The Silence Of The Lambs Quotes

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

The intimacy of the detail - why The Silence of the Lambs is quite possibly the Thriller Writer's bible. ~ Thomas Harris

After The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal, the audience would like to know where, when, and who arrests Hannibal Lecter for the first time. This is the story of Red Dragon. ~ Dino De Laurentiis

Orion is above the horizon now, and near it Jupiter, brighter than it will ever be ... But i expect you can see it too. Some of our stars are the same. ~ Thomas Harris

Some people still in the BSU have also taken to claiming that they were the models for the FBI characters in the book and movie The Silence of the Lambs, though Harris has stated (and I agree) that the characters are entirely his own and not based on any particular individuals. ~ Robert K. Ressler

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. ~ Thomas Harris

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

Concentrated power can be always wielded in the interest of the few and at the expense of the many. Government in its last analysis is this power reduced to a science. Governments never lead; they follow progress. When the prison, stake or scaffold can no longer silence the voice of the protesting minority, progress moves on a step, but not until then. ~ Lucy Parsons

And what was more, he'd had to let Silence's brothers bear her away because the palace wasn't safe for her or the babe now. Conceding to anyone was not something Mick was used to doing. If any man had told him a month ago that he'd let four men walk out of the palace with something - someone - he considered his, Mick would've laughed in his face. But that was before Silence and the babe had come to be important to him. More important than even his self-esteem and his reputation. If that made him a weaker man, well, then so be it. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt

As I listen to the silence, I learn that my feelings about art and my feelings about the Creator of the Universe are inseparable. To try to talk about art and about Christianity is for me one and the same thing, and it means attempting to share the meaning of my life, what gives it, for me, its tragedy and its glory. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

Alone time is something that should not be looked down upon. Perhaps people who crave deep silence and solitude are connected to their purpose more than anyone else does, while those who do not believe in the beauty of a solitary mind seem to lack a sense of their own depths. ~ Sai Pradeep

The means by which a strong species maintains itself: -

It grants itself the right of exceptional actions, as a test of the power of self-control and of freedom.

It abandons itself to states in which a man is not allowed to be anything else than a barbarian.

It tries to acquire strength of will by every kind of asceticism.

It is not expansive, it practises silence; it is cautious in regard to all charms.

It learns to obey in such a way that obedience provides a test of self-maintenance. Casuistry is carried to its highest pitch in regard to points of honour.

It never argues, 'What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander,' - but conversely! it regards reward, and the ability to repay, as a privilege, as a distinction.

It does not covet other people's virtues. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Frustration, too evident in the cement clench of his jaw.
Distance, the ethereal detached from the flesh and bone.
Impatience, in the soft thrum of his heel as we sit in silence. ~ Ellen Hopkins

In Plato's Republic, Socrates expresses great fear about democracy because it is, in his mind, synonymous with freedom. The result is tyranny. But modern times have brought us a different understanding of democracy as an ideal. It is how to give the appearance of democracy yet deny it in practice, ensuring that democracy in its false form gives consent by the people to a small group, the oligarchs. This is accomplished through a combination of the people's silence and a rigged system that changes a working democracy of public participation and deliberation to a charade. ~ Noam Chomsky

We cannot be happy if we expect to live all the time at the highest peak of intensity. Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.
Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence there would be no rhythm. If we strive to be happy by filling all the silences of life with sound, productive by turning all life's leisure into work, and real by turning all our being into doing, we will only succeed in producing a hell on earth. ~ Thomas Merton

I don't want to be married just to be married. I can't think of anything lonelier than spending the rest of my life with someone I can't talk to, or worse, someone I can't be silent with. ~ Mary Ann Shaffer

He really was a very bad leader in that respect - and it was why his Arrows gave him their unswerving dedication. All of them rejects from the world, from their families. No one else had ever come for them, ever would. Silence or not, it mattered that Aden would. ~ Nalini Singh

Awakening is a bound, not weighted down with the past that inculpates the present and demands compensation from the future, a bound out of the drunkenness of remorse and resentment. Awakening is a commencement. It is a point of departure. We come alive; we become alive
to the dragonfly, to the twisted grain of the porch railing. Awakening is a birth. Awakening is joyous. The innocence of awakening, the active disconnection from the past, make possible this joy. How good to be alive! How refreshing is this silence! How calm the morning is! How pungent it smells! In every joy there is an awakening. ~ Alphonso Lingis

In evil times, when public virtue has left the earth, ancient writings are of little account, and no one cares to disturb the silence of the libraries. ~ Joseph-Arthur De Gobineau

There is an awkward silence that overcomes you when cross paths with the person that kisses your heart the second that you meet them. It balances on the edge of unknown but always desired. ~ Carl Henegan

