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

Over this odd world, this half the world that's dark now, I have to hunt a thing that lives on tears.

What do you look at while you’re making up your mind? Ours is not a reflective culture, we do no raise our eyes up to the hills. Most of the time we decide the critical things while looking at the linoleum floor of an institutional corridor, or whispering hurriedly in a waiting room with a television blatting nonsense.

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 very air had screams smeared on it. He flinched from the noise in this silent room.

We can only learn so much and live.

You would think such a day would tremble to begin . . .