50 Best Hannibal Lecter Quotes

Hannibal: "Io fei gibetto de le mei case." I made my own home be my gallows.

[Hannibal and Mason see each other for the first time in years]
Mason: 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: 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: 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: [perfectly calm] No, Mason... No, I much prefer you the way you are.
Mason: [holding back anger] So... dinner at 8.

Hannibal: Okey-dokey, let's drag these down. They must be as heavy as bodies.

Hannibal: That's the same atrocious aftershave you wore in court.
Will: I keep getting it for Christmas.
Hannibal: Christmas, yes. Did you get my card?

Clarice: Your profile at the border stations has five features. I'll trade you...
Hannibal: "Trade"?
Clarice: Stop now and I'll tell you what they are.
Hannibal: How does that word taste to you, Clarice? Hmm? Cheap and metallic, like sucking on a greasy coin?

Hannibal: Now you're being rude, and I hate rude people.

Mason: 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: Mason, would you like a popper?
Mason: 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: The good doctor approached me with a piece of broken mirror. "Try this,"
Hannibal: Try peeling off your face...
Mason: "... and feeding it to the dogs."
[In the flashback, Mason does so, still laughing hysterically]
Hannibal: No, I can still see it. Try again! No, I'm afraid not...
Mason: That's entertainment!
[dissolve to the present]
Mason: Ah, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Hannibal: You will not persuade me with appeals to my intellectual vanity.

Hannibal: [after he stabs Will] Shh. Don't move. You're in shock now. I don't want you to feel any pain. In a moment, you'll begin to feel light-headed, then drowsy. Don't resist, it's so gentle, like slipping into a warm bath. I regret it came to this, Will, but every game must have its ending.

Hannibal: Tell me Clarice, would you ever say to me "Stop. If you loved me, you'd stop"?
Clarice: Not in a thousand years.
Hannibal: "Not in a thousand years"... That's my girl.

Will: I thought you might enjoy the challenge. Find out if you're smarter than the person I'm looking for.
Hannibal: Then, by implication, you think you're smarter than I am, since it was you who caught me.
Will: No, I know I'm not smarter than you.
Hannibal: Then how did you catch me?
Will: You had... disadvantages.
Hannibal: What disadvantages?
Will: You're insane.

[last lines]
Hannibal: 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: Remarkable boy. I do admire your courage. I think I'll eat your heart.

Hannibal: Ah yes Dr. Chillton. Gruesome isn't he? Fumbles at your head like a freshman pulling at a panty girdle.

Hannibal: ...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.

Hannibal: People don't always tell you what they are thinking. They just see to it that you don't advance in life.

Clarice: I'll cut you loose. If you touch me, I'll shoot you.
Hannibal: Understood.
Clarice: Do right, and you'll live through this.
Hannibal: Spoken like a true Protestant.

Will: I might not have time.
Hannibal: I do. I have oodles.

Hannibal: I came halfway around the world to watch you run, Clarice. Let me run, eh?

[Repeated line]
Hannibal: Okey-dokey. Here we go.

Hannibal: 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.

Hannibal: Beneath the yellow folder, you'll find your latest rejection slip from the archives. It was brought to me by mistake with some of my archives mail. I'm afraid I opened it without looking. Sorry.
Dr. Frederick Chilton: I think we'll remove Dr. Lecter's toilet seat as well

Hannibal: I'll call you if I think of anything else, would you perhaps like to leave me your home phone number?

Hannibal: Clarice, what are you doing up? You should be resting. Get back to bed.

Hannibal: Bowels in or bowels out?

[last lines]
Dr. Frederick Chilton: There's someone to see you, Lecter. A young woman... says she's from the FBI, but she seems much too pretty for that if you ask me.
[Lecter appears unmoved]
Dr. Frederick Chilton: I'll tell her you said no.
[Chilton walks away offscreen, as Lecter looks up and makes eye contact with the camera]
Hannibal: ...what is her name?

