How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from The Silence of the Lambs.
Quote #1
CRAWFORD: We're interviewing all the serial killers now in custody for a psycho-behavioral profile. Could be a real help in unsolved cases.
We describe this method of catching a killer as "takes one to know one." Who knew such cunning wisdom would come from an elementary school taunt, or the mouth of Pee Wee Herman? We'd guess that criminal profiling requires more smarts than just any other branch of FBI work.
Quote #2
CRAWFORD: You're to tell him nothing personal, Starling. Believe me, you don't want Hannibal Lecter inside your head.
Because he'll eat your brain!
Also, Lecter has a habit of picking up on what people hate most about themselves and exploiting it. He picks up on Clarice's insecurity and taunts her. However, he later turns that around and tries to help her help herself. Maybe he was a good therapist after all…as long as he's not hungry.
Quote #3
CHILTON: We've tried to study him of course, but he's much too sophisticated for the standard tests.
Lecter's definitely too smart for Chilton. Lecter is a thinker. This line from Dr. Chilton lets us, and Clarice, know that analyzing Lecter is going to be challenging. Dr. Lecter is usually a few steps ahead. He's kind of a genius.
Quote #4
CLARICE: Yes, I'm still in training at the Academy. We're talking about psychology, Doctor, not the Bureau. Can you decide for yourself whether or not I'm qualified?
Here we start to see Clarice's cleverness come forward. She's trying a bit of flattery to see if she can get into the doctor's good graces. It works—for a while, at least. Lecter ultimately thinks the questionnaire ploy is insulting to his intelligence, and sends her away.
Quote #5
CLARICE: It excites him. Most serial killers keep some sort of trophies from their victims.
LECTER: I didn't.
CLARICE: No. No, you ate yours.
Clarice's cleverness here is twofold. First, she knows her Serial Killer 101. But more importantly, her directness with the doctor impresses him, and it's at this moment when he agrees to see the questionnaire.
Quote #6
CLARICE: Lecter altered or destroyed most of his patients' histories, so there's no record of anyone named Mofet, but I thought the "yourself" reference was too hokey for Lecter, so I figured he's from Baltimore and I looked in the phone book and there's a "Your Self" storage facility right outside of downtown Baltimore, sir. […] The contract is in the name of a Miss Hester Mofet.
Lecter had earlier told Clarice to "Look at yourself." That just didn't sit right with her, didn't sound like something he'd say, so she takes it to have some other meaning and comes up with this storage facility. Either Clarice is a genius or the novelist really needed to move the plot along. This seems a little too clever.
Quote #7
CLARICE: Hester Mofet. It's an anagram, isn't it, doctor? Hester Mofet. The rest of me. Miss the rest of me.
These anagrams are presented to us as bits of cleverness, even though anyone who reads the Sunday Jumble on a regular basis could figure them out. Lecter's intelligence doesn't find much expression in his hospital cell, so he welcomes any opportunity to demonstrate it.
Quote #8
CLARICE: He's a white male. Serial killers tend to hunt within their own ethnic groups. He's not a drifter. He's got his own house somewhere, not an apartment. […] What he does with them takes privacy. He's in his 30s or 40s. He's got real physical strength, combined with an older man's self-control. He's… He's cautious. Precise. And he's never impulsive. He'll never stop. […] He's got a real taste for it now. He's getting better at his work.
This is like auditing an Intro to Serial Killers course. Buffalo Bill fits exactly into Clarice's analysis, but it's also very vague in certain points, like a newspaper horoscope. Is she being clever here, or is Buffalo Bill simply not clever enough?
Quote #9
CLARICE: Your anagrams are showing, Doctor. Louis Friend. Iron Sulfide. Also known as Fool's Gold.
This anagram is cleverer than the previous one, and Clarice knows the doctor by this point, so she figures it out. In the 90s this was especially clever because they didn't have anagram-solver.net. Clarice needs paper, pen, and her brain.