- Hannibal Lecter: People don't always tell you what they are thinking. They just see to it that you don't advance in life.
- [last lines]
- Hannibal Lecter: As your mother tells you, and my mother certainly told me, it is important, she always used to say, always to try new things.
- Hannibal Lecter: Tell me Clarice, would you ever say to me "Stop. If you loved me, you'd stop"?
- Clarice Starling: Not in a thousand years.
- Hannibal Lecter: "Not in a thousand years"... That's my girl.
- Hannibal Lecter: ...would they have you back, you think? The FBI? Those people you despise almost as much as they despise you. Would they give you a medal, Clarice, do you think? Would you have it professionally framed and hang it on your wall to look at and remind you of your courage and incorruptibility? All you would need for that, Clarice, is a mirror.
- Mason Verger: So what do ya think, Cordell? Does Lecter want to fuck her or kill her or eat her alive?
- Cordell Doemling: Probably all three, though I wouldn't want to predict in what order.
- Allegra Pazzi: Dr. Fell, do you believe a man could become so obsessed with a woman, from a single encounter?
- Hannibal Lecter: Could he daily feel a stab of hunger for her and find nourishment in the very sight of her? I think so. But would she see through the bars of his plight and ache for him?
- Clarice Starling: I wasn't speaking to you, Mr. Krendler. When I speak to you, you'll know it because I'll look at you.
- Mason Verger: Isn't it funny?
- Clarice Starling: What's that?
- Mason Verger: You can look at my face, but you shied when I said the name of God.
- Clarice Starling: I'll cut you loose. If you touch me, I'll shoot you.
- Hannibal Lecter: Understood.
- Clarice Starling: Do right, and you'll live through this.
- Hannibal Lecter: Spoken like a true Protestant.
- Mason Verger: Cordell, shoot him! Get the gun and shoot him!
- Cordell Doemling: Go into the pen?
- Mason Verger: Yes!
- Cordell Doemling: No, I'm staying out of this.
- Mason Verger: You're involved, is what you are, in all of it! Now do it!
- Cordell Doemling: No.
- Mason Verger: Yes!
- Hannibal Lecter: [Cordell is standing behind Mason's wheelchair on a ledge overlooking the wild boar] Hey, Cordell! Why don't you push him in? You can always say it was me.
- Hannibal Lecter: Given the chance, you would deny me my life, wouldn't you?
- Clarice Starling: Not your life.
- Hannibal Lecter: Just my freedom. You'd take that from me.
- Hannibal Lecter: You see, the brain itself feels no pain if that concerns you, Clarice. For example, Paul won't miss this little piece here, which is part of the pre-frontal lobe, which they say is the seat of good manners.
- Hannibal Lecter: Paul, remember what I said. If you can't be polite to our guests, you have to sit at the kiddies' table.
- [apparently about to cut Starling's hand off with a cleaver]
- Hannibal Lecter: This is really gonna hurt.
- Barney: Do you ever think he might come after you? You ever think about him at all?
- Clarice Starling: Well, at least thirty seconds of every day. I can't help it. He's always with me, like a bad habit.
- Hannibal Lecter: Clarice, there's nothing I'd love more in the world than to chat with you. Unfortunately, you've caught me at an awkward moment. Please forgive me.
- Hannibal Lecter: [writing a letter] Dear Clarice, I have followed with enthusiasm the course of your disgrace and public shaming. My own never bothered me, except for the inconvenience of being incarcerated, but you may lack perspective. In our discussions down in the dungeon, it was apparent to me that your father, the dead night watchman, figures largely in your value system. I think your success in putting an end to Jame Gumb's career as a couturier pleased you most because you could imagine your father being pleased. But now, alas, you're in bad odour with the FBI. Do you imagine your daddy being shamed by your disgrace? Do you see him in his plain pine box crushed by your failure; a sorry, petty end of a promising career? What is worst about this humiliation, Clarice? Is it how your failure will reflect on your mommy and daddy? Is your worst fear that people will now and forever believe they were indeed just good old trailer-camp tornado-bait white trash, and that perhaps you are too? By the way I couldn't help noticing on the FBI's rather dull public website that I have been hoisted from the Bureau's archives of the common criminal and elevated to the more prestigious 10 Most Wanted list. Is this coincidence, or are you back on the case? If so, goody goody, 'cause I need to come out of retirement and return to public life. I imagine you sitting in a dark basement room bent over papers and computer screens. Is that accurate? Please tell me truly, Special Agent Starling. Regards, your old pal, Hannibal Lecter, M.D.
