Lecter is so lucid, so perceptive; he's trained in psychiatry... and he's a mass murderer.

When the Fox hears the Rabbit scream he comes a-runnin', but not to help.

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

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.

The advantage of beating a mute is he can't tell on you.

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.

I would not have had that happen to you. Discourtesy is unspeakably ugly to me.