Neil Strauss Quotes & Sayings

How you do anything is how you do everything, — Neil Strauss

Whenever people idealize their caretakers, chances are pretty good that the opposite is true. Sometimes illusion is created by the parents, who insists in godlike fashion that they're perfect and that the child owes them obedience because they're responsible for his or her existence. Other times the illusion is created by the child as a survival strategy, disconnecting from reality in order to avoid the pain of growing up in a toxic enviroment. — Neil Strauss

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

Almost everyone who reaches a plateau where he or she is happy and comfortable says it's because of finding balance between work, relaxation, exercise, socialising and family - plus some alone time to do something contemplative, creative, or educational. — Neil Strauss

I was no longer in the game to meet women; I was in the game to lead men. — Neil Strauss

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. — Neil Strauss

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. By socializing guys like Sasha, Mystery and I were making the world a safer place. — Neil Strauss

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

While I am impulsive in many areas of my life, marriage is not one of them. — Neil Strauss

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

God is on the side of the winner. — Neil Strauss

Being alone was the best thing I ever did for myself. I've always gone from one relationship to another, hoping the other person would help me figure out who I was or complete me and make me feel whole. But it never worked out that way. When the other person didn't make me feel whole, I was left with an even bigger emptiness inside. It took the pain of the last year to realize that I needed to stop being a half trying to find my other half, but to be a whole on my own. I had to learn how to love myself. I had to learn to value myself. And I had to learn that I mattered. I'm not sure if I'm whole yet, but I'm more complete. And — Neil Strauss

If there was anything I'd learned, it's that the man never chooses the woman. All he can do is give her an opportunity to choose him. — Neil Strauss

Because it's so easy to medicate our need for self-worth by pandering to win followers, 'likes' and view counts, social media have become the metier of choice for many people who might otherwise channel that energy into books, music or art - or even into their own Web ventures. — Neil Strauss

We make fun of those we're most scared of becoming. — Neil Strauss

Deep in our nature we are foragers, and life is a process of gathering the resources we need from a large connected planet. It's all out there
every color, shade, flavor and mutation of life and experience. Whatever we are looking for, we will find ... if it doesn't find us first. However, the result will not be what we're consciously looking for but what we're unconsciously seeking. And so, what we want, will never be anything like what we expect. It is the forager's law
you can find the berry bush, but you can't control its yield. — Neil Strauss

Project Hollywood had reached a new nadir. MYSTERY: — Neil Strauss

But I couldn't commit to the time. I needed to resuscitate my career. — Neil Strauss

Since I was 18, I've been under orders from magazines and newspapers - chiefly The New York Times and Rolling Stone - to step into the lives of musicians, actors, and artists, and somehow find out who they really are underneath the mask they present to the public. But I didn't always succeed. — Neil Strauss

After all, everyone's favorite subject is themselves. — Neil Strauss

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. — Neil Strauss

There's one thing I've been striving for all my life: with sex, with writing, with surfing, with partying, with anything and everything. And that is to be free. It's the one feeling I never had growing up. When I open my eyes, I feel free like I never have before. I see the guys sitting against the wall, their cheeks shining with tears, and I can tell they've been on this ride with me. Then I see Lorraine, beaming at me like an angel. And I tell her, "You're doing God's work." The words come out of my mouth before I have a chance to think about them. I've never used the word God in my life in a spiritual context. In fact, the week before, I even had an hour-long debate with the spiritual counselor here, trying to dissuade him from the belief that there's a higher power who cares about the fate of every individual. — Neil Strauss

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. — Neil Strauss

Men are not dogs. We merely think we are and, on occasion, act as if we are. But, by believing in our nobler nature, women have the amazing power to inspire us to live up to it. — Neil Strauss

Many people we consider legends, such as Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry, remain so scarred by scandals, injustices and regrets from decades earlier that they're barely able to appreciate their accomplishments. — Neil Strauss

