Isabel Jervis > Isabel's Quotes

“Occasionally, on purpose, Dr. Lecter drops a teacup to shatter on the floor. He is satisfied when it does not gather itself together. For many months now, he has not seen Mischa in his dreams.

Someday perhaps a cup will come together. Or somewhere Starling may hear a crossbow string and come to some unwilled awakening, if indeed she even sleeps.”
― Thomas Harris, Hannibal

“He looked up and saw her and his breath stopped in his throat. His hands stopped too, still spread above the keyboard. Harpsichord notes do not carry, and in the sudden quiet of the drawing room they both heard him take his next breath.”
― Thomas Harris, Hannibal

“He could see that he had too many flowers in the room, and must add more to make it come back right again. Too many flowers was too many, but way too many was just right.”
― Thomas Harris, Hannibal

“Do not say ‘Thanks.’” A fractional turn of his head was enough to dash his annoyance like a glass thrown into the fireplace. “I say what I mean,” Starling said. “Would you like it better if I said ‘I’m glad you find me so.’ That would be a little fancier, and equally true.” She raised her glass beneath her level prairie gaze, taking back nothing.”
― Thomas Harris, Hannibal

“Dr. Lecter, erect as a dancer and carrying Starling in his arms, came out from behind the gate, walked barefoot out of the barn, through the pigs. Dr. Lecter walked through the sea of tossing backs and bloodspray in the barn.”
― Thomas Harris, Hannibal

“Occasionally, on purpose, Dr. Lecter drops a teacup to shatter on the floor. He is satisfied when it does not gather itself together. For many months now, he has not seen Mischa in his dreams. Someday perhaps a cup will come together. Or Somewhere Starling may hear a crossbow string and come to some unwilled awakening, if indeed she even sleeps.
We'll withdraw now, while they are dancing on the terrace-- the wise Barney has already left town and we must follow is example. For either of them to discover us would be fatal.

We can only learn so much and live.”
― Thomas Harris, Hannibal

“Being smart spoils a lot of things, doesn't it?”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“She didn't give a damn about some of them, but she had grown to learn that inattention can be a stratagem to avoid pain, and that it is often misread as shallowness and indifference.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“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.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“Silence can mock.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“Over this odd world, this half the world that's dark now, I have to hunt a thing that lives on tears.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“What does he do, Clarice? What is the first and principal thing he does, what need does he serve by killing? He covets. How do we begin to covet? We begin by coveting what we see every day.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“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.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“We rarely get to prepare ourselves in meadows or on graveled walks; we do it on short notice in places without windows, hospital corridors, rooms like this lounge with its cracked plastic sofa and Cinzano ashtrays, where the cafe curtains cover blank concrete. In rooms like this, with so little time, we prepare our gestures, get them by heart so we can do them when we're frightened in the face of Doom.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“He lives down in a ribcage in the dry leaves of a heart.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“I would not have had that happen to you. Discourtesy is unspeakably ugly to me.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“Back at his chair he cannot remember what he was reading. He feels the books beside him to find the one that is warm.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“Good-bye Clarice. Will you let me know if ever the lambs stop screaming?" "Yes." Pembry was taking her arm. It was go or fight him. "Yes," she said. "I'll tell you." "Do you promise?""Yes.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“Life's too slippery for books, Clarice; anger appears as lust, lupus presents as hives.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“Evil's just destructive? Then storms are evil, if it's that simple. And we have fire, and there there's hail. Underwriters lump it all under 'Acts of God.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“I have no plans to call on you, Clarice, the world being more interesting with you in it.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“Nothing happened to me, Officer Starling. I happened. You can't reduce me to a set of influences.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“And your dinner for the orchestra officials."
"Haven't you ever had people coming over and no time to shop? You have to make do with what's in the fridge, Clarice. May I call you Clarice?”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“We don't begin to covet with imagined things. Coveting is a very literal sin–we begin to covet with tangibles, we begin with what we see every day.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“It was as though committing murders had purged him of lesser rudeness. Or perhaps, Starling thought, it excited him to see her marked in this particular way. She couldn't tell. The sparks in his eyes flew into his darkness like fireflies down a cave.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“Orion is above the horizon now, and near it Jupiter, brighter than it will ever be ... But i expect you can see it too. Some of our stars are the same.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“He held it at arm's length, through the bars, his forefinger along the spine. She reached across the barrier and took it. For an instant the tip of her forefinger touched Dr. Lecter's. The touch crackled in his eyes. "Thank you, Clarice." "Thank you, Dr. Lecter." And that is how he remained in Starling's mind. Caught in the instant when he did not mock. Standing in his white cell, arched like a dancer, his hands clasped in front of him and his head slightly to the side.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“You still wake up sometimes, don’t you? Wake up in the iron dark with the lambs screaming?” “Sometimes.” “Do you think if you caught Buffalo Bill yourself and if you made Catherine all right, you could make the lambs stop screaming, do you think they’d be all right too and you wouldn’t wake up again in the dark and hear the lambs screaming? Clarice?” “Yes. I don’t know. Maybe.” “Thank you, Clarice.” Dr. Lecter seemed oddly at peace.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“The emperor counsels simplicity. First principles. Of each particular thing, ask: What is it in itself, in its own constitution? What is its causal nature?”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“The sun's
a mattress fire her God died in.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs