Thomas Harris Quotes

45 Sourced Quotes

Nothing makes us more vulnerable than loneliness except greed.

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

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

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

Thomas Harris
Said by Dr Hannibal Lecter:
I do wish we could chat longer, but I'm having an old friend for dinner.

Thomas Harris
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
What he has in addition is pure empathy and projection, Dr. Bloom said. He can assume your point of view, or mine – and maybe some other points of view that scare and sicken him. It's an uncomfortable gift, Jack. Perception's a tool that's pointed on both ends.

Thomas Harris
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.

Thomas Harris
Shiloh isn't haunted – men are haunted. Shiloh doesn't care.

Thomas Harris
It's fear, Jack. The man deals with a huge amount of fear.' Because he got hurt?' No, not entirely. Fear comes with imagination, it's a penalty, it's the price of imagination.

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

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

Thomas Harris
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.

Thomas Harris
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
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
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
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.

Thomas Harris
I found, and find, the scrutiny of Dr. Lecter uncomfortable, intrusive, like the humming of your thoughts when they x-ray your head.

Thomas Harris
Funerals often make us want sex-it's one in the eye for death.

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

Thomas Harris
Before Me you are a slug in the sun. You are privy to a great Becoming and you recognize nothing. You are an ant in the after-birth.It is in your nature to do one thing correctly: before Me you rightly tremble. Fear is not what you owe Me, Lounds, you and the other pismires. You owe Me awe.

Thomas Harris
Over this odd world, this half the world that's dark now, I have to hunt a thing that lives on tears.

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

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

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

Thomas Harris
Good-bye Clarice. Will you let me know if ever the lambs stop screaming?" "Yes." Pembry was taking her arm. It was go or fight him. "Yes," she said. "I'll tell you." "Do you promise?""Yes.

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

Thomas Harris