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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.

Thomas Harris

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Thomas Harris
Age: 84
Born: 1940
Born: April 11
Author
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Jackson
Tennessee
William Thomas Harris III
Novel
Making
Understand
Anything
Find
Must
Writing

More quotes by Thomas Harris

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What he has in addition is pure empathy and projection,” Dr. Bloom said. “He can assume your point of view, or mine – and maybe some other points of view that scare and sicken him. It’s an uncomfortable gift, Jack. Perception’s a tool that’s pointed on both ends.
Thomas Harris
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And your dinner for the orchestra officials. Haven't you ever had people coming over and no time to shop? You have to make do with what's in the fridge, Clarice. May I call you Clarice?
Thomas Harris
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I love myself that much and I will never apologize to you.
Thomas Harris
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He sees very clearly - he damn sure sees through me. It's hard to accept that someone can understand you without wishing you well. At Starling's age it hadn't happened to her much.
Thomas Harris
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The tragedy is not to die, but to be wasted.
Thomas Harris
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He was numb except for dreading the loss of numbness.
Thomas Harris
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… It is not healing to see your childhood home, but it helps you measure whether you are broken, and how and why, assuming you want to know.
Thomas Harris
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Intense fear comes in waves the body can't stand it for long at a time.
Thomas Harris
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Human emotions are a gift from our animal ancestors. Cruelty is a gift humanity has given itself.
Thomas Harris
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I am the dragon, and you call me insane.
Thomas Harris
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Evil's just destructive? Then storms are evil, if it's that simple. And we have fire, and there there's hail. Underwriters lump it all under 'Acts of God.
Thomas Harris
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I think it's easy to mistake understanding for empathy - we want empathy so badly. Maybe learning to make that distinction is part of growing up. It's hard and ugly to know somebody can understand you without even liking you.
Thomas Harris
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Funerals often make us want sex-it's one in the eye for death.
Thomas Harris
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You will not persuade me with appeals to my intellectual vanity.
Thomas Harris
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It occured to Starling how much Roden would benefit from an elbow smash in the hinge of his jaw.
Thomas Harris
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What does he do, Clarice? What is the first and principal thing he does, what need does he serve by killing? He covets. How do we begin to covet? We begin by coveting what we see every day.
Thomas Harris
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There is a common emotion we all recognize and have not yet named -- the happy anticipation of being able to feel contempt.
Thomas Harris
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The very air had screams smeared on it. He flinched from the noise in this silent room.
Thomas Harris
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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
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Nothing made me happen. I happened.
Thomas Harris