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" 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! "

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" 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. "

Lawrence Wright

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People

Page

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

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

" 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! "

" 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. "

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

Lawrence Wright

Work

Lot

" People love to talk about the things that are important to them, but oftentimes as a journalist, if you're entering a world that's pretty esoteric and difficult to penetrate and has many barriers to outsiders, then the people inside that world just don't have the same language as you do. "

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

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

" 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. "

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

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

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

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

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

" 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. "

" 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

" 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. "

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

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

" I like the serendipitous surprises of reality. "

Lawrence Wright

Reality

Surprises

" You can't tell a story linearly if you want people to understand. "

" 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

" 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. "

" 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