Quotes from Neil Strauss

A lot of times, people in a family think it's just one person who causes all the trouble," Lorraine, the therapist who lectured us on trauma, is telling the assembly. "But a family is a system, and a sick person is the product of a sick system.

2. As long as at least one partner is in the adult functional at any given time, most—if not all—arguments can be avoided.

That's the inner me," he admitted. "Inside I sometimes feel pathetic, awkward, and unloved." "Even after all the confidence you acquired as a pickup artist, a husband, and a father?" "Well," he said, opening the door to his car, "all you can do is put on an appearance of confidence sometimes. And after a while, others will start to believe it." He grabbed the door handle to pull it closed. "And then you die." Slam.

But somewhere, there is a skeleton. And that skeleton has a penis. And it will fuck your life.

The time was 7:40 A.M. I reached for the phone. "Do you have your axe?" came the voice on the other end. It was Mad Dog. "Yes." "Is your axe sharp?" "No, but I can sharpen it while you're driving here." "How about your knife?" "Got it." "Everything needs to be nice and sharp.

All the things you've been trying to get from these relationships—freedom, understanding, fairness, acceptance—are exactly the things that you never got from your mom.

There is no such thing as fear," Rasputin replied. "Emotions are just energy and motion that you trap inside your body because of a thought." Mini-Clark

It was a completely pointless ambition, with no practical application whatsoever. But if you sit the average male down in front of anything halfway intriguing and explain to him that it has a system of rankings that he can get better at over time, he'll become obsessed. Hence the popularity of video games, martial arts, Dungeons and Dragons, and the seduction community. I

She's still making me go over every detail of the affair. And, you know, whenever I check my email, everything's in the read folder because she's already gone through it all." "That's a horrible way to live—for you and for her. You know what Lorraine calls it?" "No." "Pain shopping. She's not getting healed by that. She's just getting retraumatized.

Focus is passé. In the modern world we want to feel everything all the time. There is no point in just taking a walk in the park when we can also listen to headphones, munch on a hot dog, crank up our vibrating soles to the maximum, and check out the passing carnival of humanity. Our choices about the creed of a new world order: stimulation! Thought and creativity have become subservient to the singular goal of saturating our senses.

A man has two primary drives in early adulthood: one toward power, success, and accomplishment; the other toward love, companionship, and sex.

A pickup artist must be the exception to the rule. You must not do what everyone else does. Ever.

All of your emotions are going to try to fuck you up. They are there to try to confuse you, so know right now that they cannot be trusted at all. You will feel shy sometimes, and self-conscious, and you must deal with it like you deal with a pebble in your shoe. It's uncomfortable, but you ignore it. It's not part of the equation.

In the sex-positive community, I found countless women who were sexually liberated and open, and required only one thing - that they be empowered and in control of the context, because that's how they felt safe enough to truly let go.

He'd been so neglected as a child that the withdrawal of love pulled all his emotional triggers, exploding the carapace of narcissism built by his childhood escapism. As

As I walked back to my room, a scene from The Wizard of Oz sprung into my head in which the Wizard tells the Tin Man, "A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others." I

Besides, most bystanders who see you approach a girl or a group assume that you know the people. So act like you do. Not only will it ease your worries about what everyone else is thinking, but it'll also make your approach more effective.

For most men, what's tougher than breaking up is the moment when their ex finally falls out of love with them and lets go, perhaps because it triggers a childhood fear—a psychological terror—of losing the first woman whose love they needed: their mother. And so, as Sheila would recommend, I let myself feel the pain, the loneliness, and the fear, using all my strength as the days pass to keep from giving in and reaching out to Ingrid.

He was validated. She was validated. They validated each other. They were a perfect pair, each completely unaware of the other. At

Rather than having actual freedom, it seemed that, like animals in a habitat in the zoo, we had only the illusion of freedom. As long as we didn't try to leave the cage, we'd never know we weren't actually free.

We ran around the party asking everyone for their opinion on having wallabies as pets. Between the opener and my shirt, within a half hour we were surrounded by women.

The days and nights spent imprisoned in her house doing nothing were getting to me. I refuse to take time for granted. One

So if drug addicts go to rehab and the violent go to anger management class, then social retards go to pickup school.

What's helped with saying no to others is asking myself first if I'm saying yes out of guilt or fear. If so, then it's a polite no.