Two rules: You enter without breaking. And you remember that nobody misses what you don't take.

I don't understand people whose gratification is a BMW. You don't know what joy is until you see a kid who was tortured get adopted by a family.

Chronic sexual predators [to Vachss, pedophiles] have crossed an osmotic membrane. They can’t step back to the other side - our side. And they don't want to. If we don't kill them or release them, we have but one choice. Call them monsters and isolate them.... I’ve spoken to many predators over the years. They always exhibit amazement that we do not hunt them. And that when we capture them, we eventually let them go. Our attitude is a deliberate interference with Darwinism - an endangerment of our 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?

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.

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

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.