Strip away the community bond and the seduction business interests that united us, and what was left? Six guys chasing after a limited subset of available women. Wars have been fought, world leaders shot, and tragedies wrought by males claiming territorial rights over the opposite sex. Perhaps we'd just been too blind to see that Project Hollywood was doomed from the start by the very pursuit that had brought it together. After — Neil Strauss

A lot of women - not all of them, a lot of them - feel insecure about men being men. — Neil Strauss

To win the game was to leave it. — Neil Strauss

Most robots don't program themselves. — Neil Strauss

Used to think that intelligence came from books and knowledge and rational thought. But that's not intelligence: It's just information and interpretation. Real intelligence is when your mind and your heart connect. That's when you see the truth so clearly and unmistakably that you don't have to think about it. In fact, all thinking will do is lead you away from the truth and soon you'll be back in your head, groping with a penlight in the dark again. — Neil Strauss

To get a woman, you have to be willing to risk losing her. — Neil Strauss

A pick-up artist gave me a good piece of advice: the three most important things in a relationship are honesty, trust and respect, and if you don't have those, you don't have love. — Neil Strauss

You have to build systems to protect against your lesser self. — Neil Strauss

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 — Neil Strauss

The solution, she elaborates, is for couples to do novel and exciting things together (to release dopamine and get the romance rush), — Neil Strauss

The trick, when you're flirting, is figuring how to keep a balance between being engaging enough to retain someone's attention and not seeming overly available. So you tease a person a little. — Neil Strauss

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. — Neil Strauss

I used to think that a good relationship meant always getting along. But the secret, I realize, is that when one person shuts down or throws a fit, the other needs to stay in the adult ego state. If both people descend to the wounded child or adapted adolescent, that's when all forces of relationship drama and destruction are unleashed. — Neil Strauss

But now, everything I once thought I liked about myself has been turned into a symptom of something wrong with me. I'm told over and over by addiction experts not to trust anything I say, think, or feel. They tell me I need to build self-esteem from within. Yet in order to do that, I have to accept that I'm broken, shattered, stigmatized, diseased, and traumatized - and all that does is make me want to throw myself off a rooftop so I can start all over again. — Neil Strauss

Evidently, women have eating disorders, men have sex addiction. I suppose both share the same obsession: women's bodies. — Neil Strauss

Besides confidence and a smile, we learned, the other characteristics of an alpha male were being well-groomed, possessing a sense of humor, connecting with people, and being seen as the social center of a room. — Neil Strauss

Growing up, I was watched by my parents and strongly critiqued. Instead of saying they loved me or showing physical attention, they would joke that I had a Roman nose - that it was roamin' all over my face. Teasing was their way of showing love, but then you are young, sometimes you can't tell the difference. — Neil Strauss

Dating is for tools. — Neil Strauss

Loneliness is holding in a joke because you have no one to share it with. — Neil Strauss

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

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. — Neil Strauss

I wish she were receptive enough to discuss what I learned, but you can't expect the same person who wounded you to heal you. So — Neil Strauss

I think there are just a million interviews in anthologies with famous musicians that are about the music, and they're really boring to read. — Neil Strauss

We were all searching outside ourselves for our missing pieces, and we were all looking in the wrong direction. Instead of finding ourselves, we'd lost our sense of self. Mystery didn't have the answers. A blonde 10 in a twoset at the Standard didn't have the answers. The answers were to be found within. — Neil Strauss

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. — Neil Strauss

One of the things I'd learned ... was how to take a compliment. Just say, "Thank you." It's the only response a confident person can make. — Neil Strauss

That night, I met some old college friends at Soho House, a private club in the meatpacking district of Manhattan. I hadn't seen them since I'd joined the community, and they hardly recognized me. They spent a half hour discussing how awkward and introverted I used to be. Then their conversation turned to work and movies. I tried to contribute, but I had trouble focusing on the words. They just floated into my ear and accumulated there like wax. I felt like I didn't fit in with them anymore. Fortunately, an Amazonian woman with tree-trunk thighs and a lethal boob-job soon stumbled past the table. She was a foot taller than me and somewhat drunk. "Have — Neil Strauss