We came here as we truly are, and when the other side shows us that truth - the part of it we pass over in silence - we're unable to come to terms with it! ~ Stanislaw Lem

I used to feel I could hide inside my practice, that I could simply sit and contemplate the raging anger of a place like this, seeking inner peace through prayers of compassion. But now I believe love and compassion are things to extend to others. It's a dangerous adventure to share them in a place like S.Q. Yet I see now that we become better people if we can touch a hardened soul, bring joy into someone's life, or just be an example for others, instead of hiding behind our silence. ~ Jarvis Jay Masters

I have always felt deep within myself that I do not trust that I am already OK as I am, and that I do not trust that life takes care of me. But now I discover a silent place in the depth of my inner being, where I am already one with life, where I am OK as I am.
It is also a silent inner place of healing and wholeness, where I can find a love and acceptance for that which is imperfect within myself. ~ Swami Dhyan Giten

Unlike the rain-slicked streets of Oblakgrad, Dírorth was a stir of activity. The streets were lined with vendors selling greasy meat pies to passersby. The clogging crowd of Humans cramped together as they pushed past one another, rushing from one errand to the next. The shouting of a thousand voices melted together into a perpetual buzz, like a great swarm of bees hovering over the street.
And yet a strange silence hung over the city. It filled in the background, inhabiting dark corners where the din of the crowd could not squelch it. It had a strange omnipresence, like something that you are subconsciously aware of, but do not consciously see with your eyes.
It was a silence ignored, hidden by the façade of hectic traffic. You wouldn't really notice it, not unless you were looking for it. Not unless you actually stopped to listen.
If the city folk had stopped, frozen, if they had stilled themselves for a moment, the silence would have gaped wide open like a dark, hungry maw. But they ignored it. For the past century, they had covered that silence with the commotion of everyday life, refusing to let it control them. To define them. They did not hear it. They would not hear it.
I myself did not hear it for years and years, not until the day that I actually stopped to listen.
Can you hear it, now? Can you hear it in the words your reading, the words I say to you? Listen. Hear its empty resonance across the cobbles. Feel it in the dust beneath Notak ~ S.G. Night

Justice Denied
Thousands of women, probably more
I cannot reach them behind justice doors
Many stay silent, barred just like me.
Haunted by demons, faces unseen.
Still by the hundreds, they continue to serve
Duty and country, active and reserve.
Thankless, forgotten through America's wars
Scarred like their brethren, treated as foes.
Volunteered to go to the shores.
Died like the others, shamed to the core.
Where is the dignity, long since denied?
Lost in the White House of Justice Denied
Women in service since beginning of time
Often they're treated like victims in crime.
Where is their voice, silence throughout the years?
It's dead in the Senate and House, with their tears! ~ Diane Chamberlain

I was unaccustomed to men in general, having spent my adolescence in all-female group homes with only an occasional male therapist or teacher, and I couldn't remember having ever been in such proximity to a man who was both young and handsome. Grant was so different from everything I was used to - from the size of his hands, heavy on the table, to the low, quiet voice that echoed into the silence between us. ~ Vanessa Diffenbaugh

What would happen," Zeitoun asked the captain, "if you and I went below the deck, and just went to our bedrooms and went to sleep?"
The captain gave him a quizzical look and answered that the ship would most certainly hit something
would run aground or into a reef. In any event, disaster.
"So without a captain, the ship cannot navigate."
"Yes," the captain said, "What's your point?"
Zeitoun smiled. "Look above you, at the stars and moon. How do the stars keep their place in the sky, how does the moon rotate around the earth, the earth around the sun? Who's navigating?"
The captain smiled at Zeitoun. He'd been led into a trap.
"Without someone guiding us," Zeitoun finished, "wouldn't the stars and moon fall to earth, wouldn't the oceans overrun the land? Any vessel, any carrier of humans, needs a captain, yes?"
The captain was taken with the beauty of the metaphor, and let his silence imply surrender. ~ Dave Eggers

May we all grow in grace and peace and not neglect the silence that is printed in the center of our being. It will not fail us. ~ Thomas Merton

Silence is the door to Oran Mor. Close your eyes. Quieten your thoughts. And listen. Listen in particular to the sound of the waves. Let the Great Song sing in you. In an hour I will ring a bell. When you hear it, make a sound that resonates with the waves. Let it flow and develop, calling on all you have heard in the silence. ~ Alan McCluskey

We're all afraid of the same stuff. Mostly we're afraid that we're secretly not okay, that we're disgusting, or frauds, or about to be diagnosed with cancer ... We want to teach you how to quiet the yammer ... how you can create comfort, inside and outside, how you can get warm, how you can feed yourself. And even learn to get through silence ... There is a wilderness inside you, and a banquet. Both. [p. 253] ~ Anne Lamott

