Max Stirner Quotes

Jim Thompson understood something about the serial killer before the psychology caught up to it, which is that they are detached to it and they do want to get caught.

Crime is to the passions what nervous fluid is to life: it sustains them, it supplies their strength.

I don't know that I am fascinated with crime. I'm fascinated with people and their characters and their obsessions and what they do. And these things lead to crime, but I'm much more fascinated in their minds.

Behind every crime is a story of sadness.

Serial killing is not about sex at all, but about power and control and revenge on society.

Murderers, in general, are people who are consistent, people who are obsessed with one idea and nothing else.

Crimes are more often committed out of fear than wickedness. People live frightened, desperate lives.

My approach to the story... is if you can get into a criminal's mind and understand how it works and understand how crime is committed, you can help prevent it from happening to someone else.

I love the idea of getting into the mind of the criminal.

I'm as wicked as Hitler's first born, cause of me, lot of old ladies purses gone.

You have to remember, that insane people can do some horrors themselves. I had committed no crime, though. I hadn't shot anybody. Yet.

I was in handcuffs. I was under arrest. I remember there was this old lady looking at me, and I could tell she felt real sorry for me, and she did'nt know but all I wanted to do was take her purse.

There is no crime of which I do not deem myself capable.

I thought that Mr. Clutter was a very nice gentleman. I thought so right up to the moment that I cut his throat.

When trying a case [the famous judge] L. Cassius never failed to inquire "Who gained by it?" Man's character is such that no one undertakes crimes without hope of gain.

I want to commit the murder I was imprisoned for.

When a naked man is chasing a woman through an alley with a butcher knife and a hard-on, I figure he isn't out collecting for the Red Cross.

Crime, once exposed, has no refuge but in audacity.

He only shot one person," Nick remarked. "But the night is young." . . . Forgive him, he has no manners." I get by on good looks," Nick said.

Another murder I committed made the front page.

My family tree consists of drug dealers, thugs, and killers.

Let me tell you something. When I was young, I was an armed robber. I did robberies. And there's no adrenaline rush like that. When you're using drugs and doing robberies, it's hard to distinguish whether you're doing robberies to support your drug habit, or doing drugs to support your robbery habit.

Let's say you have an ax. Just a cheap one, from Home Depot. On one bitter winter day, you use said ax to behead a man. Don't worry, the man was already dead. Or maybe you should worry, because you're the one who shot him.

Murder is a dream because lack is the center of both.

I always felt, you don’t have a good time doin crime, you may as well find a job.