Then again, no matter what your point of view may be, you can always find someone with a Ph.D to support it. — Neil Strauss

In fact, every woman I met seemed disposable and replaceable. I was experiencing seducer's paradox: The better a seducer I became, the less I loved women. Success was no longer defined by getting laid or finding a girlfriend, but by how well I performed. — Neil Strauss

It's a type of frame control," Tyler Durden replied. A frame is an NLP term: It is the perspective through which one sees the world. Whoever's frame - or subjective reality - is the strongest tends to dominate an interaction. "Style has all these really subtle ways of keeping control of the frame and getting people to qualify themselves to him. He makes sure that the focus is always on him. I'm writing a post about it." "That's — Neil Strauss

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 — Neil Strauss

Anyone who hates something feels threatened by it. A guy who says he hates feminism (a) doesn't understand or know feminism, and (b) is scared of powerful women. Most attacks come from fear. — Neil Strauss

Connected sex is a spiritual experience ... .It is spiritual because it's a release from ego, a merging with the other, a discorporation into the atoms vibrating around us, a connection to the universal energy that moves through all things without judgment or prejudice.
Thus, orgasm is the one spiritual practice that unites nearly everyone on the planet, and perhaps that is why there's so much fear and baggage around it. Because ... it is sacred.
And every orgasm. Is in itself an act of faith. An attempt to reach out. And just for a moment. Relieve our separateness. Escape from time. And touch eternity. — Neil Strauss

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

A healthy relationship is when two individuated adults decide to have a relationship and that becomes a third entity. They nurture the relationship and the relationship nurtures them. But they're not overly dependent or independent: They are interdependent, which means that they take care of the majority of their needs and wants on their own, but when they can't, they're not afraid to ask their partner for help." She pauses to let it all sink in, then concludes, "Only when our love for someone exceeds our need for them do we have a shot at a genuine relationship together. — Neil Strauss

How will I know the difference?" "Wounds bring drama and trauma. They don't bring comfort. — Neil Strauss

Marko looked as if he could use a makeover himself. A big-boned six foot three, he was much stockier than most Serbians, with an olive complexion and the out-of-proportion head of a Peanuts character. He wore an overcoat that was one size too big, a thick gray Brooks Brothers sweater with flecks of white, and a cream-colored turtleneck that actually made him look like a turtle. Marko — Neil Strauss

The sins of the parents are the destinies of their children. Unless the children wake up and do something about it. — Neil Strauss

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. — Neil Strauss

So three days before the millennium, Bianca called. "D'ya wanna go to the White House with Trisha and me?" By Trisha, she meant country singer Trisha Yearwood, whose record label, MCA, she'd recently been hired to work at. "When would that be, exactly?" I asked. "For that Millennium Concert at the Lincoln Memorial. There's a party at the White House after and all." She always talked like she was chewing gum between words. "They're flying us there in a private jet. Ya don't need to write about it. Just come as Trisha's guest. It'll be fun." "Shit, I'm supposed to go ice-skating with some guys who think the world's going to end. Give me a day to figure things out and I'll get right back to you. — Neil Strauss

I know that I need honesty from the people I interview. I also know that the truth is more interesting than made up stuff, and also, people don't connect with you if you're not honest. — Neil Strauss

In this life, we don't meet many people who truly love us, who accept us for who we are, who put us before themselves. — Neil Strauss

Those who ask for help are often those who have failed to do something for themselves. — Neil Strauss

For the rest of the night, the Amazon and I talked. Every now and then, she'd drag me to the bathroom, where I'd watch her inhale cocaine like a human Dustbuster. "Do — Neil Strauss

Accepting others' life choices is something most people only learn with age. — Neil Strauss

