Quotes from Neil Strauss

I think the existential dilemma is: We're social animals, so we all wrestle with a sense of inadequacy. But when we realize that we're not as inadequate as we thought we were, and when we realize that everybody else also thinks they're inadequate, then that ache goes away and the idea that we're not a person of value disappears to some extent.

You will speed up your growth by being selfish. So imagine that the people you're looking at can actually take care of themselves. And if you ask for what you want and trust that the other person will say yes or no powerfully, it will make things very interesting.

God is on the side of the winner.

If a woman has been married three years or more, you come to learn that she's usually easier to sleep with than a single woman.

My ex-girlfriend Lisa once said that every woman wants the same thing in a relationship: to be adored.

I want to learn martial arts, he said docilely, so when I want to kill someone, I can do something about it.

Guilt is about what you do with your dick. Shame is about being a dick.

If he wants me to stay away, he should leave me alone.

You know what else I did?' he yelled after me as I left. I fingered her! I turned back to look at him. He made me laugh. He pretended to be so confused and helpless, but maybe he was smarter than all of us. 'The inside of a vagina isn't at all what I thought it would feel like,' he shouted excitedly. 'It feels very organized.' Maybe not.

To survive painful beliefs and feelings, we often mask them with anger. That way, we don't have to feel the shame behind it.

You don't shower or shave for a month, until you smell like a sewer. Then you walk around for two weeks wearing a dress and a goalie mask with a dildo strapped to the front. That's what I did. And I will never be afraid of public humiliation again.

In fairy tales, love strikes like lightning. In real life, lightning burns. It can even kill you.

The right lifestyle is something that is worn, not discussed. Money, fame, and looks, though helpful, are not required. It is, rather, something that screams: Ladies, abandon your boring, mundane, unfulfilled lives and step into my exciting world, full of interesting people, new experiences, good times, easy living, and dreams fulfilled.

Every word, every step, every action is irreversible. If we step in front of a moving car, if we sign a contract we haven't read, if we betray the person we love, the best we can do is try to clean up the mess. But no matter how hard we scrub, the stain on reality will never come out. The word you just read can never be unread.

Whoever destroys a single life is as guilty as though he had destroyed the entire world; and whoever rescues a single life earns as much merit as though he had rescued the entire world.

That's how hatred is created: two different groups, each insisting they're on the moral high ground

The problem with being a pickup artist is that there are concepts like sincerity, genuineness, trust, and connection that are important to women. And all the techniques that are so effective in beginning a relationship violate every principle necessary to maintaining one.

Because, all too often, the things that we're the most resistant to are precisely what we need. And the things we're most scared to let go of are exactly the ones we most need to relinquish. At

It's tragic. The wounds that humans get are so strong that they're like robots operating on childhood programming. And even if they learn the truth about themselves in therapy and rehab, they still cling to their false beliefs and make choices that don't serve them—over and over again." He shakes his head at the cosmic absurdity of it all. "It takes hard, conscious, diligent work to genuinely change.

Childhood trauma may sneak up from behind and fuck you in the ass when you grow up, but at least it leaves a tip on the nightstand.

The PUAs have a name for this: They call it one-itis. It's a disease AFCs get: They become obsessed with a girl they're neither dating nor sleeping with, and then start acting so needy and nervous around her that they end up driving her away. The cure for one-itis, PUAs like to say, is to go out and have sex with a dozen other girls—and then see if this flower is still so special.

He was telling the students about the hypnotic technique of using quotes in a conversation. An idea is more palatable ... if it comes from someone else. The unconscious thinks in terms of content and structure. If you introduce a pattern with the words, 'My friend was telling me,' the critical part of her mind shuts off.

In the field, one quickly learns that everything that was funny at age ten is funny all over again.

The answer: I was never actually pursuing sexual freedom. I was pursuing control, power, and self-worth. I was either acting like my mom or making someone into my mom. But rarely was I actually myself. Because, as I witnessed on ecstasy, the feeling that I'm not acceptable as I am is so fucking overwhelming that I'm terrified to let go and just be myself with anyone.