“I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti”

“A census taker tried to quantify me once. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a big Amarone. Go back to school, little Starling.”

“It would be so nice to be wanted by someone with the courage to get his hat or stay as he damn pleased, and who gave her credit for the same. Someone who didn't worry about her.”

“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.”

“Charlie slowly crumpled to the floor, Allison soon joining him. “Dinner is served!” Stanley trumpeted, as he reached into the steaming mass of offal and fished around for the teens’ livers. “Aha!” he crowed, as he lifted one liver in each hand over his head.Stanley brought his right hand down and took a large bite from the first liver, spreading blood and gore over his face. He chewed for a moment and swallowed, and then bit off a large hunk of the other one. “All I need are some fava beans and a nice Chianti!” he said as he slurped.”

“He knew that a middle-aged man can be so desperate for wisdom he may try to make some up, and how deadly that can be to a youngster who believes him.”

“Spaces devoted to Hannibal Lecter’s earliest years differ from the other archives in being incomplete. Some are static scenes, fragmentary, like painted attic shards held together by blank plaster. Other rooms hold sound and motion, great snakes wrestling and heaving in the dark and lit in flashes. Pleas and screaming fill some places on the grounds where Hannibal himself cannot go. But the corridors do not echo screaming, and there is music if you like.”