- Jack Crawford: What are you doing in here?
- Special Agent Will Graham: I enjoy the smell of urinal cake.
- Special Agent Will Graham: Everyone has thought about killing someone, one way or another, be it your own hand or the hand of God. Now think about killing Mrs. Marlow. Why did she deserve this? Tell me your design. Tell me who you are.
- Jack Crawford: Where do you fall on the spectrum?
- Special Agent Will Graham: My horse is hitched to a post that is closer to Asperger's and autistics than narcissists and sociopaths.
- Jack Crawford: But you can empathize with narcissists and sociopaths.
- Special Agent Will Graham: I can empathize with anybody. It's less to do with a personality disorder than an active imagination.
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: Mr. Garret Jacob Hobbs?
- Garret Jacob Hobbs: Yeah.
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: You don't know me, and I suspect we'll never meet. This is a courtesy call. Listen very carefully. Are you listening?
- Garret Jacob Hobbs: Yes.
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: They know.
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: Franklyn...
- Franklin: [crying] Yes.
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: You have to convince yourself the lion is not in the room. When it is, I assure you, you will know.
- Jack Crawford: You respect my judgment, Will?
- Special Agent Will Graham: Mm-hmm. Yes.
- Jack Crawford: Good, because we will stand a better chance of catching this guy with you in the saddle.
- Special Agent Will Graham: Yeah, I'm in the saddle. I'm just, um, confused which direction I'm pointing. I-I don't know this kind of psychopath. I've never read about him. I don't even know if he's a psychopath. He's not insensitive. He's not shallow.
- Jack Crawford: You know something about him. Otherwise, you wouldn't have said "this is an apology." What is he apologizing for?
- Special Agent Will Graham: He couldn't honor her. He feels bad.
- Jack Crawford: Well, feeling bad defeats the purpose of being a psychopath, doesn't it?
- Special Agent Will Graham: Yes! It does.
- Jack Crawford: Then what kind of crazy is he?
- Special Agent Will Graham: He couldn't show her he loved her, so he put her corpse back where he killed it. Whatever crazy that is.
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: You know, Will... I think Uncle Jack sees you as a fragile little teacup. The finest china, used only for special guests.
- Special Agent Will Graham: [laughing] How do you see me?
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: The mongoose I want under the house when the snakes slither by.
- Special Agent Will Graham: Number eight?
- Jack Crawford: Elise Nichols. St. Cloud State on the Mississippi. Disappeared on Friday. Was supposed to housesit for her parents over the weekend, feed the cat. She never made it home.
- Special Agent Will Graham: Yeah, one through seven are dead, don't you think? He's not keeping them around. He got himself a new one.
- Jack Crawford: So we focus on Elise Nichols.
- Special Agent Will Graham: They're all very, um... Mall of America. That's a lot of wind-chafed skin.
- Jack Crawford: Same hair color, same eye color. Roughly the same age. Same height, same weight. So what is it about all of these girls?
- Special Agent Will Graham: Well, it's not about all of these girls. It's just about one of them. He's like Willy Wonka. Every girl he takes is a candy bar, and hidden in amongst all of those candy bars is the one true intended victim, which, if we follow through on our metaphor, is your golden ticket.
- Jack Crawford: So is he warming up for his golden ticket or just re-living whatever it is he did to her?
- Special Agent Will Graham: Well, the golden ticket wouldn't be the first taken, and she wouldn't be the last. He would, um, hide how special she was. I mean, I would. Wouldn't you?
- Beverly Katz: I found antler velvet in two of the wounds, like she was gored. I was looking for velvet in the other wounds, but I was interrupted.
- Brian Zeller: Hold on, excuse me. Look, deer and elk pin their prey, okay? They put all their weight into their antlers, try and suffocate a victim. That's how they would kill, like a fox or a coyote.
- Jack Crawford: All right, Elise Nichols was strangled, suffocated, her ribs are broken.
- Special Agent Will Graham: Antler velvet is rich in nutrients. It actually promotes healing. He may have put it there on purpose.
- Jack Crawford: You think he was trying to heal her?
- Special Agent Will Graham: He wanted to undo as much as he could, given that he'd already killed her.
- Jack Crawford: He put her back where he found her.
- Special Agent Will Graham: Whatever he did to the others, he couldn't do it to her.
- Jack Crawford: Is this is golden ticket?
- Special Agent Will Graham: No. This is an apology.
- Jack Crawford: You think he loves these girls?
- Special Agent Will Graham: He loves one of them. A-And, yes, I think by association, he has some form of love for the others.
