Quotes from Andrew Vachss

The idea that you're not a writer until you're published is a lie.

If you can't be counted on, you won't be counted in.

I started thinking about the roof and how I'd like to have a garden up there someday—there was sure as hell enough fertilizer already in place. I could tell I was getting tired because I was starting to think like a citizen. Putting down roots, even on a city roof, is blubber-brained. Roots are nice, but a tree can't run.

If love could die along with death, this life wouldn't be so hard

A fascist believes that if, for example, you're born black, or you're born Jewish, that you're predestined from that genetic accident to behave a certain way and deserve to be treated a certain way as well. My books stand for the proposition that the monsters who frighten us have a genesis, and the genesis is *not* genetic.

You know what pit bulls are capable of, right? But they're also capable of being the most wonderful, sweet pets in the world, depending on how you raise them. That's all our children.

People won't let you live the way you want to, but if you're strong enough or quick enough, at least you don't have to live the way they want you to. I live, though, no matter what.

You stand still, you get caught. You run, you get tired. So.... Learn to lie. Then learn to lie in wait.

Life is a fight, but not everyone's a fighter. Otherwise, bullies would be an endangered species.

Cats are the lap-dancers of the animal world. Soon as you stop shelling out, they move on, find another lap. They're furry little sociopaths. Pretty and slick -- in love with themselves. When's the last time you saw a seeing-eye cat?

Stealing to eat ain't criminal—stealing to be rich is.

It's the family you choose that counts.

People who don't have much get ugly about giving up the little they have left.

Be he the first to stand or the last, a man must stand," the father had told his adoring son. "And if there is only one man, then that man must stand alone." ~Thomas to Bruce Wayne

Fear is an enemy that can be killed only at close range. The closest range of all is intimacy. The deeper the fear is embedded in one's spirit, the more vulnerable it is.

In my world, people are always plotting. You have no idea of all the crimes people in business commit every day. Like it was nothing. Or there's a set of special rules for them. Remember when Bush made that whole speech about 'corporate ethics' last year? What a fraud. You think stuff like Enron or WorldCom is an aberration? It's only the tip. Business is a religion. Probably the only one practiced all over the world.

A dog is like a person—he needs a job and a family to be what he's meant to be.

Camouflage doesn't help when the other guy is willing to defoliate the whole jungle.

When you hunt predators, the best camouflage is weakness.

If a train is coming at you, closing your eyes won't save you ... but if you look right at it, you at least have a chance to jump.

Family' is not just a biological word, it's an an operative one.

He said when the Lord made people He made them all the same for starters. But life marks people. If you know the way, you can read them like maps.

I want to disabuse people of the idea that knowledge is power. Knowing how to get to Detroit is not the same thing as having the bus fare.

The worst place to be is in the middle. When elephants fight, the grass gets trampled.