Writing novels is the hardest thing I've ever done, including digging irrigation ditches. Thomas Harris More Quotes by Thomas Harris More Quotes From Thomas Harris And be grateful. Our scars have the power to remind us that the past was real. Thomas Harris grateful real past 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. Thomas Harris novel writing The tragedy is not to die, but to be wasted. Thomas Harris dies tragedy When the Fox hears the Rabbit scream he comes a-runnin', but not to help. Thomas Harris foxes rabbits helping I'm giving serious thought into eating yor wife” - Hannibal Lecter Thomas Harris wife serious giving 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 short-notice cafes heart 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. Thomas Harris growing-up mistake life 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 swans grandmother evil How seldom we recognize the sound when the bolt of our fate slides home. Thomas Harris fate sound home In her way, she was a hard one. Faith in any sort of natural justice was nothing but a night light; she knew of that. Whatever she did, she would end the same way with everyone does: flat on her back with a tube in her nose, wondering, "Is this all? Thomas Harris natural-justice light night In the vaults of our hearts and brains, danger waits. All the chambers are not lovely, light and high. There are holes in the floor of the mind, like those in a medieval dungeon floor - the stinking oubliettes, named for forgetting, bottle-shaped cells in solid rock with the trapdoor in the top. Nothing escapes from them quietly to ease us. A quake, some betrayal by our safeguards, and sparks of memory fire the noxious gases - things trapped for years fly free, ready to explode in pain and drive us to dangerous behavior. Thomas Harris betrayal pain memories Nothing made me happen. I happened. Thomas Harris happened made happens 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 congratulations self monsters Being smart spoils a lot of things, doesn't it? Thomas Harris being-smart spoil smart Fear comes with imagination, it’s a penalty, it’s the price of imagination. Thomas Harris penalties imagination fear Allegra Pazzi: Dr. Fell, do you believe a man could become so obsessed with a woman, from a single encounter? Thomas Harris men believe thinking Over this odd world, this half the world that's dark now, I have to hunt a thing that lives on tears. Thomas Harris tears half dark One can only see what one observes, and one observes only things which are already in the mind. Thomas Harris mind Hannibal Lecter: 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 wise giving book I have no interest in understanding sheep, only eating them. Thomas Harris serial-killer understanding sheep
