Status Updates From hannible lector

“The monster sits in the black library, his kind painting colors in the dark and a medieval air running in his head.”

“His eyes reflect light redly, but they do not glow red in the dark, as some of his keepers have sworn they do. The darkness is complete.”

“The still air holds the smell of vellum and parchment and extinguished candlewicks.”

“One quality in a person doesn’t rule out any other quality. They can exist side by side, good and terrible.”

“Death and danger do not have to come with trappings. They can come to you in the sweet breath of your beloved. Or in a sunny afternoon in a fish market with ‘Macarena’ playing on a boom box.”

“With the question, she first felt his mind, prehensile and deep-sleeved, different from the vocabulary he used with her.”

“There is a common emotion we all recognize and have not yet named - the happy anticipation of being able to feel contempt.”

“The place looked solid and fecund, the province of pleasant dreams. It tugged at Starling.”

“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. When you see understanding just used as a predator’s tool, that’s the worst.”