- Jack Crawford: There was no semen, there was no saliva. Elise Nichols died a virgin. She stayed that way.
- Special Agent Will Graham: That's not how he's loving the. He wouldn't disrespect them that way! He doesn't want these girls to suffer. He kills them quickly and... to his thinking, with mercy.
- Jack Crawford: Sensitive psychopath. Risked getting caught so he could tuck Elise Nichols back into bed.
- Special Agent Will Graham: He has to take the next girl soon, 'cause he knows he's gonna get caught. One way or the other.
- Jack Crawford: Stag head was reported stolen last night, about a mile from here.
- Special Agent Will Graham: Just the head?
- Jack Crawford: Minneapolis Homicide's already made a statement. They're calling him the Minnesota Shrike.
- Special Agent Will Graham: Like the bird?
- Jimmy Price: Shrike's a perching bird. Impales mice and lizards on thorny branches and barbed wire. Rips their organs right out of their bodies, puts them in a little birdy pantry, and eats them later.
- Jack Crawford: Can't tell whether it's sloppy or shrewd.
- Special Agent Will Graham: He wanted her found this way. It's... it's petulant. I almost feel like he's mocking her. Or... he's mocking us.
- Jack Crawford: Where did all his love go?
- Special Agent Will Graham: Whoever tucked Elise Nichols into bed didn't paint this picture.
- Brian Zeller: He took her lungs. I'm pretty sure she was alive when he cut 'em out.
- Special Agent Will Graham: Our cannibal loves women. He doesn't want to destroy them; he wants to consume them, to keep some part of them inside. This girl's killer thought that she was a pig.
- Jack Crawford: You think this was a copycat?
- Special Agent Will Graham: The cannibal who killed Elise Nichols had a place to do it and no interest in... in field kabuki. So, he has a house, or two, or a-a cabin, something with an antler room. He has a daughter. The same age as the other girls. Same-same hair color, same eye color, same height, same weight. She's an only child. She's leaving home. He can't stand the thought of losing her. She's his golden ticket.
- Jack Crawford: What about the copycat?
- Special Agent Will Graham: You know, an intelligent psychopath, particularly a sadist, is very hard to catch. There's no traceable motive, there'll be no patterns. He may never kill this way again. Have Dr. Lecter draw up a psychological profile. You seemed very impressed with his opinion...
- Will Graham: Tasteless.
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: Do you have trouble with taste?
- Will Graham: My thoughts are often not tasty.
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: Nor mine. No effective barriers.
- Will Graham: I build forts.
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: Associations come quickly.
- Will Graham: So do forts.
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: Not fond of eye contact, are you?
- Will Graham: Eyes are distracting, you see too much, you don't see enough. And-And it's hard to focus when you're thinking, um, "Oh, those whites are really white", or, "He must have hepatitis", or, "Oh, is that a burst "vein?" So, yeah, I try to avoid eyes whenever possible. Jack?
- Jack Crawford: Yes?
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: I imagine what you see and learn touches everything else in your mind. Your values and decency are present yet shocked at your associations, appalled at your dreams. No forts in the bone arena of your skull for things you love.
- Will Graham: Whose profile are you working on? Whose profile is he working on?
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: I'm sorry, Will. Observing is what we do. I can't shut mine off any more than you can shut yours off.
- Will Graham: Please, don't psychoanalyze me. You won't like me when I'm psychoanalyzed.
- Jack Crawford: Will.
- Will Graham: Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go give a lecture on psychoanalyzing.
- Jack Crawford: Maybe we shouldn't poke him like that, Doctor. Perhaps a less, uh, direct approach.
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: What he has is pure empathy. He can assume your point of view, or mine, and maybe some other points of view that scare him. It's an uncomfortable gift, Jack.
- Jack Crawford: Hm.
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: Perception's a tool that's pointed on both ends. This cannibal you have him getting to know I think I can help good Will see his face.
- Jack Crawford: Mr. Graham. Special Agent Jack Crawford. I head the Behavioral Science Unit.
- Special Agent Will Graham: We've met.
- Jack Crawford: Yes. We had a disagreement when we opened up the museum.
- Special Agent Will Graham: I disagreed with what you named it.
- Jack Crawford: The, uh, Evil Minds Research Museum.
- Special Agent Will Graham: It's a little hammy, Jack.
- Jack Crawford: I see you've hitched your horse to a teaching post, and I also understand it's difficult for you to be social.
- Special Agent Will Graham: Well, I'm just talking at them. I'm not listening to them. It's-it's not social.
