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.

It's fear, Jack. The man deals with a huge amount of fear.' Because he got hurt?' No, not entirely. Fear comes with imagination, it's a penalty, it's the price of imagination.

Life's too slippery for books, Clarice; anger appears as lust, lupus presents as hives.

But the face on the pillow, rosy in the firelight, is certainly that of Clarice Starling, and she sleeps deeply, sweetly, in the silence of the lambs.

You cant reduce me to a set of influences.

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.

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