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Famous Silence Of The Lambs Quotes From Buffalo Bill & Hannibal Lecter

The Silence of the Lambs, the 1991 film starring Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster, is one of the scariest and best horror movies of all time. It is based on a book by Thomas Harris.

The Silence of the Lambs is a psychological horror film. Jodie Foster’s character, FBI agent Clarice Starling, enlists the help of the murderous Dr. Hannibal Lecter to catch another serial killer, Buffalo Bill. The movie won several Academy Awards and broke box office records.

These creepy quotes about lotion and fava beans will scare you and may even make you laugh. 
A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
Hannibal Lecter


Five foot ten, strongly built, about a hundred and eighty pounds; hair blonde, eyes pale blue. He’d be about thirty-five now. He said he lived in Philadelphia, but he may have lied. That’s all I can remember, mum, but if I think of any more, I will let you know. Oh, and Senator, just one more thing: love your suit!
Hannibal Lecter


It was… screaming. Some kind of screaming, like a child’s voice.
Clarice Starling

Anger, social resentment, sexual frustration…
Clarice Starling

Well, Clarice – have the lambs stopped screaming?
Hannibal Lecter


Just do your job, but never forget what he is.
Jack Crawford

I’ve no plans to call on you, Clarice. The world is more interesting with you in it.
Hannibal Lecter

Did you breast-feed her?
Hannibal Lecter

Amputate a man’s leg and he can still feel it tickling. Tell me, mum, when your little girl is on the slab, where will it tickle you?
Hannibal Lecter

I drink your blood, I eat your flesh.
Hannibal Lecter

That’s only a part of the island. There’s a very, very nice beach. Terns nest there. There’s beautiful.
Clarice Starling

Is this Lecter’s handwriting? “Clarice, doesn’t this random scattering of sites seem desperately random – like the elaborations of a bad liar? Ta, Hannibal Lecter.”
Ardelia Mapp

You see a lot, Doctor. But are you strong enough to point that high-powered perception at yourself? What about it? Why don’t you – why don’t you look at yourself and write down what you see? Or maybe you’re afraid to.
Clarice Starling

Plum Island Animal Disease Research Facility. Sounds charming.
Hannibal Lecter

All good things to those who wait.
Hannibal Lecter

I’m sorry, ma’am. We’ve got orders. We have to put you on a plane. Come on, now.
Boyle

Mister… my family will pay cash. Whatever ransom you’re askin’ for, they pay it.
Catherine Martin

It rubs the lotion on its skin. It does this whenever it is told.
Jame “Buffalo Bill” Gumb

I went downstairs, outside. I crept up into the barn. I was so scared to look inside, but I had to.
Clarice Starling

What you are doing, Miss Starling is coming into my hospital to conduct an interview, and refusing to share information with me, for the third time.
Dr. Frederick Chilton

No. Precisely. We begin by coveting what we see every day. Don’t you feel eyes moving over your body, Clarice? And don’t your eyes move over the things you want?
Hannibal Lecter

Don’t bother with a trace, I won’t be on long enough.
Hannibal Lecter

Would you f*ck me? I’d f*ck me. I’d f*ck me hard. I’d f*ck me so hard.
Jame “Buffalo Bill” Gumb

You know I can’t make that promise.
Clarice Starling

No no no you were doing fine, you had been courteous and receptive to courtesy, you had established trust with the embarrassing truth about miggs, and now this ham-handed segue into your questionnaire tut-tut-tut it won’t do.
Hannibal Lecter

They don’t have a name for what he is.
Clarice Starling

I am going to show you why we insist on such precautions. On the evening of July 8th, 1981, he complained of chest pains and was taken to the dispensary. His mouthpiece and restraints were removed for an EKG. When the nurse leaned over him, he did this to her.
Dr. Frederick Chilton

Clarice, your case file. Goodbye, Clarice.
Hannibal Lecter

Look at it, Starling. Tell me what you see.
Jack Crawford

It’s Jim Pembry, now, talk to him, damn it!
Sgt. Tate

You know what you look like to me, with your good bag and your cheap shoes? You look like a rube. A well scrubbed, hustling rube with a little taste. Good nutrition’s given you some length of bone, but you’re not more than one generation from poor white trash, are you, Agent Starling? And that accent you’ve tried so desperately to shed: pure West Virginia. What is your father, dear? Is he a coal miner? Does he stink of the lamp? You know how quickly the boys found you… all those tedious sticky fumblings in the back seats of cars… while you could only dream of getting out… getting anywhere… getting all the way to the FBI.
Hannibal Lecter

