Talking with a Mouth Full (of People): Quotes from Characters

[lulee]

Will (in Futamono): "There's a common emotion we all recognize and not yet named: the happy anticipation of being able to feel contempt."

 

Hannibal (in Futamono): "However, if I were Beverly's murderer, I'd applaud your efforts"
Will: "Well I'm no more guilty of what you've accused me of than you are of what I've accused you of."

Edited April 6, 2014 by lulee

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Hannibal: Why don't you appeal to my better nature?

Will; I wasn't aware you had one.

Hannibal: No one can be fully aware of another human being unless we love them. With that love we see potential in our beloved. Through that love we allow our beloved to see their potential. Expressing that love, our beloved's potential comes true.

Hannibal: Therapy only works when we have a genuine desire to know ourselves as we are, not as we would like to be.

Edited April 26, 2014 by ElectricBoogaloo

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Hannibal: This meat is not pork.
Will: It's long pig.

 

Will: You can't reduce me to a set of influences. I'm not the product of anything. I've given up good and evil for behaviorism.
Hannibal: Then you can't say that I'm evil.
Will: You're destructive. Same thing.
Hannibal: Evil is just destructive. Storms are evil if it's that simple. And we have fire and then there's hail. Underwriters lump it all under "acts of God." Is this meal an act of God, Will?

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Hannibal: Mason is discourteous. And discourtesy is unspeakably ugly to me.

Will: And are you thinking about eating him?

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

Will: Free range rude.

Hannibal: And would you join me at the table?

Will: Mason Verger is a pig and he deserves to be somebody's bacon. Maybe you should kill Mason during your next session.

Hannibal: He may be intending to kill me during our next session.

Will: Then you'll have to kill him first.

 

Hannibal: Margot's happiness is more important than her suffering.

Mason: You say that as those the two are mutually exclusive.

 

Mason: What game of chicken are you and the sperm donor playing? Don't get me wrong. I play chicken with Margot all the time. I just don't tell her I'm playing.

 

Will: Moving on isn't just a distraction. It's a rebuke.

 

Mason: I am enchanted and terrified!

 

Mason: I'm full of myself!

[lulee]

Great cataloging of the quotes, Electric Boogaloo! Last night's ep was just cracking with good dialogue.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Hannibal: The punctuation at the end of a sentence gives meaning to every space, every word that preceded it.
Bella: You moved my punctuation mark, Dr. Lecter. You moved my meaning.

 

Hannibal: Love and death are the great hinges on which all human sympathies turn. What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others lives beyond us.

 

Kade: This is entrapment, Jack.
Jack: You can't entrap someone into committing premeditated murder.
Kade: Yes, you can. You're doing it.

 

Kade: Reality doesn't go away because you stop believing in it. It's stubborn like that.

 

Hannibal: The most beautiful quality of a true friendship is to understand and be understood with absolute clarity.
Jack: Then this is the clearest moment of our friendship.

 

Alanna: I was so blind.
Hannibal: In your defense, I worked very hard to blind you.

 

Hannibal: Be blind, Alanna. Don't be brave.

[TudorQueen]

Will's "This is my design" is my favorite recurring quote.

 

I also loved, as soon as I saw it in the previews, "I am not the psychopath you are looking for!"

[Cubbiegirl]

Bedeila: You cannot function as an agent of friendship for a man who is disconnected from the concept ...as a man who is disconnected from the concept.

 

I really miss Bedelia throwing zingers at Hannibal. As much as I love everything that transpired this season, I prefer BadAss!Bedelia to Scared!Bedelia. I love her quote about Hannibal and friendship. This season every time Hannibal says "Jack is my friend" or "Will is my friend", I wanted to yell, "You don't understand friendship!!!" And of course, the person suit quote.

Edited June 2, 2014 by Cubbiegirl

[AstaCharles]

I loved all of Lecter's cannibal puns in season one, but my favorite is the well known quote "..having an old friend for dinner". I wished they dubbed in the sound of a studio audience clapping and cheering at that one.

