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.

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

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

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.

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

Hannibal at eighteen was rooting for Mephistopheles and contemptuous of Faust, but he only half-listened to the climax. He was watching and breathing Lady Murasaki...

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