260 Quotes by Thomas Harris

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.

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.

You said that I, who see more than you, am insane. I, who pushed the world so much further than you, am insane. I have dared more than you, I have pressed my unique seal so much deeper in the earth, where it will last longer than your dust... you owe me awe.

I wonder why my parents didn’t kill me before I was old enough to fool them.

He snapped some icicles off a branch to make me a martini. He came back to the car, long legs lifting high in the snow, and there was snow in his hair and on his eyelashes and I remembered that I love him. It felt like something breaking with a little pain and spilling warm. I hope the parka.

Writing novels is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, including digging irrigation ditches.

To write a novel, you begin with what you can see and then you add what came before and what came after.

Which do you think, Commendatore? Bowels in or out?

You don’t even dislike him all the time, hard as that is to believe. Then, if you’re lucky, out of the stuff you know, part of it plucks at you, tries to get your attention. Always tell me when something plucks, Starling.