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

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

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

I think it's easy to mistake understanding for empathy - we want empathy so badly. Maybe learning to make that distinction is part of growing up. It's hard and ugly to know somebody can understand you without even liking 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 have no interest in understanding sheep, only eating them.

Because it's his bad luck to be the best.