But who are we, really? Just a bundle of good genes and bad genes mixed with good habits and bad habits. And since there's no gene for coolness or confidence, then being uncool and unconfident are just bad habits, which can be changed with enough guidance and will power. — Neil Strauss

... each woman is a wonderful world unto herself. And monogamy? It's like choosing to live in a single town and never traveling to experience the beauty, history, and enchantment of all the other unique, wonderful places in the world. Why does love have to limit us?
Perhaps it doesn't. Only fear is restrictive. Love is expansive. And I wonder, since fear of enmeshment impels us to avoid commitment and fear of abandonment makes us possessive, what type of evolved relationship can emerge once those wounds are healed? — Neil Strauss

I've seen rock stars agonize over the fact that another artist has far more Facebook 'likes' and Twitter followers than they do. — Neil Strauss

Never ask a woman if you may kiss her. Instead, learn to read body language. — Neil Strauss

A rich man doesn't need to tell you he's rich. — Neil Strauss

True endurance, I think, comes from the inside. It comes from motivation and belief in what you're doing. — Neil Strauss

The good thing is that women have such high expectations of men that it inspires us to live up to them. That's what I learned about male-female relationships. — Neil Strauss

So how do you feel about it?" "I'm not upset, but my mom was crying and it's the first time I've ever seen her cry. Dad always wanted whiskey poured on his grave, so my brother said, 'I just hope he doesn't mind me filtering it through my bladder first.'" Mystery — Neil Strauss

When I look down at my pale, skinny body, I wonder why any woman would want to sleep next to it, let alone embrace it. — Neil Strauss

That's when I started to leave it behind. I realized that I got my entire validation from women. Women became like gods to me, but false gods. — Neil Strauss

Life is more fun when you open your mouth. — Neil Strauss

There can be people who are feminist, and people who hold the completely opposite view but are still feminists. It seems to me from the outside that there's a lot of people busy fighting each other rather than working toward their goals. It's a shame. — Neil Strauss

There was one fledgling PUA, in particular, whom Papa bonded with: a twenty-two-year-old Canadian who had discovered the pickup scene when his mother stumbled across a seduction website. He called himself Tyler Durden, after the seditious character in Fight Club. And like a virus or a demagogue (choose your simile), he would eventually change the course of the community and everyone in it. He — Neil Strauss

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. — Neil Strauss

They say that love is blind, but it's trauma that's blind. Love sees what is. — Neil Strauss

I've never trusted collaborations, because most people in this world are not closers. They don't finish what they start; they don't live what they dream; they sabotage their own progress because they're afraid they won't find what they seek. — Neil Strauss

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. — Neil Strauss

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. — Neil Strauss

The number one characteristic of an alpha male is the smile," he said, beaming an artificial beam. "Smile when you enter a room. As soon as you walk in a club, the game is on. And by smiling, you look like you're together, you're fun, and you're somebody. — Neil Strauss

Then let me ask you" - here it comes, the verbal aikido that will use my words to topple my beliefs - "is it possible to live your authentic life if you have inauthentic people around you? — Neil Strauss

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. — Neil Strauss

People don't come out for book events. They want to feel an emotion and be entertained. — Neil Strauss

Rapport equals trust plus comfort. — Neil Strauss

She covered her body with a feather, reached under her legs, and threw her panties into the audience. A flying herpes rag. A hipster with mutton-chop sideburns caught it. He crumpled it in his fist and thrust it into the air excitedly. His little venereal prize. A — Neil Strauss

It's not enough to just be yourself. You must be your best self — Neil Strauss

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." [Eric Weber] grabbed the door handle to pull it closed. "And then you die. — Neil Strauss

Intimacy is sharing your reality with someone else and knowing you're safe, and them being able to share their reality with you and also be safe. — Neil Strauss

Perhaps the people who hurt you the most when they leave are the ones you shouldn't have been with anyway, because they do it without compassion. — Neil Strauss

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. — Neil Strauss

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. — Neil Strauss