- Jack Crawford: Eight girls abducted from eight different Minnesota campuses, all in the last eight months.
- Special Agent Will Graham: I thought there were seven.
- Jack Crawford: There were.
- Special Agent Will Graham: When did you tag the eighth?
- Jack Crawford: About three minutes before I walked into your lecture hall.
- Special Agent Will Graham: You're calling them abductions because you don't have any bodies?
- Jack Crawford: No bodies, no parts of bodies, nothing that comes out of bodies. Nothing.
- Special Agent Will Graham: Then those girls weren't taken from where you think they were taken.
- Jack Crawford: Then where were they taken from?
- Special Agent Will Graham: I don't know. Someplace else.
- Special Agent Will Graham: What are you smiling at?
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: Peeking behind the curtain. I'm just curious how the FBI goes about its business when it's not kicking in doors.
- Special Agent Will Graham: Well, you're lucky we're not doing house-to-house interviews. We found a little piece of metal in Elise Nichols' clothes; a shred from a pipe threader.
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: There must be hundreds of construction sites all over Minnesota.
- Special Agent Will Graham: A certain kind of metal, certain kind of pipe, certain kind of pipe coating, so we're checking all the construction sites that use that kind of pipe.
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: What are we looking for?
- Special Agent Will Graham: At this stage, anything, really. But mostly, anything peculiar.
- Special Agent Will Graham: I need the incident report for the home security company.
- [a tech hands him a folder]
- Special Agent Will Graham: This was recorded as a false alarm. There was a false alarm last... week.
- [realizing]
- Special Agent Will Graham: He tapped their phone.
- Will Graham: Everyone has thought about killing someone, one way or another, be it at your hand or the hand of God.
- Dr. Alana Bloom: Normally I wouldn't even broach this, but what do you think one of Will's strongest drives is?
- Jack Crawford: Fear.
- Dr. Alana Bloom: Mm-hm.
- Jack Crawford: Will Graham deals with huge amounts of fear. It comes with his imagination.
- Dr. Alana Bloom: It's the price of imagination.
- Franklin: [sobbing] I hate being this neurotic.
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: If you weren't neurotic, Franklin, you would be something much worse. Our brain is designed to experience anxiety in shirt bursts, not the prolonged duress yours has seemed to enjoy. That's why you feel as though a lion were on the verge of devouring you.
- Franklin: [sobs into his tissue]
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: Franklin, you have to convince yourself the lion is not in the room. When it is, I assure you, you will know.
- Will Graham: Tasteless.
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: Do you often have trouble with taste?
- Will Graham: My thoughts are not often tasty.
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: Nor mine. No effective barriers.
- Will Graham: I build forts.
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: Associations come quickly.
- Will Graham: So do forts.
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: Not fond of eye contact, are you?
- Will Graham: [sighs, makes eye contact] Eyes are distracting - you see too much, you don't see enough. And- and it's hard to focus when you're thinking, um, "Oh, those whites are really white," or "He must have hepatitis," or "Oh, is that a burst vein?" So, yeah, I try to avoid to eyes whenever possible. Jack?
- Jack Crawford: Yes?
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: I imagine what you see and know touches everything else in your mind. Your values and decency are present yet shocked at your associations, appalled at your dreams. No forts in the bone arena of your skull for things you love.
- Will Graham: [now visibly upset] Whose profile are you working on? Whose profile is he working on?
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: I'm sorry, Will. Observing is what we do. I can't shut mine off any more than you can shut yours off.
- Will Graham: Please, don't psychoanalyse me. You won't like me when I'm psychoanalysed.
- Jack Crawford: Will...
- Will Graham: Now if youll excuse me, I have to go give a lecture on psychoanalysing.
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: Or we could socialise like adults. God forbid we become friendly.
- Will Graham: I don't find you that interesting.
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: You will.
- Jack Crawford: Maybe we shouldn't poke him like that, Doctor. Perhaps a less, uh, direct approach.
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: What he has is pure empathy. He can assume your point of view, or mine, and maybe some other points of view, or mine, and maybe some other points of view that scare him. It's an uncomfortable gift, Jack. Perception's a tool that's pointed on both ends. This cannibal you have him getting to know... I believe I can help good Will see his face.
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: You ever have any problems, Will?
- Will Graham: No.
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: Of course you don't. You and I are just alike - problem-free. Nothing about us to feel horrible about. You know, Will... I think that Uncle Jack sees you as a fragile little teacup. The finest china used only for special guests.
- Will Graham: How do you see me?
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter: The mongoose I want under the house when the snakes slither by.