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All Quotes by author - Lawrence Wright

" A documentary film is a great way of helping people understand because, somehow, when one is able to see the people involved, it lends a certain immediacy and understanding that is hard to get on the page. "

" A donkey is a very useful beast of burden. "

" Certainly, the two things Scientology has on its side are money and lawyers, but those qualities won't save it if it can't find a way to bring new members into the fold. "

" Contempt for men pervades the most obscure strata of our society. "

" Craziness doesn't have anything to do with how successful a religion might be. "

" Dallas was a place where dreamers like my father were given a chance. "

" Dallas was not a caring city, but it was efficient. "

" Every form has its merits. And I like to work in a lot of different forms. "

" Every medium has its advantages and weaknesses and there are many things I can put down on paper that I might not be able to put into film or into a stage performance. In each form, one can communicate powerfully in different ways. "

" For my parents, leaving the close social quarters of Abilene was like getting out of jail. They were not true West Texans; they had not come to love the unending monotony of mesquite barrens or the high, hot blue sky that made sunsets a matter of prayerful thankfulness. "

" From the very beginning of this movement, Scientology has always been a very closeted organization. That aura of secrecy is something that the present-day management continues. "

" From the very beginning, when you go into Scientology your world narrows down very quickly. "

" Hubbard set up the Church of Scientology in Hollywood in 1954 for a reason. He understood that celebrity was increasingly a feature of American public life, and celebrities themselves were going to be worshiped as minor deities were in the ancient world. The idea was: if you could get them, think how many people would follow. "

" I deplore sexual harassment. "

" I don't dispute Scientology can help people; I think that is a very important fact to keep in mind. "

" I don't hold America responsible for the largely oppressive governments in the 22 Arab countries. There are repressive Arab governments that are our allies and there are those that are our nominal enemies. It doesn't make a whole lot of difference to what extent we're involved in propping up those governments. "

" I don't want to constantly be writing about terrorism and strife. "

" I feel like a 1960s graduate student. I still work on note cards. I've never found a better system. "

" If you call it al-Qaida or bin Ladenism or jihadism, whatever you call it, it's proliferated. "

" If you get into Scientology, you will go to auditing. It's like therapy except that there is an E-meter between you and your auditor. That's a device that actually measures your galvanic skin responses. It's two metal cans that you hold. They used to be Campbell's Soup cans with the label scraped off. "

" If you have great characters, then your reader becomes emotionally invested in those people. "

" If you look at all those terrorist groups - I'm talking, going back, Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Nusra, al-Qaeda, ISIS - they're all proxy armies in an Islamic civil war. "

" If you look at Mormonism, it's a very appealing community. It takes care of itself; there are active charities. It's got a successful work ethic. Whatever you might think about the authenticity of their theology or their history, it's immaterial in terms of how the religion itself actually functions. "

" If you're on a contract at 'The New Yorker,' the contract specifies the number of words you will publish in the magazine per year. I get paid by the word, like most writers. That's one reason why the Scientology article was 25,000 words long! "

" I get very antsy when I'm not occupied. "

" I got my initiation into the Middle East in 1969 when I went there to teach at the American University in Cairo for two years. "

" I guess I made a resolution years ago that I would only do things that were only really important or really fun. "

" I like the serendipitous surprises of reality. "

" I love apples. I actually do eat an apple a day. "

" I'm grateful for the ascendancy of women in business and politics, which may yet advance the humanity of those callings. "

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