Hannibal Lecter: We live in a primitive time - don't we, Will? - neither savage nor wise. Half measures are the curse of it. Any rational society would either kill me or give me my books.

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

Writing novels is the hardest thing I've ever done, including digging irrigation ditches.

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

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

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.

It occured to Starling how much Roden would benefit from an elbow smash in the hinge of his jaw.