- [pause]
- Hannibal Lecter: P.S. Clearly this new assignment is not your choice, rather I suppose it is a part of the bargain, but you accepted it, Clarice. Your job is to craft my doom, so I am not sure how well I should wish you, but I'm sure we'll have a lot of fun. Ta-ta, "H".
- Hannibal Lecter: On a related note I must confess to you, I'm giving very serious thought... to eating your wife.
- Hannibal Lecter: Mason Verger doesn't want to kill me any more than I want to kill him. He just wants to see me suffer in some unimaginable way. He is rather twisted, you know.
- Mason Verger: [watching a tourist's video of Hannibal, waving from the balcony after killing Pazzi] Tell me, Cordell, to you does that look like a wave goodbye... or hello?
- Mason Verger: I have immunity from the Justice Department, and I have immunity from the Risen Jesus. And nobody beats the Riz!
- Mason Verger: Oh, coulda, woulda, should. I mean what do you think about the money?
- Paul Krendler: Five.
- Mason Verger: Oh, let's just toss it off like 'five'! Let's say it with the respect it deserves.
- Paul Krendler: Five-hundred-thousand-dollars.
- Mason Verger: Well, that's better, but not much. Will it work?
- Paul Krendler: It'll work. Won't be pretty.
- Mason Verger: What ever is?
- [Line disconnects]
- Mason Verger: Cocksucker!
- Clarice Starling: Your profile at the border stations has five features. I'll trade you...
- Hannibal Lecter: "Trade"?
- Clarice Starling: Stop now and I'll tell you what they are.
- Hannibal Lecter: How does that word taste to you, Clarice? Hmm? Cheap and metallic, like sucking on a greasy coin?
- Mason Verger: You know, I thank God for what happened. It was my salvation. Have you accepted Jesus, Agent Starling? Do you have faith?
- Clarice Starling: I was raised Lutheran.
- Mason Verger: That's not what I asked.
- Clarice Starling: All right, everyone, pay attention. Here's the layout...
- Officer Bolton: Excuse me? I'm Officer Bolton, DC Police.
- Clarice Starling: Yes, I can see that from your uniform and badge, how do you do?
- Officer Bolton: I'm in charge here.
- Clarice Starling: You are?
- Officer Bolton: Yes, ma'am.
- Clarice Starling: Officer Bolton, I'm Special Agent Starling, and just so we don't get off on the wrong foot, let me explain why we're all here. I'm here because I know Evelda Drumgo, I've arrested her twice on RICO warrants, I know how she thinks. DEA and BATF, in addition to backing me up, are here for the drugs and weapons. You're here - and it's the only reason you're here - because our mayor wants to appear tough on drugs, especially after his own cocaine conviction, and thinks he can accomplish that by the mere fact of having you tag along with us.
- Officer Bolton: You got a smart mouth, lady.
- [Hannibal and Mason see each other for the first time in years]
- Mason Verger: Hylochoerus Meinertzhageni. Ring any bells from high school biology, doctor? No? Well, I could list its most conspicuous features if that would help jog the memory.
- [wheels around the restrained Hannibal]
- Mason Verger: Three pairs of incisors, one pair of elongated canines, three pairs of molars, four pairs of pre-molars, upper and lower, for a total of forty-four teeth.
- [stops to face Hannibal]
- Mason Verger: The meal will begin with an hors d'oeuvre tartare: your feet. The main course - the rest of you - won't be served until seven hours later, but during that time, you'll be able to enjoy the effects of the consumed appetizer with a full-bodied saline drip. I guess you wish now you'd fed the rest of me to the dogs, hmm?
