Quotes from Andrew Vachss

Roots are nice, but a tree can't run.

Most investigators don't even know what the word means. You stop the cops from using informants and the only crimes they'd ever solve would be those by deranged postal workers who come to work once too often.

The more bullets flying, the less accurate each individual slug has to be.

From the very second that two people sat together around a fire in the forest, there was another human out there who felt better in the dark.

I wanted to ask her what the fuck was wrong but I had a date with a pack of skittish whores.

The Humane Society of America thinks Michael Vick should have a dog. I think whoever's in charge there should have a lobotomy.

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.

That's Manhattan today—all the money goes up top, while the infrastructure wastes away from neglect. The famous skyline is a cheap trick now, a sleight-of-hand to draw your eye from the truth, as illusory as a bodybuilder with osteoporosis.

The goal of a true family is not that their children follow in their footsteps, but that their children surpass them in all ways.

The first thing any charlatan needs is nomenclature. A special language. Trappings. That's the true genesis of psychobabble terms such as 'disclosure' and 'in denial.' Every good con man needs plausibility. . .

Some people have a personality disorder where they just have to go against the herd, right or wrong. They're so committed to their own lone-wolf image that...Well, put it this way: if the others suddenly came over to their side, they'd switch sides.

It isn't much use writing slogans on a wall if you plan to total the building.

Even if sheep could talk, they'd never ask questions.

Without question, I've either got to be a writer, or I fail.

Crime takes the pulse of a culture. It tells us the truth about us as a species.

Victimizers of children are the enemies of any so-called society.

There is no Constitutional right to prey on others. The Internet is just a piece of technology, like the telephone. Society has the right to modify its uses.

I write everything in Courier 12 because I write for publication, not pleasure.

I believe my publisher has shown a great deal of faith in me over a lot of years but I'm not prepared to be so arrogant to say that the long-term literary value of my work would compensate them for a financial failure.

I'm in pursuit of what cannot be achieved: perfection.

A trial is not a search for truth. It is a contest and, often, one that produces no winners.

The third person narrator, instead of being omniscient, is like a constantly running surveillance tape.

No politician is threatened by the child protective constituency, because it does not exist.

People are pushing against the fabric of society all the time.