Hannibal Lecter: [holding a glass with wine] Good evening, Herr Kolnas. You drink better wine that you serve.
 • Movie: Hannibal Rising • Rating: Unrated • Permalink

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Hannibal Lecter: Now listen carefully because I will not repeat this. You are trying to obtain a list of males rejected by all three gender centers. Check first the ones rejected for having lied about criminal records, look for severe childhood disturbances associated with violence. Our Billy wasn't born a killer, Clarice. Oh no, he was made one through years of systematic abuse. Go to the personality tests, study their drawings. Billy's houses will be very small with tiny windows, no flowers, no pets, no toys, no sun. And his females will be even more crudely sketched than his males but he will compensate with exaggerated adornments, jewelry, big breasts. And then his trees. Oh yes, Clarice, his trees will be frightful. Our Billy hates his own identity you see, he always has and he thinks that makes him a transsexual. But his pathology is a thousand times more savage and more terrifying. He wants to be reborn you see. Our Billy wants to be reborn, Clarice. And he will be reborn.
 • Movie: The Silence of the Lambs • Rating: Unrated • Permalink

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Clarice Starling: Where are you, Dr. Lecter?
Hannibal Lecter: I've no plans to call on you, Clarice. The world is more interesting with you in it.
 • Movie: The Silence of the Lambs • Rating: 10.0 / 10 • Permalink

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Hannibal Lecter: Advancement, of course. Listen carefully. Look deep within yourself, Clarice Starling. Go seek out Miss Mofet, an old patient of mine. M-o-f-e-t. Go now, I don't think Miggs could manage again quite so soon, even though he is crazy.
[shouting]
Hannibal Lecter: Go now!
 • Movie: The Silence of the Lambs • Rating: Unrated • Permalink

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Clarice Starling: Did you do those drawings, Doctor?
Hannibal Lecter: Ah. That is the Duomo scene from the Belvedere. You know Florence?
Clarice Starling: All that detail just from memory?
Hannibal Lecter: Memory, Agent Starling, is what I have instead of a view.
 • Movie: The Silence of the Lambs • Rating: 10.0 / 10 • Permalink

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Hannibal Lecter: People will say we're in love.
 • Movie: The Silence of the Lambs • Rating: Unrated • Permalink

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Hannibal Lecter: All good things to those who wait.
 • Movie: The Silence of the Lambs • Rating: Unrated • Permalink

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Hannibal Lecter: Why do you think he removes their skins, Agent Starling?
[sarcastically]
Hannibal Lecter: Enthrall me with your acumen.
Clarice Starling: It excites him. Most serial killers keep some sort of trophies from their victims.
Hannibal Lecter: I didn't.
Clarice Starling: No. No, you ate yours.
 • Movie: The Silence of the Lambs • Rating: Unrated • Permalink

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Hannibal Lecter: You still wake up sometimes, don't you? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the lambs.
Clarice Starling: Yes.
Hannibal Lecter: And you think if you save poor Catherine, you could make them stop, don't you? You think if Catherine lives, you won't wake up in the dark ever again to that awful screaming of the lambs.
 • Movie: The Silence of the Lambs • Rating: Unrated • Permalink

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Hannibal Lecter: I will listen now. After your father's murder, you were orphaned. You were ten years old. You went to live with cousins on a sheep and horse ranch in Montana. And...?
Clarice Starling: [tears begin forming in her eyes] And one morning, I just ran away.
Hannibal Lecter: No "just", Clarice. What set you off? You started at what time?
Clarice Starling: Early, still dark.
Hannibal Lecter: Then something woke you, didn't it? Was it a dream? What was it?
Clarice Starling: I heard a strange noise.
Hannibal Lecter: What was it?
Clarice Starling: It was... screaming. Some kind of screaming, like a child's voice.
Hannibal Lecter: What did you do?
Clarice Starling: I went downstairs, outside. I crept up into the barn. I was so scared to look inside, but I had to.
Hannibal Lecter: And what did you see, Clarice? What did you see?
Clarice Starling: Lambs. The lambs were screaming.
Hannibal Lecter: They were slaughtering the spring lambs?
Clarice Starling: And they were screaming.
Hannibal Lecter: And you ran away?
Clarice Starling: No. First I tried to free them. I... I opened the gate to their pen, but they wouldn't run. They just stood there, confused. They wouldn't run.
Hannibal Lecter: But you could and you did, didn't you?
Clarice Starling: Yes. I took one lamb, and I ran away as fast as I could.
Hannibal Lecter: Where were you going, Clarice?
Clarice Starling: I don't know. I didn't have any food, any water and it was very cold, very cold. I thought, I thought if I could save just one, but... he was so heavy. So heavy. I didn't get more than a few miles when the sheriff's car picked me up. The rancher was so angry he sent me to live at the Lutheran orphanage in Bozeman. I never saw the ranch again.
Hannibal Lecter: What became of your lamb, Clarice?
Clarice Starling: They killed him.
 • Movie: The Silence of the Lambs • Rating: Unrated • Permalink

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