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

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.

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.

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

It's hard to have anything isn't it? Rare to get it, hard to keep it. This is a damn slippery planet.

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.

One quality in a person doesn't rule out any other quality. They can exist side by side, good and terrible. Socrates said it a lot better.