 

Second season is Will to Bedelia:

"You're Hannibal Lecter's psychiatrist? What's that like?"

[DittyDotDot]

I latched on to Margot's "You're an unusual therapist."

[Demented Daisy]

While I can't think of one immediately, I love it when they drop in a quote from one of the books.  I miss some of them -- I think because sometimes they're said by different characters from the books -- but I'm always delighted when I catch one.

 

Oh, for example, Barney is originally the one who said that Hannibal, whenever possible, prefers to eat the rude.  "Free-range rude, he called them."

[MisterGlass]

From Antipasto,

 

Hannibal: Bon soir.

 

Hannibal: It's only cannibalism if we're equals.

 

Abel Gideon: You really are the devil.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Anthony: I'd offer a hand, but...

Hannibal: It's a double fisted kind of bash.

Anthony: Do you know Roman well? You were staring with the thinly veiled disdain of a man who does. I was his TA at Cambridge. He was insufferable even then. Have you read his books? They're terrible. You know they're terrible. You're just too polite to say. Blink if you agree. [Hannibal blinks] See? That doesn't stop him squatting over his keyboard and depositing a fresh one every six to eight months. It takes me six to eight months to write one line.

Hannibal: Why?

Anthony: Poetry is hard.

 

Abel: You really are the devil. You certainly seem to enjoy it. You have a click in your hoof.

Hannibal: The devil has been a yoke in the neck of humanity since we first began to think and dream. I for a much shorter time.

 

Hannibal: You'll be falling off the bone.

Abel: Well, of course.

 

Abel: Cannibalism was standard among our ancestors. The missing link was only missing because we ate him.

Hannibal: This isn't cannibalism, Abel. It's only cannibalism if we're equals.

 

Hannibal: I've killed hardly anyone during our residence.

 

Bedelia: You no longer have ethical concerns, Hannibal. You have aesthetical ones.

Hannibal: Ethics become aesthetics.

Bedelia: You seem more interested in making appearances than maintaining them.

 

Hannibal: Morality doesn't exist. Only morale.

 

Anthony: Oysters, acorns, and marsala. That's what ancient Romans would feed animals to improve their flavor.

Bedelia: My husband has a very sophisticated palate. He's very particular about how I taste.

Anthony: Is it that kind of party?

Hannibal: It's not that kind of party.

Bedelia: No, it really isn't.

Anthony: Shame. You were both suddenly so fascinating.

 

Anthony: I thought the applause was downright enthusiastic, in a soft and dusty way.

Edited June 19, 2015 by ElectricBoogaloo

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Hannibal: Now that you know me, see me. I gave you a rare gift but you didn't want it.

Will: Didn't I?

 

Hannibal: Did you believe you could change me the way I've changed you?

Will: I already did.

 

Abigail: If everything that can happen happens, then you can never really do the wrong thing. You're just doing what you're supposed to.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Bedelia: Forgiveness is too great and difficult for one person. It requires two: a betrayer and a betrayed. Which one are you?

Hannibal: I'm vague on those details.

Bedelia: Betrayal and forgiveness are best seen as something akin to falling in love.

Hannibal: You cannot control with respect to whom you fall in love.

 

[stabs Sogliato]

Hannibal: That may have been impulsive.

[bedelia removes the ice pick from Sogliato's head]

Hannibal: Technically, you killed him.

 

Bedelia: What were you like as a young man?

Hannibal: I was rooting for Mephistopheles and contemptuous of Faust.

 

Bedelia: What your sister made you feel was beyond your conscious ability to control or predict.

Hannibal: Or negotiate.

Bedelia: I would suggest what Will Graham makes you feel is not dissimilar. A force of mind and circumstance.

Hannibal: Love. He pays you a visit or he doesn't.

Bedelia: Same with forgiveness. And I would argue the same with betrayal.

Hannibal: The god betrayal who presupposes the god forgiveness.

Bedelia: We can all betray. Sometimes we have no other choice.

Hannibal: Misha didn't betray me. She influenced me to betray myself.

