Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" I was in Austin on 9/11, and there were no flights, so I couldn't get to New York to cover the story, so I had to find more creative ways. "

Lawrence Wright

Related Quotes:

" The ideal 'New Yorker' profile is a person, an interesting person, at a critical point in his life. "

Lawrence Wright

" 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. "

Lawrence Wright

" 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

" Scientology plays an outsize role in the cast of new religions that have arisen in the 20th century and survived into the 21st. "

Lawrence Wright

" Religions prosper in large part because of the communities that they create. "

Lawrence Wright

" When the price of oil goes up, the entire Texas economy takes a deep breath. Millionaires blossom like rain lilies. News races through the countryside that the money train is pulling into the station. Hop on board! "

Lawrence Wright

" To an outsider, Abilene was like a small landfall in the Sargasso Sea - remote, laconic, and forever closed to strangers. "

Lawrence Wright

" 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

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

Lawrence Wright

" 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

" 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

" 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

" There are many countries where you can only believe more or you can believe less. But in the United States we have this incredible smorgasbord, and it really interests me why people are drawn to one faith rather than another, especially to a system of belief that to an outsider seems absurd or dangerous. "

Lawrence Wright

" In places where money comes out of the ground, luck and a willingness to take risks are the main denominators that determine one's future, not talent or education or hard work. Money that is so easily acquired somehow comes to seem well deserved, because those who have it must be either uniquely perspicacious or divinely favored. "

Lawrence Wright

" It's their belief, their own will, that holds people in Scientology, even oftentimes when they have been abused. "

Lawrence Wright

" 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. "

Lawrence Wright

" 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. "

Lawrence Wright

" I like the serendipitous surprises of reality. "

Lawrence Wright

" The U.S. is such an unusual place in the world because you can believe anything you want. "

Lawrence Wright

" What is interesting to me about film, and documentary film in particular, is that I can write about these people, and you trust my judgment, more or less, but when you're confronted yourself with humans who are right there on the screen telling you their story, you make a judgment yourself that is conclusive. "

Lawrence Wright

" 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

" 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. "

Lawrence Wright

" Islam and the West have clashed in the past and have not clashed. There is nothing inevitable about it. "

Lawrence Wright

" 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. "

Lawrence Wright

" I deplore sexual harassment. "

Lawrence Wright

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

Lawrence Wright

" I was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War. "

Lawrence Wright

" IRS is very poorly equipped to make a distinction between what is a religion and what is not. "

Lawrence Wright

" The Middle East has been a part of my life since I was a young man, when I went to teach in Cairo. "

Lawrence Wright

" Scientology is not a terrorist organization. Scientology has used intimidating tactics and vindictive litigation. "

Lawrence Wright