Hannibal: Are you by any chance trying to trace my whereabouts, you naughty girl?

Hannibal: First he kills the pet, and then the family. Freddy was your pet, Will.

Hannibal: And be grateful. Our scars have the power to remind us that the past was real.

Hannibal: Paul, remember what I said. If you can't be polite to our guests, you have to sit at the kiddies' table.

Hannibal: What were the yards like?
Will: Big backyards. Fenced, some hedges. Why?
Hannibal: Because if this pilgrim feels a special relationship with the moon, he might like to go outside and look at it. You even seen blood in the moonlight, Will? It appears quite black. If one were nude, say, it would be better to have outdoor privacy for that sort of thing.

Hannibal: On a related note I must confess to you, I'm giving very serious thought... to eating your wife.

Hannibal: Have you met my friend Mason Verger?
Clarice: Yes
Hannibal: Face to face, so to speak?
Clarice: Face to face.
Hannibal: Attractive, isn't he?

Hannibal: Good evening, Clarice! Just like old times.
Clarice: Shut up.

Hannibal: [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: 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: 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.

Will: I need your opinion now.
Hannibal: Then here's one... you stink of fear under that cheap lotion. You stink of fear Will, but you're not a coward. You fear me, but still you came here. You fear this shy boy, yet still you seek him out. Don't you understand, Will? You caught me because we're very much alike. Without our imaginations, we'd be like all those other poor... dullards. Fear... is the price of our instrument. But I can help you bear it.

Hannibal: [in the final letter to Will] My dear Will, you must be healed by now... on the outside at least, I hope you're not too ugly. What a collection of scars you have. Never forget who gave you the best of them, and be grateful, our scars have the power to remind us that the past was real. We live in a primitive time, don't we, Will? Neither savage nor wise. Half measures are the curse of it, any rational society will either kill me or put me to some use. Do you dream much, Will? I think of you often. Your old friend, Hannibal Lector.

Will: We've been on the wrong track this whole time, Doctor, you and I. Our whole profile's wrong. Well, we've been looking for someone with a crazy grudge and some kind of anatomical knowledge. Decertified doctors, med school dropouts, laid-off mortuary workers...
Hannibal: From the precision of the cuts, yes, and, uh, his choice of souvenirs.
Will: See, that's where we're off target. He's not collecting body parts.
Hannibal: Then why keep them?
Will: He's not keeping them. He's eating them.

Allegra: Dr. Fell, do you believe a man could become so obsessed with a woman, from a single encounter?
Hannibal: 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?

Hannibal: 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: Tell me, Will. Did you enjoy it? Your first murder? Of course you did. And why shouldn't it feel good? It does to God. Why only last week in Texas, he dropped a church roof on the heads of 34 of his worshippers, just as they were groveling for him. He wouldn't begrudge you for one Journalist.

Hannibal: See ya 'round.

Hannibal: 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: A robin red-breast in a cage, puts all of Heaven in a rage. Think to yourself that every day is your last. The hour to which you do not look forward will come as a welcome surprise. As for me, when you want a good laugh, you will find me in fine state... fat and sleek, a true hog of Epicurus's herd.

Dinner: Hannibal, confess. What is this divine-looking amuse bouche?
Hannibal: If I tell you, I'm afraid you won't even try it.

Hannibal: Given the chance, you would deny me my life, wouldn't you?
Clarice: Not your life.
Hannibal: Just my freedom. You'd take that from me.

[apparently about to cut Starling's hand off with a cleaver]
Hannibal: This is really gonna hurt.

Mason: Cordell, shoot him! Get the gun and shoot him!
Cordell: Go into the pen?
Mason: Yes!
Cordell: No, I'm staying out of this.
Mason: You're involved, is what you are, in all of it! Now do it!
Cordell: No.
Mason: Yes!
Hannibal: [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: What if I did it for you?
Clarice: Did what?
Hannibal: 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.