Bedelia: If past behavior is an indicator of future behavior, there is only one way you will forgive Will Graham.

Hannibal: I have to eat him.

Edited June 19, 2015 by ElectricBoogaloo

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Chilton: You had encephalitis. I do not know what my excuse was.

 

Jack: We're officers of the FBI wounded in the course of heroic duty.

Will: Well that's not true for either of us.

 

Chilton: What I said before I will say again, which is something you cannot say: that I did not warn you.

Alana: You cannot see what you will not see.

Chilton: Until it shoves you out a window.

Alana: I've always enjoyed the word defenestration. Now I get to use it in casual conversation.

 

Chilton: I do not mean to kick you when you are down. I'm just reminding you how you got down.

Alana: And who I'm down with.

 

Jack: Maybe it's one of those friendships that ends after the disemboweling.

Chilton: I would argue with these two, that's tantamount to flirtation.

 

Mason: OW! I said OW!

Cordell: Blood is flowing. Nerves are intact. Pain is a good thing.

Mason: This is why you could never legally work in the health industry

Cordell: Scar tissue is an awesome demonstration of self preservation.

 

Mason: Oh, Cordell. If I had lips, I would smile.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Bedelia: To the misfortune of the snail.

Hannibal: Snails follow their nature surely as those that eat them.

 

Hannibal: Better to live true to yourself for an instant than to never know it.

 

Hannibal: An insect lacks morality to agonize over. Will agonizes about inevitable change.

Bedelia: Almost anything can be trained to resist its instinct. A shepherd dog doesn't savage the sheep.

Hannibal: But it wants to.

 

Alanna: A table setting from the home of Dr. Hannibal Lecter. The silverware is nineteenth century Dutch from Christofle. The plate is Glen French china from Tiffany. The table linen is damask cotton, also from Christofle.

Mason: Well, you gotta hand it to the man. He has the most marvelous taste.

Alanna: I've discovered a pattern of purchases, an echo of the life he lived in Baltimore.

Mason: He likes music, he likes wine, he likes food, and he likes you. How do you taste, Dr. Bloom? Sweet, I bet. I'm sure you got a taste of him too. Spitters are quitters and you don't strike me as a quitter.

 

Will: Hannibal and I afforded each other an experience we otherwise might not have had.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Mason: Buddhists don't eat meat.

Cordell: This isn't meat. This is man.

 

Margot: Feces will fly about Pazzi.

Mason: Better get it out that that Pazzi was dirty. They'll take it better if he was dirty. Was he dirty?

Margot: Except for this, I don't know.

 

Jack: Same cocktail Hannibal served Miriam Lass. You've been freebasing your alibi. And I'm not even  mad at you. To tell the truth, I'm fairly impressed.

 

Mason: There's no pedigree in buying a Chinese baby!

 

Margot: The last time you said you wanted to have a baby, you removed my uterus.

Mason: In my defense, you weaponized your uterus. You shouldn't have been waving it around like a loaded pistol.

Margot: I brought it on myself.

Mason: As you so often do, Margot.

 

Hannibal: How is Chiyo?

Will: She pushed me off a train.

 

Hannibal: Would you have done it quickly or would you have stopped to gloat?

Will: Does God gloat?

Hannibal: Often.

Edited July 10, 2015 by ElectricBoogaloo

[Crossbow]

I think every story arc has one quote that sums up the whole thing. For this whole European escapade, I think it's "That may have been impulsive."

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Hannibal: It's dangerous to get exacatly what you want. What will you do after you've eaten me?

Will: You could wreck some foster homes and torment some children.
Mason: And drink martinis made with tears.

 

Mason: Well, no pajama party for you, Mr. Graham.

 

Mason: How long have you and Dr. Bloom been an item?

Margot: Not long.

Mason: Oh, longer than that according to Cordell.

 

Will: What are you doing here?
Alana: I'm Mason Verger's psychiatrist.

Will: Is that part of his therapy or yours?

Alana: I think we're all working through some issues.

[dargosmydaddy]

 

 

Hannibal: How is Chiyo?

