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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
Things
Observes
Already
Mind

More quotes by 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.
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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Nothing makes us more vulnerable than loneliness except greed.
Thomas Harris
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He was numb except for dreading the loss of numbness.
Thomas Harris
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A census taker tried to quantify me once. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a big Amarone. Go back to school, little Starling.
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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Nothing made me happen. I happened.
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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God's creatures who cried themselves to sleep stirred to cry again.
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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Problem-solving is hunting it is savage pleasure and we are born to it.
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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The tragedy is not to die, but to be wasted.
Thomas Harris
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Shiloh isn’t haunted – men are haunted. Shiloh doesn’t care.
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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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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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 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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We can only learn so much and live.
Thomas Harris
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You will not persuade me with appeals to my intellectual vanity.
Thomas Harris