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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
Already
Mind
Things
Observes

More quotes by 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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I am the dragon, and you call me insane.
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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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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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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God's creatures who cried themselves to sleep stirred to cry again.
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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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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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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Nothing makes us more vulnerable than loneliness except greed.
Thomas Harris
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Shiloh isn’t haunted – men are haunted. Shiloh doesn’t care.
Thomas Harris
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Life's too slippery for books, Clarice anger appears as lust, lupus presents as hives.
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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I would not have had that happen to you. Discourtesy is unspeakably ugly to me.
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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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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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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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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You will not persuade me with appeals to my intellectual vanity.
Thomas Harris