copy quote

• The tragedy is not to die, but to be wasted.

  Thomas Harris

  Tragedy, Dies

  Thomas Harris (1999). “Hannibal”

  30 Copy quote

• Being smart spoils a lot of things, doesn't it?

  Thomas Harris

  Smart, Being Smart, Spoil

  Thomas Harris (2009). “The Silence of the Lambs”, p.22, Macmillan

  21 Copy quote

• Nothing made me happen. I happened.

  Thomas Harris

  Made, Happened, Happens

  22 Copy quote

• 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

  Life, Growing Up, Mistake

  Thomas Harris (1999). “Hannibal”

  18 Copy quote

• And be grateful. Our scars have the power to remind us that the past was real.

  Thomas Harris

  Real, Grateful, Past

  "Fictional character: Hannibal Lecter". "Red Dragon", www.imdb.com. 2002.

  129 Copy quote

• We rarely get to prepare ourselves in meadows or on graveled walks; we do it on short notice in places without windows, hospital corridors, rooms like this lounge with its cracked plastic sofa and Cinzano ashtrays, where the cafe curtains cover blank concrete. In rooms like this, with so little time, we prepare our gestures, get them by heart so we can do them when we're frightened in the face of Doom.

  Thomas Harris

  Heart, Short Notice, Cafes

  Thomas Harris (2009). “The Silence of the Lambs”, p.159, Macmillan

  27 Copy quote

• I'm giving serious thought into eating yor wife” - Hannibal Lecter

  Thomas Harris

  Giving, Wife, Serious

  29 Copy quote

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

  Thomas Harris

  Mind

  Thomas Harris (2009). “Red Dragon”, p.5, Penguin

  12 Copy quote

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

  Thomas Harris

  Two, Patient, Psychiatrist

  Thomas Harris (2009). “The Silence of the Lambs”, p.60, Macmillan

  3 Copy quote

• 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

  Pain, Memories, Betrayal

  15 Copy quote

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

  Thomas Harris

  Home, Fate, Sound

  Thomas Harris (2009). “Red Dragon”, p.13, Penguin

  23 Copy quote

• I have no interest in understanding sheep, only eating them.

  Thomas Harris

  Sheep, Understanding, Serial Killer

  146 Copy quote

• The worm that destroys you is the temptation to agree with your critics, to get their approval.

  Thomas Harris

  Temptation, Approval, Worms

  Thomas Harris (1999). “Hannibal”

  7 Copy quote

• Problem-solving is hunting; it is savage pleasure and we are born to it.

  Thomas Harris

  Hunting, Savages, Fierce

  Thomas Harris (2009). “The Silence of the Lambs”, p.320, Macmillan

  11 Copy quote

• I collect church collapses, recreationally. Did you see the recent one in Sicily? Marvelous! The facade fell on sixty-five grandmothers at a special mass. Was that evil? If so, who did it? If he's up there, he just loves it, Officer Starling. Typhoid and swans - it all comes from the same place.

  Thomas Harris

  Grandmother, Swans, Evil

  Thomas Harris (2009). “The Silence of the Lambs”, p.22, St. Martin's Press

  24 Copy quote

• Human emotions are a gift from our animal ancestors. Cruelty is a gift humanity has given itself.

  Thomas Harris

  Animal, Humanity, Emotion

  "Fictional character: Dr. Hannibal Lecter". TV Series "Hannibal" ("Coquilles", 2013), www.imdb.com. 2013–2015.

  116 Copy quote

• 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

  Congratulations, Self, Monsters

  20 Copy quote

• Typhoid and swans - it all comes from the same place.

  Thomas Harris

  Swans, Typhoid, Starlings

  Thomas Harris (2009). “The Silence of the Lambs”, p.22, Macmillan

  12 Copy quote

• 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.

  Thomas Harris

  People, Enemy, Making Friends

  Thomas Harris (2009). “Red Dragon”, p.301, Penguin

  8 Copy quote

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

  Thomas Harris

  Able, Emotion, Common

  Thomas Harris (1999). “Hannibal”

  3 Copy quote

• It's hard to have anything isn't it? Rare to get it, hard to keep it. This is a damn slippery planet.

  Thomas Harris

  Planets, Damn, Slippery

  Thomas Harris (2009). “Red Dragon”, p.167, Penguin

  11 Copy quote

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