Quotes by Neil Strauss

“I had clearly become one. When I talked to a woman, the room went silent. The guys leaned in close to hear what I was saying, pulling out notebooks to write my words down and commit them to memory.”

“Im not worried about it because guys will always need to find a way to meet women. Attraction is always the same. You cant help it. You cant disarm that.”

“Its almost like this mens self-help movement.”

“I totally understand all the bad press, ... Its not about the book, but the ideas in it and the way these guys speak. But on the other hand, this is how these guys speak when theyre together. So if I wrote a book that was unassailable in that direction, it wouldnt be an honest book ... if a guy was open about his sexual feelings all the time, he would become a total outcast.”

“The first night we go out, the students will walk in and crash and burn because they dont have a clue yet. The second day is more about the students and theyll go and do openers and do OK, and the third day is kind of fun. On the third day, they actually start to have some success. People forget how petrified men are to talk to women they dont know.”

“I was one of them. I understand what theyre going through.”

“All this stuff is backward engineered from what works. Nobody sat at a computer and invented these techniques. They watched guys who are successful and broke it down to what works.”

“See that girl over there with the pink shirt? ... I think shes, like, the hottest girl in the whole place.”

“You may have missed your window because now shes with a guy. But go and approach her anyway. Its a two set.”

“Dont even think about it and just do it. If you dont, youll be regretting it the rest of the weekend.”

In life, people tend to wait for good things to come to them. And by waiting, they miss out. Usually, what you wish for doesnt fall in your lap; it falls somewhere nearby, and you have to recognize it, stand up, and put in the time and work it takes to get to it. This isnt because the universe is cruel. Its because the universe is smart. It has its own cat-string theory and knows we dont appreciate things that fall into our laps.

Attraction is not an option.

STRAUSS:Have you ever thought about putting those experiences into a book?RICHIE:I did decide to write about what i experienced in climbing to the top. And finally when I got there, I discovered what was at the top.You know what was there?STRAUSS: No, I dont.RICHIE: Nothing. Not one thing. What was at the top was all the experiences that you had to get there.

Men are not dogs. We merely think we are and, on occasion, act as if we are. But, by believing in our nobler nature, women have the amazing power to inspire us to live up to it.

Connected sex is a spiritual experience….It is spiritual because it’s a release from ego, a merging with the other, a discorporation into the atoms vibrating around us, a connection to the universal energy that moves through all things without judgment or prejudice. Thus, orgasm is the one spiritual practice that unites nearly everyone on the planet, and perhaps that is why there’s so much fear and baggage around it. Because…it is sacred. And every orgasm. Is in itself an act of faith. An attempt to reach out. And just for a moment. Relieve our separateness. Escape from time. And touch eternity.

…each woman is a wonderful world unto herself. And monogamy? It’s like choosing to live in a single town and never traveling to experience the beauty, history, and enchantment of all the other unique, wonderful places in the world. Why does love have to limit us? Perhaps it doesn’t. Only fear is restrictive. Love is expansive. And I wonder, since fear of enmeshment impels us to avoid commitment and fear of abandonment makes us possessive, what type of evolved relationship can emerge once those wounds are healed?

Many women think that if they put out too quickly, their partner wont respect them. This is not the case. Its not about waiting for a certain quantity of time before having sex, its about waiting for a certain quality of connection.

The women youve slept with, the ones you never did but primed for a future encounter, the ones who seemed interested but then suddenly stopped texting: Unless you do something horribly wrong, they never completely disappear. A lonely night, a cheating boyfriend, a sudden breakup, an attack of low self-esteem, an attack of high self-esteem—anything can, out of the blue, send them scrolling through their address book looking for validation, for security, for conversation, for adoration, for the fantasy of you filling some empty space in her life.

True endurance, I think, comes from the inside. It comes from motivation and belief in what youre doing.

They say that a man is as faithful as his options, and in this moment I know it to be true. So I switched the phone off. Its too much. Even Jesus only had three temptations.