- Hannibal Lecter: [perfectly calm] No, Mason... No, I much prefer you the way you are.
- Mason Verger: [holding back anger] So... dinner at 8.
- Clarice Starling: This is from the Guinness Book of World Records, congratulating me on being the female FBI Agent who has shot and killed the most people.
- Paul Krendler: Jesus, Starling!
- Clarice Starling: Can I help you Mr. Krendler?
- Paul Krendler: What are you doing sitting in the dark, Starling?
- Clarice Starling: Thinkin' about cannibalism.
- Mason Verger: [as Barney opens a pastry box] I might be able to get a cookie down. What do you think, Cordell?
- Cordell Doemling: I think it would kill you.
- Clarice Starling: Paul, what is it with you? I told you to go home to your wife, that was wrong?
- Paul Krendler: Don't flatter yourself, Starling. That was a long time ago. Why would I hold that against you? Besides, this town is full of cornpone country pussy.
- Hannibal Lecter: What if I did it for you?
- Clarice Starling: Did what?
- Hannibal Lecter: Harmed them, Clarice. The ones who've harmed you. What if I made them scream apologies? No, I shouldn't even say it because you'll feel - with your perfect grasp on right and wrong - that you were somehow accompli- even though you wouldn't be.
- Hannibal Lecter: Do you know what a roller pigeon is, Barney? They climb high and fast, then roll over and fall just as fast toward the earth. There are shallow rollers and deep rollers. You can't breed two deep rollers, or their young will roll all the way down, hit, and die. Officer Starling is a deep roller, Barney. We should hope one of her parents was not.
- Hannibal Lecter: Have you met my friend Mason Verger?
- Clarice Starling: Yes
- Hannibal Lecter: Face to face, so to speak?
- Clarice Starling: Face to face.
- Hannibal Lecter: Attractive, isn't he?
- [Mason Verger is going to have Hannibal Lecter fed to wild pigs]
- Mason Verger: You will stay for the evening's entertainment, won't you, Cordell?
- Cordell Doemling: If it's all the same to you, I think I'd rather not.
- Mason Verger: Rather not? Or *will* not?
- Mason Verger: Cordell, I think you can leave us now.
- Cordell Doemling: I thought I might stay. Perhaps... I could be useful.
- Mason Verger: You can be *useful* seeing about my lunch.
- Clarice Starling: Aren't you curious why he dines on his victims?
- Paul Krendler: And what's the point of that? What, are you writing a book or you catching a crook?
- Clarice Starling: To show his contempt for those who exasperate him. Or sometimes to perform a public service. In the case of the flutist Benjamin Raspail, he did it to improve the sound of the Baltimore Philharmonic orchestra.
- Mason Verger: I showed him my toys, my noose set-up, among other things - it's where you sort of hang yourself, but not really. It feels good while you, uh... well, you know. Anyway, he said "Mason,"...
- Hannibal Lecter: Mason, would you like a popper?
- Mason Verger: And I said, would I! Oh wow! Once that kicked in I was flying... He said "Mason, show me how you smile to gain the confidence of a child." I smiled, and he said "Oh, I see how you do it."
- [In flashback, Mason kicks out a full-length mirror]
- Mason Verger: The good doctor approached me with a piece of broken mirror. "Try this,"
- Hannibal Lecter: Try peeling off your face...
- Mason Verger: "... and feeding it to the dogs."
- [In the flashback, Mason does so, still laughing hysterically]
- Hannibal Lecter: No, I can still see it. Try again! No, I'm afraid not...
- Mason Verger: That's entertainment!
- [dissolve to the present]
- Mason Verger: Ah, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
- Clarice Starling: How did he end up at your house?
- Mason Verger: I invited him of course... to my pied-à-terre. I came to the door in my nicest come-hither outfit. I was concerned... that he'd be afraid of me. But he didn't seem to be. Afraid of me. That's almost funny now.