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One can only see what one observes, and one observes only things which are already in the mind.

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
Mind
Things
Observes
Already

More quotes by Thomas Harris

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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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Good-bye Clarice. Will you let me know if ever the lambs stop screaming? Yes. Pembry was taking her arm. It was go or fight him. Yes, she said. I'll tell you. Do you promise?Yes.
Thomas Harris
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Before Me you are a slug in the sun. You are privy to a great Becoming and you recognize nothing. You are an ant in the after-birth.It is in your nature to do one thing correctly: before Me you rightly tremble. Fear is not what you owe Me, Lounds, you and the other pismires. You owe Me awe.
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Nothing makes us more vulnerable than loneliness except greed.
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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You would think such a day would tremble to begin . . .
Thomas Harris
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I am the dragon, and you call me insane.
Thomas Harris
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In her way, she was a hard one. Faith in any sort of natural justice was nothing but a night light she knew of that. Whatever she did, she would end the same way with everyone does: flat on her back with a tube in her nose, wondering, Is this all?
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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You will not persuade me with appeals to my intellectual vanity.
Thomas Harris
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He was numb except for dreading the loss of numbness.
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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Funerals often make us want sex-it's one in the eye for death.
Thomas Harris
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Nothing made me happen. I happened.
Thomas Harris
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When the Fox hears the Rabbit scream he comes a-runnin', but not to help.
Thomas Harris
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Problem-solving is hunting it is savage pleasure and we are born to it.
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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It's fear, Jack. The man deals with a huge amount of fear.' Because he got hurt?' No, not entirely. Fear comes with imagination, it's a penalty, it's the price of imagination.
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 would not have had that happen to you. Discourtesy is unspeakably ugly to me.
Thomas Harris