The best Quotes from The Silence of the Lambs

We begin by coveting what we see every day! Don't you feel eyes moving over your body, Clarice? And don't your eyes seek out the things you want?

Look for severe childhood disturbances associated with violence. Our Billy wasn't born a criminal, Clarice. He was made one through years of systematic abuse.

When the Fox hears the Rabbit scream he comes a-runnin', but not to help.

Nothing made me happen. I happened.

Being smart spoils a lot of things, doesn't it?

A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.

Nothing makes us more vulnerable than loneliness, except greed.

I've no plans to call on you, Clarice. The world is more interesting with you in it.

I'm not sure you get wiser as you get older, Starling, but you do learn to dodge a certain amount of hell.

You still wake up sometimes, don't you? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the lambs.

Problem-solving is hunting; it is savage pleasure and we are born to it.

Quid pro quo. I tell you things, you tell me things. Not about this case, though. About yourself.

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.

God's creatures who cried themselves to sleep stirred to cry again.

I would not have had that happen to you. Discourtesy is unspeakably ugly to me.

He lives down in a ribcage in the dry leaves of a heart.

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.

Whenever feasible, one should always try to eat the rude.

We've tried to study him, of course, but he's much too sophisticated for the standardtests.

I expect most psychiatrists have a patient or two they'd like to refer to me.

Clarice Starling: "Most serial killers keep some sort of trophies from their victims."
Hannibal Lecter: "I didn't."
Clarice Starling: "No, you ate yours."

He's a monster. Pure psychopath. So rare to capture one alive. From a research point of view, Lecter is our most prized asset.

Can you smell his sweat? That peculiar goatish odor is trans-3-methyl-2 hexenoic acid. Remember it, it's the smell of schizophrenia.

I'm going to show you why we insist on such precautions. On the evening of July 8, 1981, he complained of chest pains and was taken to the dispensary. His mouthpiece and restraints were removed for an EKG. When the nurse leaned over him, he did this to her. The doctors managed to reset her jaw, more or less. Saved one of her eyes… his pulse never got above 85, even when he ate her tongue.

It's an interesting combination: Having a great fear of being alone, and having a desperate need for solitude and the solitary experience. That's always been a tug of war for me.

I've only been to Dublin once, and I had a great time. I got completely soaked because it was rainy.

I'm a technician. I don't go for the get-into-the-role stuff. I read the lines and play the scenes.

'Taxi Driver' was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I didn't become a weirdo and squawk like a chicken.

It's very hard for me to get a new car. It's really hard for me to get a new house. It's really hard for me to move on from the things that give me stability.

Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable.

Sweat is the urine of the skin.