Will: She pushed me off a train.

Hannibal: Atta girl!

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Hannibal: Bâtard-Montrachet and tartufi bianchi.

Alana: How I found you in Florence.

Hannibal: Betrayed by good taste.

 

Alana: Congratulations, Hannibal. You're officially insane.

 

Hannibal: Do you still prefer beer to wine?

Alana: I stopped drinking beer when I found out what you were putting in mine.

Hannibal: Who.

 

Chilton: Blood and chocolate. That should have been the subtitle of my book, but I promised myself I would never use colons in my titles. Colons lose their novelty when overused.

 

Chilton: [The Tooth Fairy] lacks your love of presentation. Love to hear your thoughts. What do you think about the Tooth Fairy?
Hannibal: I think he doesn't like being called the Tooth Fairy.

Chilton: It is not as snappy as Hannibal the Cannibal.

 

Alana: Was that the magisterial "we"?

 

Jack: I've come too far to let the cold stop me.

Will: Why should the cold stop what common sense couldn't?

 

Price: I was told you were told I was coming. Were you not told?

[lulee]

Hannibal: It was a cow but in the derogatory sense.

[MisterGlass]

Alana: Get out of my chair, Frederick.

 

Hannibal: (in a letter)  Dear Will, We have all found a new life, but our old lives hover in the shadows.  Soon enough I fear Jack Crawford will come knocking.  I would encourage you as a friend not to step back through the door he holds open.  It's dark on the other side, and madness is waiting.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Hannibal: That's the same atrocious aftershave you wore in court.

 

Hannibal: Pencil lickers.

 

Hannibal: Are we no longer on a first name basis?

 

Hannibal: You are family, Will.

 

Hannibal: What were the yards like?

Will: Big, fenced, with trees. Why?

Hannibal: If this pilgrim feels a special relationship with the moon, he might like to go outside and look at it before he tidies himself up. If one were nude, say, it would be better to have outdoor privacy for that sort of thing. One would show some consideration for the neighbors.

 

Hannibal: Are you suggesting I don't have Will's best interest in my mind?

Alana: I'm stating it as fact.

Hannibal: You've got Will dressed up in moral dignity pants. Nothing is his fault.

 

Alana: I know what you're afraid of. It's not pain or solitude. It's indignity. I'll take your books. I'll take your drawings. I'll take your toilet.

 

Hannibal: Your father never wished for anything but your happiness.

Abigail: My father cut my throat.

Hannibal: Out of love.

Abigail: That wasn't love.

Hannibal: Every family loves differently. Every love is unique.

 

Brian: Seems like you're more upset about the cat than you were about the children.

Jimmy: I'm particularly fond of cats. I'm not particularly fond of children.

 

Will: I'm not talking to you.

Freddie: We're co-conspirators, Will. I died for you and your cause.

Will: No, you didn't die enough. You came into my hospital room while I was sleeping, flipped back the covers, and snapped a photo of my temporary colostomy bag.

Freddie: I covered your junk with a black box. A big black box. You're welcome.

Will: You called us murder husbands.

Freddie: You did run off to Europe together.

 

Freddie: All psychopaths are narcissists. They love to read about themselves.

 

 

Will: I'm lonesome.

Molly: Me too. I'm feeling randy.

Will: Me too.

Molly: Randy's our new dog. Randy's got huge balls. They almost drag on the ground. He has to retract them when he runs. Can you retract yours?

[morgankobi]

Alana: I do like a good finger-wagging.

Hannibal: How is Margot?

[Crossbow]

"You called us murder husbands."

 

Fan fic shout-out!

[Bruinsfan]

The Murder Husbands line was almost enough to make me regret Freddie's likely end.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Will: Poor Dr. DuMaurier, swallowed whole and suffering inside Hannibal Lecter's bowels for what must have felt like an eternity. You didn't lose yourself, Bedelia. You just crawled so far up his ass you couldn't be bothered.

 

Will: You're the bride of Frankenstein.

Bedelia: We've both been his bride.

