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.

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

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

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

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

You know how cats do. They hide to die. Dogs come home.

… 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.