The way he said it spoke of an ache I recognized. I knew that no matter how similar they were, no two losses were the same, but despite his loss being from a different circumstance, I felt his sadness as my own. We sat there in silence with my hand resting in his. My bandage told its own stories while we remembered the girl who taught Randolf such a valuable lesson about the small turning into the large. ~ J.D. Brewer

In Judaism, it is taught that there are three stages of grief to be endured. First there is weeping, for we all must weep for what we have lost. Second comes silence, for in the silence we understand solace, beauty, and comfort from something greater than ourselves. Third comes singing, for in singing we pour out our hearts and regain our voice. ~ Judy Collins

I paused to listen to the silence. My breath, crystallized as it passed my cheeks, drifted on a breeze gentler than a whisper. The wind vane pointed toward the South Pole. Presently the wind cups ceased their gentle turning as the cold killed the breeze. My frozen breath hung like a cloud overhead. The day was dying, the night being born - but with great peace. Here were the imponderable processes and forces of the cosmos, harmonious and soundless. Harmony, that was it! That was what came out of the silence - a gentle rhythm, the strain of a perfect chord, the music of the spheres, perhaps.
It was enough to catch that rhythm, momentarily to be myself a part of it. In that instant I could feel no doubt of man's oneness with the universe. The conviction came that the rhythm was too orderly, too harmonious, too perfect to be a product of blind chance - that, therefore, there must be purpose in the whole and that man was part of that whole and not an accidental offshoot. It was a feeling that transcended reason; that went to the heart of man's despair and found it groundless. The universe was a cosmos, not a chaos; man was rightfully a part of that cosmos as were the day and night. ~ Richard Evelyn Byrd

The proper use of language, for me personally, is one that enables us to approach things (present or absent) with discretion, attention, and caution, with respect for what things (present or absent) communicate without words. ~ Italo Calvino

Humor won't save you; it doesn't really do anything at all. You can look at life ironically for years, maybe decades; there are people who seem to go through most of their lives seeing the funny side, but in the end, life always breaks your heart. Doesn't matter how brave you are, or how reserved, or how much you've developed a sense of humor, you still end up with your heart broken. That's when you stop laughing. In the end there's just the cold, the silence and the loneliness. In the end there's only death. ~ Michel Houellebecq

In the black chaos where the seas and the skies become confused let the projectors blow their white trumpets of silence
("Roundness") ~ Pierre Drieu La Rochelle

Jack stares at me blankly. 'A what?' he asks.

I choke back the laugh. 'A boy. You know? A Y-chromosome holder? You don't seem to notice them as much as you do the X-carriers.'

'What are you talking about?' Jack asks, 'A boy? She's just a kid.'

I hesitate, wondering how Jack is only just doing the maths on this one now. 'She's seventeen. She's not a kid anymore.'

Jack looks like he's about to go all Incredible Hulk and burst out of his clothes before rampaging through the bar. He jumps off the stool. 'If any boy ever lays a finger on my sister, I'm going to kill him,' he says.

Again I stare at him in silence, thinking of all the girls Jack has laid fingers and much more of his anatomy on besides. Poor Lila. If she ever wants to have a shot at a normal life, as in one that doesn't require a vow of celibacy, she needs to stay in London. ~ Sarah Alderson

Harold had become, over the past week, a connoisseur of silences. He was an expert at differentiating the particulars; was this a Tranquil Silence, marked by slow sighs and peaceful smiles? Or was it a Tired Silence, marked by ornery chair shifting? Or a Tense Silence, full of tight breaths and cautious glances? ~ Graham Moore

In the depth of silence
be speechless
to listen the song of life,
song of creation of life,
primordial song.
Be silent, and listen to your heart.
Can you hear
The song of life,
The song of love,
The song of creation? ~ Debasish Mridha

And there was that pregnant silence in the air, the silence between a husband and wife who have just had words, and it is unlike any other silence except perhaps the awful stillness you hear between the flash of an atomic bomb and the blast. Five, four, three, two, one. ~ Nelson DeMille

It's me, you fool. Who do you think it is? I'm coming in."
He was already naked. She turned away from him as he slipped in by her side but he caught her in his arms and felt her body thaw his belly and thighs. That was all, just to lie there listening to the breathing and the silence and feel the warmth colour his belly and thighs and head. She never wore clothes in bed. They were naked and the warmth run out of her. He wanted to laugh, because it was such a marvelous discovery to make, this warmth. She was hissing like a snake.
"No, it's wrong." She went on hissing.
She brought an elbow back smartly and struck him in the paunch. She seemed all elbows, shoulder blades and heels. It was like trying to make love to a dough-mixing machine. She wanted it, didn't she, otherwise why all this hissing and moaning? ~ P.H. Newby

