Quotes from Neil Strauss

Anything you want from a woman—attraction, lust, fascination—is just an internal process that she runs through her body and her brain," he explained as he drove. "And all you need to evoke that process are questions that make her go into her body and brain and actually experience it in order to answer you. Then she will link those feelings of attraction to you.

Men are not dogs. We merely think we are and, on occasion, act as if we

dehumanizing the opposite sex

She started rubbing my cock, and it felt pretty cool. LOL.

On the other hand, this was a guy who advised students to get over their fear of approaching by walking up to random women and saying, "Hi, I'm Manny the Martian. What's your favorite flavor of bowling ball?" So I really didn't have to worry about looking foolish in front of him. He created fools. At

As anyone who regularly reads newspapers or true-crime books knows, a significant percentage of violent crime, from kidnappings to shooting sprees, is the result of the frustrated sexual impulses and desires of males.

Sexual choice, however, is one of the only areas where women are indisputably in control. It's not until they've made a choice, and submitted to it, that the relationship is inverted—and the man is generally back in a position of power over her. Perhaps that is why women, to the frustration of men everywhere, are so cautious about saying yes. In

There are certain bad habits we've groomed our whole life—from personality flaws to fashion faux pas. And it has been the role of parents and friends, outside of some minor tweaking, to reinforce the belief that we're okay just as we are. But it's not enough to just be yourself. You have to be your best self. And that's a tall order if you haven't found your best self yet. That's

And that's when I realized the mistake I'd been making my whole life: to get a woman, you have to be willing to risk losing her.

There was a lesson here, perhaps the last one this community would teach me. And that was always to follow my instincts and first impressions. I hadn't trusted either Papa or Tyler Durden when I'd first met them. I found Papa spoiled and robotic, and Tyler Durden soulless and manipulative. And though they'd made great leaps forward when it came to fashion and game, Mystery was right: The scorpion can't deny its nature.

Mystery calls it dynamic social homeostasis.

Wearing a leather vest and an Indiana Jones hat, Steve P. was equal parts Hell's Angel and Native American shaman. Rasputin was a strip club bouncer with mutton-chop sideburns who looked like a steroid-jacked Wolverine.

In life, people tend to wait for good things to come to them. And by waiting, they miss out. Usually, what you wish for doesn't fall in your lap; it falls somewhere nearby, and you have to recognize it, stand up, and put in the time and work it takes to get to it. This isn't because the universe is cruel. It's because the universe is smart.

To win the game was to leave

Do you know how you get over it?" Rasputin looked at his interlocutor like a wrestler about to break a folding chair in half. "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." "You

Addiction is only as strong as you let it be, and I had let it become too powerful.

Every weekend, I'd drive two hours south to San Diego and stay at Steve P.'s small, squalid apartment, where he raised two sons the same way he talked to his students—with compassionate obscenity.

Marko drove us to Ra, an Egyptian-themed nightclub guarded by two concrete statues of Anubis. Inside, it was nearly empty. There were just security guards, bartenders, and a group of nine noisy Serbians clustered on barstools around a small circular table. We

He's a chameleon. Whatever is in, he wants to do that. He never really stuck to what made him what he was, which was rock and roll. If hip-hop is in, he's a hip-hopper. If punk is in, he's a punk rocker. If Tommy had fucking tits, he'd be a Spice Girl.

The best thing we can do for our relationships with others . . . is to render our relationship to ourselves more conscious. This is not a narcissistic activity. In fact, it will prove to be the most loving thing we can do for the Other. The greatest gift to others is our own best selves. Thus, paradoxically, if we are to serve relationship well, we are obliged to affirm our individual journey. —JAMES HOLLIS The Eden Project

After eavesdropping for a while, I began to realize that all my life I'd been a hypocrite. As a journalist I'd always supported the right to free speech, but been opposed to guns. However, by playing favorites with the amendments, it wasn't the founding fathers' vision of America I was fighting for—it was just my personal opinion.

In that state of dishabille, she met the rest of the house. "I

There were guys who were uptight and set in their ways, like Cliff, who couldn't even handle having a nickname like everybody else. They tended to gather as much knowledge as they could but had trouble making even the smallest behavioral change.

And then there were people like Papa—approach machines who compensated for a lack of social skills with a lack of social fears. Approach machines tended to improve the fastest, simply by following the flowchart of material they were given. But once they ran out of material, they floundered.