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" 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. "

Related Quotes:

" The 2003 invasion of Iraq by U.S. and coalition partners stands as one of the greatest blunders in American history. The Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS, rose out of the the chaos, throwing the region into turmoil that hasn't been equaled since the fall of the Ottoman Empire. "

Lawrence Wright

Chaos

American

Rose

" 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. "

" Our intelligence community was extremely poorly prepared before 9/11. "

" 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. "

" Life gives you so many alternatives to choose from, and... you judge these as best as you can until something comes along like 9/11. And it's the central event of my lifetime, so I knew I had to write about that. "

Lawrence Wright

Judge

You

" I was a very religious teenager, and I moved away from that. "

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

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

" 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

Faith

Believe

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" Scientology is probably the most stigmatized religion in America already. "

" The lovely thing about the writing life is that you can point it in any direction. "

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

" I deplore sexual harassment. "

Lawrence Wright

Sexual

Harassment

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

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

" 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

" People often pulled into Scientology want to address personal problems in their life, and Scientology says we have technology that addresses these kinds of problems. Just focusing on the problems and trying to remedy them can be helpful. "

" This age of terror will end one day, but whether our society can restore the feeling of freedom that once was our birthright is hard to predict. "

" 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. "

" I like the serendipitous surprises of reality. "

Lawrence Wright

Reality

Surprises

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

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

" Journalism is a flawed profession, but it has a self-correcting mechanism. The rule of journalism is: talk to everybody. "

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

" 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. "

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