Oh, yes," said Lord Peter. He watched the cool fingers, fascinated, and the steady approach of the needle. "Yes - I've had it before - and, d'you know - I don't care frightfully about it." He had brought up his right hand, and it closed over the surgeon's wrist like a vise. The silence was like a shock. The blue eyes did not waver; they burned down steadily upon the heavy white lids below them. Then these slowly lifted; the grey eyes met the blue - coldly, steadily - and held them. When ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

You make some great promises in this journey called 'life'. You tell people that you love them and need them but, in the end, you leave them in silence because, you feel heavy and lost & everything feels tough to you all of a sudden, you leave them in the hope that you find someone better but, one day, life lets you realize that it is not easy to find someone with 'perfectionism ~ Jyoti Patel

The afternoon our story begins, the quiet parts of being alive were the busiest: wind unlocking Windows; rainlight nudging curtains apart; fresh-cut grass tickling unsocked feet. Days like this made Alice want to set off on a great adventure. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I shouted into the phone, but there was no reply. Silence floated up from the receiver like smoke from the mouth of a gun. ~ Haruki Murakami

Our house was a collection of silences, each room a mute, empty frame, each of us three oscillating bodies (Mom, Dad, me) moving around in our own curved functions, from space to space, not making any noise, just waiting, waiting to wait, trying, for some reason, not to disrupt the field of silence, not to perturb the delicate equilibrium of the system. We wandered from room to room, just missing one another, on paths neither chosen by us nor random, but determined by our own particular characteristics, our own properties, unable to deviate, to break from our orbital loops, unable to do something as simple as walking into the next room where our beloved, our father, our mother, our child, our wife, our husband, was sitting, silent, waiting but not realizing it, waiting for someone to say something, anything, wanting to do it, yearning to do it, physically unable to bring ourselves to change our velocities. ~ Charles Yu

Was the collaboration of some slaves any different than the silence of some Iranians who stood by and did nothing as Savak thugs murdered and tortured opponents of the Shah? How could we judge other men until we had stood in their shoes? ~ Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

Most Russian girls usually only go in for Platonic attachments with never a thought of marriage. And Platonic love is the most troublesome sort. The princess, I fancy, is one of those women
who want to be amused, and two dull minutes with you will finish you for good. Your silence must rouse her curiosity, on conversation must leave her wanting more. You've got to play on her feelings all the time. She'll scorn public opinion a dozen times for your sake and call it a sacrifice, but she'll get her own back by
tormenting you, and then later simply declare that she can't stand you. If you don't get the upper hand, her first kiss won't give you the right to expect a second. She'll play with you till she's tired of it, then a couple of years later she'll marry some brute out of duty to Mama and persuade herself she's unhappy, because it was not heaven's will to unite her with the only man she ever loved (you that is) on account of his private's greatcoat, though under that thick grey coat there beat an ardent, noble heart.. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

And what can we do to silence these Christian athletes who thank Jesus whenever they win, never mention his name when they lose? Not a word. You never hear them say "Jesus made me drop the ball." "The good lord tripped me up behind the line of scrimmage." According to these guys Jesus is undefeated, meanwhile these assholes are in last place. Must be another one of those "miracles." ~ George Carlin

Anyway, there is an essential difference in gender that isn't politically correct to mention these days. Women are the ones to bear the children after all. They are the ones to nurse. They are the ones, traditionally, who care for the infants. That takes a huge amount of time.'
He smiled, waiting for the applause, but something had gone wrong. There was a cold silence from the crowd...
'Did you just say that women aren't creative geniuses because they have babies?'
'No," he said, 'No. Not because. I wouldn't say that. I love women, and not all women have babies. My wife, for one, at least not yet. But listen, we're all given a finite amount of creativity, just like we;re given a finite amount of life, and if a woman continues to spend hers creating actual life and not imaginary life, that's a glorious choice. When a woman has a baby, she's creating so much more than just a world on the page, she's creating life itself, not just a simulacrum. No matter what Shakespeare did, it's so much less than your average illiterate woman of his age who had babies. Those babies were our ancestors, necessary to make everyone here today, and no one could seriously argue that any play is worth a single human wife. I mean the history of the stage supports me here. If women have historically demonstrated less creative genius than men, it's because they're making their creations internal, spending the energies on life itself. It's a kind of bodily genius. You can't tell me that is ~ Lauren Groff

To often we speak just to hear the sound of our own voice, when we should speak only when the words are sweeter than silence. ~ Steven Aitchison