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.

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.

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.

Whenever feasible, one should always try to eat the rude.

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?

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

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