 

Will: Murder and cannibalism are morally acceptable.

Bedelia: They are acceptable - to murderers and cannibals. And you.

Will. And you.

 

Neal: What did he tell you?

Bedelia: What do you think he told me?

Neal: I think he told you that I'm paranoid.

Bedelia: Are you?
Neal: Yes. But that's not to suggest I don't have good reason to be.

 

Bedelia: My relationship with Hannibal is not as passionate as yours.

 

Neal: Whatever this is, this is why Scientology hates psychiatry.

 

Neal: This is culty and weird!

 

Bedelia: You're not a killer. You are capable of righteous violence because you are compassionate.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Alana: Would you have told me the truth?
Hannibal: In my own way, I always have.

[jeansheridan]

Is cannibalism morally acceptable to Will?  He didn't argue with her. 

[Crossbow]

Is cannibalism morally acceptable to Will?  He didn't argue with her. 

 

Evidently, since he engaged in plenty of it. But also he didn't argue with her about anything. It's not what he was there for. I'm not sure WHAT he was there for, but it wasn't to argue. Maybe he just wanted to flaunt that he is Hannibal's one true love...

[Captanne]

But didn't they all take part in the cannibalism?  IIRC, Jack Crawford and Hannibal were quite the dinner pals.  Both Will and Alana knew what they were eating.  The only one who didn't was Bella.  (Someone was a vegetarian....was that Bella?)

 

And then we have the problematic Bedelia.  She may not have eaten the meat but she sure ate the oysters in Florence and knew damned well that she was being "fattened" for a meal herself.

[Fen]

Freddie was the vegetarian, and then Frederick stuck to veggies after his impromptu surgery.

[Crossbow]

Bedelia did eat meat in the season 1 finale. Apparently we were supposed to think it was Abigail, but we don't know who it was. And in season 3 I wasn't clear on whether she was eating EXCLUSIVELY flavor-improving food or if she also ate people with Hannibal. ("Is it that kind of party?" *snicker*)

 

He made Freddie a salad, but who knows what might have been in the dressing.

 

Bella refused to eat the foie gras, but that wasn't the only thing he served. They were on at least their second or third course at that point.

Edited August 17, 2015 by Crossbow

[Captanne]

So, singling Will out for questionable morality isn't ~quite~ fair. 

 

(I have more of a problem with Will committing murder and/or turning bodies into origami.  I don't much care whether or not it was to capture Hannibal.)

[DeadlyEuphoric]

People unknowingly eating human food doesnt really make them cannibals or morally responsible or mean that they find it acceptable. Alana, Bedelia, Jack, Will etc all ate food Hannibal served not knowing what it was. Then we saw Bedelia stick to "food without a nervous system" once she realized what meat Hannibal's dinners tend to include (she didnt know the food was to improve her flavor till the party guy said it was what Romans fed their animals... she was rather alarmed to hear that, realizing why Hannibal was so Ok with her feeding on them alone), and we had Will knowingly eating Randall as part of his effort to fool Hannibal and catch him. That really makes Will the only one who engaged in cannibalism knowingly, even if it was for a higher purpose so Bedelia does kind of have the higher ground in that regard... Will was being practical about, he had already eaten human numerous time, what if he ate one more time if it lead to Hannibal's capture, but still there is something dark about it... it is yet another example of there are no limits to what Will and will do as long as he can justify it to himself somehow. So if he one day decides to adapt Hannibal's thinking that the rude are unworthy and deserve to be treated like the animal they behave as... (which is why Hannibal is so certain he can convert Will, I think)

[Crossbow]

He's converted other people into killers, and Will is really mutable, but he pushes too hard with Will. He just gets too eager and... Okay I'm not sure I can finish that thought without sexual imagery.

[jeansheridan]

So I am rewatching Red Dragon and Fiennes has the same line as Armitage.

"Ride with me. For my pleasure." Somehow it works better. It might be because they bonded over a jerk who hit on her a few minutes earlier. And Watson is much more relaxed.

But it is almost the same dialogue.

