Hannibal Lecter Quotes

“If I saw you everyday forever, I would remember this time.”
― Thomas Harris, Hannibal

“We live in a primitive time—don’t we, Will?—neither savage nor wise. Half measures are the curse of it. Any rational society would either kill me or give me my books.”
― Thomas Harris, Red Dragon

“Graham had a lot of trouble with taste. Often his thoughts were not tasty. There were no effective partitions in his mind. What he saw and learned touched everything else he knew. Some of the combinations were hard to live with. But he could not anticipate them, could not block and repress. His learned values of decency and propriety tagged along, shocked at his associations, appalled at his dreams; sorry that in the bone arena of his skull there were no forts for what he loved. His associations came at the speed of light. His value judgments were at the pace of a responsive reading. They could never keep up and direct his thinking. He viewed his own mentality as grotesque but useful, like a chair made of antlers. There was nothing he could do about it.”
― Thomas Harris, Red Dragon

“What he has in addition is pure empathy and projection,” Dr. Bloom said. “He can assume your point of view, or mine – and maybe some other points of view that scare and sicken him. It’s an uncomfortable gift, Jack. Perception’s a tool that’s pointed on both ends.”
― Thomas Harris, Red Dragon

“It occurred to Dr. Lecter in the moment that with all his knowledge and intrusion, he could never entirely predict her, or own her at all. He could feed the caterpillar, he could whisper through the chrysalis; what hatched out followed its own nature and was beyond him. He wondered if she had the .45 on her leg beneath the gown.
Clarice Starling smiled at him then, the cabochons caught the firelight and the monster was lost in self-congratulation at his own exquisite taste and cunning.”
― Thomas Harris, Hannibal

“Lecter is so lucid, so perceptive; he's trained in psychiatry... and he's a mass murderer.”
― Thomas Harris, Red Dragon

“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.”
― Thomas Harris

“ People don't always tell you what they are thinking. They just see to it that you don't advance in life. ”
― Anthony Hopkins

“This thing, what is it in itself, in its own constitution? What is its substance and material?”
― Marcus Aurelius

“I know what you're afraid of. It's not pain, or solitude. It's indignity you can't stand, Hannibal, you're like a cat that way.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“Problem solving is hunting. It's a savage pleasure and we're born to it.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“Who's the subject?"
"The psychiatrist - Dr. Hannibal Lecter," Crawford said.
A brief silence follows the name, always, in any civilized gathering.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“There could be no objection to homicidal art as art. One could certainly object that an artwork made out of dead bodies is immoral, but from a purely aesthetic point of view, it could still be a rewarding aesthetic experience and hence a great work of art. (From the book Hannibal Lecter & Philosophy: The Heart Of The Matter)”
― John McAteer

“I'm having an old friend for dinner.”
― Anthony Hopkins

“Snow.
It has a way of hiding things.
Everything seems pure, covered in a layer of white.
Until you dig underneath and find the gray, ugly truth.”
― Birgitte Märgen, The Puritan

“Listening to him, her stomach lifting and her expression properly rapt, Starling
wondered how long Crawford had known he'd use her on this case, how hungry for a
chance he had wanted her to be. He was a leader, with a leader's frank-and-open bullshit,
all right.
"You think about him enough, you see where he's been, you get a feel for him,"
Crawford went on. "You don't even dislike him all the time, hard as that is to believe.
Then, if you're lucky, out of all the stuff you know, part of it plucks at you, tries to get
your attention. Always tell me when something plucks, Starling.
"Listen to me, a crime is confusing enough without the investigation mixing it up.
Don't let a herd of policemen confuse you. Live right behind your eyes. Listen to
yourself. Keep the crime separate from what's going on around you now. Don't try to
impose any pattern or symmetry on this guy. Stay open and let him show you.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“Es muy fácil confundir la comprensión con la simpatía. Deseamos la simpatía con tanta fuerza...
Puede que aprender a distinguirla forme parte del proceso de madurar. Es duro y desagradable darse cuenta de que alguien puede comprenderte sin tener que gustarle.”
― Thomas Harris, Hannibal

“According to this view, all that matters to art appreciation is beauty of form. The logical extreme of aestheticism turns out to be homicidal art. (Taken from the book Hannibal Lecter & Philosophy: The Heart of the Matter)”
― John McAteer

“Es difícil tener algo, ¿verdad? Raro conseguirlo, difícil conservarlo.”
― Thomas Harris, Red Dragon

“La falta de atención es muchas veces una estratagema para esquivar el sufrimiento y, a menudo, se interpreta equivocadamente como superficialidad e indiferencia.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“Es muy fácil confundir la comprensión con la
simpatía, por la desesperada necesidad de simpatía que todos sentimos.
Puede que
aprender a distinguirlas forme parte del proceso de madurar.
Es duro y
desagradable darse cuenta de que alguien puede comprenderte sin que ni siquiera le
gustes.”
― Thomas Harris, Hannibal

“ANYONE WITH 16 YRS OF SOBRIETY SHOULD GET A FUCKING OSCAR”
― Dmitry Dyatlov

“I was starting to think that taking advice from a fictional cannibal was probably as difficult as it was dumb. Because, as last night had proven, I just wasn't that smart.”
― Gabriel Bergmoser, The True Colour of a Little White Lie