It excites him. Most serial killers keep some sort of trophies from their victims.
Clarice Starling

I do wish we could chat longer, but… I’m having an old friend for dinner. Bye.
Hannibal Lecter

Whenever feasible, one should always try to eat the rude.
Hannibal Lecter

Put the f*cking lotion in the basket!
Jame “Buffalo Bill” Gumb

Is it true what they’re sayin’, he’s some kinda vampire?
Murray

You’re very frank, Clarice. I think it would be quite something to know you in private life.
Hannibal Lecter

Get a hold of him more and feel his hand, son, talk to him.
Sgt. Tate


Believe me, you don’t want Hannibal Lecter inside your head.
Jack Crawford

No. No, you ate yours.
Clarice Starling

Why do you think he removes their skins, Agent Starling? Enthrall me with your acumen.
Hannibal Lecter

I see. I myself cannot. You use Evian skin cream, and sometimes you wear L’Air du Temps, but not today.
Hannibal Lecter

Quid pro quo. I tell you things, you tell me things. Not about this case, though. About yourself. Quid pro quo. Yes or no?
Hannibal Lecter


Tell me his name, Doctor!
Clarice Starling

Look, I am not just some turn-key, Miss Starling.
Dr. Frederick Chilton

I remember you from my seminar at UVA. You grilled me pretty hard, as I recall, on the bureau’s civil rights record in the Hoover years. I gave you an A.
Jack Crawford

Tell me, Senator, did you nurse Catherine yourself?
Hannibal Lecter

No. First I tried to free them. I… I opened the gate to their pen, but they wouldn’t run. They just stood there, confused. They wouldn’t run.
Clarice Starling

Memory, Agent Starling, is what I have instead of a view.
Hannibal Lecter

Oh, he’s a monster. Pure psychopath. So rare to capture one alive. From a research point of view, Lecter is our most prized asset.
Dr. Frederick Chilton

And you think if you save poor Catherine, you could make them stop, don’t you? You think if Catherine lives, you won’t wake up in the dark ever again to that awful screaming of the lambs.
Hannibal Lecter

No, he covets. That’s his nature. And how do we begin to covet, Clarice? Do we seek out things to covet? Make an effort to answer.
Hannibal Lecter

Jack Crawford is helping your career, isn’t he? Apparently he likes you, and you like him too.
Hannibal Lecter

It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.
Jame “Buffalo Bill” Gumb

No! That is incidental. What is the first and principal thing he does, what need does he serve by killing?
Hannibal Lecter

Brave Clarice. You will let me know when those lambs stop screaming, won’t you?
Hannibal Lecter

I will listen now. After your father’s murder, you were orphaned. You were ten years old. You went to live with cousins on a sheep and horse ranch in Montana.
Hannibal Lecter

First principles, Clarice. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature? What does he do, this man you seek?
Hannibal Lecter


Has the FBI learned something yet? The police around here don’t seem to have the first clue. [Clarice notices a moth] I mean have you got like a description, fingerprints, anything like that?
Jame “Buffalo Bill” Gumb


Who can say. Best thing for him, really. His therapy was going nowhere.
Hannibal Lecter

You still wake up sometimes, don’t you? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the lambs.
Hannibal Lecter

I don’t know. I didn’t have any food, any water and it was very cold, very cold. I thought, I thought if I could save just one, but… he was so heavy. So heavy. I didn’t get more than a few miles when the sheriff’s car picked me up. The rancher was so angry he sent me to live at the Lutheran orphanage in Bozeman. I never saw the ranch again.
Clarice Starling

A pretty young woman to turn him on. I don’t believe Lecter’s even seen a woman in eight years. And oh, are you ever his taste. So to speak.
Dr. Frederick Chilton

Yes or no, Clarice? Poor little Catherine is waiting.
Hannibal Lecter


Lambs. The lambs were screaming.
Clarice Starling


He’s alive. Sergeant Tate, he’s alive!
Murray

You still think you’re going to walk on some beach and see the birdies? I don’t think so. I called Senator Ruth Martin. She never heard of any deal with you. They scammed you, Hannibal.
Dr. Frederick Chilton

He won’t come after me… He won’t. I can’t explain it … he would consider that rude.
Clarice Starling

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