Andrew Vachss Quotes

I think envy motivates a lot of people.

Envy is the central fact of American life.

When are four women ever happy for another woman getting something they'd love to have? Tell me that.

The surest route to breeding jealousy is to compare. Since jealousy comes from feeling less than another, comparisons only fan the fires.

Human nature is you work shoulder to shoulder in a real emotional kind of setting, and there are jealousies that come up. There's resentment, and resentment turns to just outright bad things.

Envy is ever joined with the comparing of a man's self; and where there is no comparison, no envy.

Genius inspires resentment. A sad fact of life.

Jealousy is in a manner just and reasonable, as it tends to preserve a good which belongs, or which we believe belongs to us, on the other hand envy is a fury which cannot endure the happiness of others.

If you have a strong ego [and] something good happens to an acquaintance of yours, [it] makes you feel bad. It's called envy. ... The ego thinks something has been taken away from you because somebody else has received something good. It's a complete illusion, but that's the madness of the ego.

Because of jealousy you are in constant suffering; you become mean to others. And because of jealousy you start becoming phony, because you start pretending. You start pretending things that you don't have, you start pretending things which you CAN'T have, which are not natural to you. You become more and more artificial. Imitating others, competing with others, what else can you do? If somebody has something and you don't have it, and you don't have a natural possibility of having it, the only way is to have some cheap substitute for it.

We are savages insides. We all want to be the chosen, the beloved, the esteemed. There isn't a person reading this who hasn't at one point or another had that why not me? voice pop into the interior mix when something good has happened to someone else.

An envious man grows lean at another's fatness.

Envy and jealousy stem from the fundamental inability to rejoice at someone else's happiness or success

Would you like to hear a nice definition of jealousy? It's the feeling that you get when someone you absolutely detest is having a wonderful time without you.

Envy is a declaration of inferiority.

Fail, and your friends feel superior. Succeed, and they feel resentful.

Jealousy is just love and hate at the same time.

The envious die not once, but as oft as the envied win applause.

Folks don't like to have somebody around knowing more than they do.

You just want something else that someone else has, but that doesn't mean what you have isn't beautiful, because people always want what you have, and you always want what they have - no one is ever 100 per cent like, 'Yes, I'm the bomb dot com - from head to toe!'

Glamour cannot exist without personal social envy being a common and widespread emotion.

Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.

I don't get jealousy, I don't get how people hate each other - I never did.

It's our nature: Human beings like success but they hate successful people.

You feel like everyone hates you if you've got a good life, now I feel maybe it's allowed because I've had my share of sadness.