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" 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. "
Lawrence Wright
Two
Lawyers
Way
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" 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. "
Lawrence Wright
Beginning
Management
Organization
" When I went to Egypt right after 9/11 I was very upset. I used to live in Egypt. I had a lot of friends there. I spent two years teaching there. I had very fond feelings for that part of the world, and the fact that a culture I liked so much had attacked my own culture was really very upsetting to me. "
Lawrence Wright
Friends
World
Upset
" IRS is very poorly equipped to make a distinction between what is a religion and what is not. "
Lawrence Wright
Religion
Very
IRS
" When I was working on the al-Zawahiri piece, a large part of it published in 'The New Yorker' in 2002, I had spoken to a lot of Zawahiri's friends, people who had been in prison with him, people that had been in al-Jihad with him. And quite to my surprise, they liked that article a lot. "
Lawrence Wright
Friends
Surprise
Prison
" Craziness doesn't have anything to do with how successful a religion might be. "
Lawrence Wright
Anything
How
Religion
" You can't tell a story linearly if you want people to understand. "
Lawrence Wright
Want
Understand
Story
" From the very beginning, when you go into Scientology your world narrows down very quickly. "
Lawrence Wright
You
Beginning
Down
" When I was in the ninth grade, I had a teacher in Dallas, Texas, named Elizabeth Enlow in English class. Every Friday, we had to write a little essay, and you had to incorporate three particular words into the story. That was the sole direction. And to me, this was so much fun. "
Lawrence Wright
Teacher
Friday
Words
" Islam and the West have clashed in the past and have not clashed. There is nothing inevitable about it. "
Lawrence Wright
West
Past
Nothing
" I don't dispute Scientology can help people; I think that is a very important fact to keep in mind. "
Lawrence Wright
People
Help
Think
" I was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War. "
Lawrence Wright
Vietnam
Vietnam War
War
" When I was trained as a journalist, as a race-relations reporter in Nashville covering the end of the civil-rights movement, we were strictly forbidden to use the first-person pronoun. There was kind of an electric charge around it. To come out from hiding and use the word 'I' carried a lot of fright for me. "
Lawrence Wright
Word
Movement
Me
" Journalism is a flawed profession, but it has a self-correcting mechanism. The rule of journalism is: talk to everybody. "
Lawrence Wright
Everybody
Journalism
Rule
" Dallas was a place where dreamers like my father were given a chance. "
Lawrence Wright
Place
Dreamers
Chance
" There are many different rivers that lead into despair: there's poverty; there's political repression; there's gender apartheid - there's a sense of culture loss; there's religious fanaticism. "
Lawrence Wright
Culture
Gender
Loss
" When you're first starting on a project, you feel shy because you don't know very much, and you know that you're going to be ignorant and seem ignorant. "
Lawrence Wright
You
Ignorant
Feel
" I get very antsy when I'm not occupied. "
Lawrence Wright
Very
Antsy
Get
" What I've learned is that everybody really wants to sell their story. No matter who they are, everybody feels that what they're doing is the right thing, and if they could only explain themselves to a reasonable person that understands them, then maybe they'll listen. "
Lawrence Wright
Listen
The Right Thing
Story
" Oftentimes, when I was reporting on conflict somewhere in the world or prison or wherever I might be, I'd be struck by the fact that religious beliefs were sometimes transformative, sometimes a motivation for violence. "
Lawrence Wright
Motivation
Conflict
World
" I spent two years in Cairo, and I felt a certain urgency about trying to understand the region and the conflict here, in the modest way that a journalist might be able to try and shed some understanding and enlightenment on a region that is profoundly conflicted, and a conflict that has real consequences for Americans. "
Lawrence Wright
Consequences
Understanding
Conflict
" 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. "
Lawrence Wright
History
Community
Religion
" The Israelis and the Palestinians don't know each other. They live right there, but they've become strangers. And it makes it much more difficult to make peace with a person you really don't know, and that's an obstacle in itself. "
Lawrence Wright
Right
You
Strangers
" Scientology is probably the most stigmatized religion in America already. "
Lawrence Wright
America
Religion
Most
" A donkey is a very useful beast of burden. "
Lawrence Wright
Donkey
Burden
Very
" I think the commentarian has taken over, so now what you get is a lot less reporting and more opinion. "
Lawrence Wright
Now
Opinion
Think
" 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! "
Lawrence Wright
You
New
Long
" I guess I made a resolution years ago that I would only do things that were only really important or really fun. "
Lawrence Wright
Years
Fun
Things
" It's their belief, their own will, that holds people in Scientology, even oftentimes when they have been abused. "
Lawrence Wright
Been
Will
People
" I don't want to constantly be writing about terrorism and strife. "
Lawrence Wright
Terrorism
About
Strife
" The lovely thing about the writing life is that you can point it in any direction. "
Lawrence Wright
Life
Writing
You