Edited August 20, 2015 by jeansheridan

[Bruinsfan]

Fiennes delivers it in a fairly softspoken manner as opposed to Armitage's growl. And had a less threatening look on his face for the audience's benefit, though of course Reba couldn't pick up on that. (Or be able to tell that he's driving a windowless murder van, for that matter.)

[Crossbow]

In the book, he asks her to ride with him, then pauses to consider what a normal human being would say, and comes up with "for my pleasure." Because that's what he thinks sounds normal.

[Tippi Blevins]

From episode 12:

 

Frederick: "Do you think I am your nemesis?"

Hannibal: "Bwahahahaha! Ahem. Nemesis? No."

 

(Only a slight exaggeration.)

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Will: Is Hannibal in love with me?

Bedelia: Could he daily feel a stab of hunger for you and find nourishment at the very sight of you? Yes. But do you ache for him?

 

Hannibal: Like ducklings, we imprint on those ideas that grab our attention.

 

Hannibal: Is your conscience clear?

Jack: As clear as yours.

Hannibal: Righteousness is what you and Will have in common.

 

Frederick: I have seen a lot of hostility but this was quantifiably bitchy.

 

Frederick: You refuted my entire book.

Hannibal: It didn't hold up to scrutiny.

Frederick: Of course it didn't! I was lying! On your behalf!

 

Jack: We need someone who's less concerned about the truth than the best story.

 

Freddie: You're making statements no investigator would ever make and no straight newspaper would credit.

Will: You're not a straight newspaper. You sell t-shirts that say, "The Tooth Fairy is a one night stand."

Freddie: I can get you one if you like. Are you a small or a medium? Small, I bet.

 

Jack: Will, I think we need a key shot of you here in your Washington hideaway.

Freddie: I'd love something of you in a bathrobe sitting at a desk.

 

Frederick: That's absurd. That's not what I said at all. Dr. Lecter gave misleading answers in my interviews. I will refute his refutations in my new book, Blood and Chocolate.

 

Hannibal: Frederick often offended me so I understand the sentiment.

 

Alana: We wanted to enrage [the Red Dragon].

Hannibal: Congratulations.

[Bruinsfan]

That last one had me in stitches. For all our heroes' outraged accusations, I think Hannibal was greatly amused that they railroaded poor Chilton to his fate as effectively as he might have liked without him actually doing a thing.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Will: Decisions are made of needed feelings.

 

Bedelia: You righteous, reckless, twitchy little man.

 

Hannibal: I believe that's what they call a mic drop.

 

Hannibal: The bluff is eroding.

 

Hannibal: My compassion for you is inconvenient, Will.

Will: If you're partial to beef products, it is inconvenient to be compassionate toward a cow.

 

Hannibal: This is all I ever wanted for you, WIll. For both of us.

Edited August 28, 2015 by ElectricBoogaloo

[MisterGlass]

I've been trying to think which quotes have stuck with me most, now that the curtain has descended.  I keep coming back to "Use the ladies room!"

 

ETA: And of course, "This is my design."

Edited September 1, 2015 by MisterGlass

[Crossbow]

I think the quote that summarizes the whole show is Will's: "I am the unreliable narrator of my own story."

[supposebly]

For me the quote that summarizes the show: The bluff is eroding.

[Captanne]

I agree with you supposebly -- I would add in my interpretation that it "summarizes [bryan Fuller's take on the Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham story]".

Edited September 6, 2015 by Captanne

[krankydoodle]

I'm already feeling Hannibal withdrawal, so rewatched the first two seasons. This is one of the exchanges that sticks with me and hasn't been mentioned yet:

 

Hannibal Lecter: Killing must feel good to God, too. He does it all the time, and are we not created in God's image?
Will Graham: Depends on who you ask.
Hannibal Lecter: God's terrific. He dropped a church roof on 34 of his worshipers last Wednesday night in Texas, while they sang a hymn.
Will Graham: Did God feel good about that?
Hannibal Lecter: He felt powerful.

Edited September 8, 2015 by krankydoodle