Courtney’s Reviews > Hannibal > Status Update

“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.”

“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.”

“The most stable elements, Clarice, appear in the middle of the periodic table, roughly between iron and silver. Between iron and silver. I think that is appropriate for you.”

“Ardelia felt her background, found strength in it every day. Now starling felt for hers, tried to gather herself…for what she needed now, she must consult her blood…there is much honor and more sense in having succeeded with what was left, making something with the damned forty acres and muddy mule, but you have to be able to see that. No one will tell you.”