Andrew Vachss Quotes

Because of fear, they made shelter and found food and grew things. For the same reason, weapons were stored, waiting.

There are times when fear is good. It must keep its watchful place at the heart's controls.

What has happened to America's survival instincts?

The human being is very resourceful. When you fight for survival, you don't think much; you just do. If you think too much, you sink.

I'm interested in how we react when we're heavily pressed. When we're vulnerable and our survival is in question, how do we behave?

I fear, my Lords, it is too much the temper of this country to be insensible of the approach of danger, until it comes with accumulated terror upon us.

it is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you.

This inclination to hoard is deeply ingrained in me because in the past, in times of scarcity, you took what you could get.

One should be alert and know how to defend oneself in case something untoward happens.

Fear, in evolution, has a special prominence: perhaps more than any other emotion it is crucial for survival.

When your house is on fire, you cant be bothered with the neighbors. Or, as we say in Chess, if your King is under attack you don't worry about losing a Pawn on the Queen's side

Whatever you love most, you fear you might lose, you know it can change. Why do you look from left to right when you cross the street? Because you don’t want to get run over. But, you still cross the street.

It struck him that in moments of crisis one is never fighting against an external enemy, but always against one’s own body... On the battlefield, in the torture chamber, on a sinking ship, the issues that you are fighting for are always forgotten, because the body swells up until it fills the universe, and even when you are not paralysed by fright or screaming with pain, life is a moment-to-moment struggle against hunger or cold or sleeplessness, against a sour stomach or an aching tooth.

If a building is falling on you, you don't concern yourself with the horn of an approaching car. You deal with the most immediate peril first. That's survival.

You are born into a dangerous world, there are all sorts of ways in which you could die, and you need to believe your parents when they tell you don't go near the edge of the cliff, or don't pick up that snake, etc. There could very well be a Darwinian survival value in that sort of brain rule of thumb. And a by-product of that could be that you believe your parents when they tell you about the juju in the sky, or whatever it might be.

When the Goths are at the gates, forming study groups and praying for deliverance is not effective defense.

When danger is far off we may think of our weakness; when it is near we must not forget our strength.

She felt the familiar calmness of an emergency, but she understood the falseness of that feeling, now that it was her life at stake.

The Doctor: Don't blink. Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead. Don't turn your back. Don't look away. And don't blink.

Do you ever find yourself climbing into an open grave during a bombing raid and wish you'd just stayed in bed?

Once I was lost in a forest. I was so afraid. My blood pounded in my chest and I knew my heart's strength would soon be exhausted. I saved myself without thinking. I grasped the two syllables closest to me, and replaced my heartbeat with your name.

You show you care, you die.You show you fear, you die.You show nothing, maybe you live.

Hostages want to survive - they are very focused on their own little view of things.

Bravery is a mean state concerned with things that inspire confidence and with things fearful ... and leading us to choose danger and to face it, either because to do so is noble, or because not to do so is base. But to court death as an escape from poverty, or from love, or from some grievous pain, is no proof of bravery, but rather of cowardice.