Quotes by Lawrence Wright - Page 2

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 / Author
Apartheid
Despair
Fanaticism
Loss
Poverty
Religious
Repression
Rivers
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Jimmy Carter is not loved in Israel, and yet no American president gave them a greater gift than Jimmy Carter gave them with peace with Egypt, and the opportunity to make peace with the Palestinians.
Lawrence Wright / Author
Opportunity
Palestinian
President
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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 / Author
Able
Certain
Film
Hard
Helping
Helping People
Immediacy
Involved
Great People See
Great People Way
Understand
Documentary
Documentary Film
Great Way
Lends
Page
Somehow
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When you look at the science and the genetic studies that have been done on Palestinians and Jews, you find that there is a unity. They're both descended from the Canaanites. They're essentially the same people.
Lawrence Wright / Author
Done
People
Unity
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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 / Author
Alternatives
Lifetime
Central
Event
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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 / Author
Countryside
Deep Breath
Economy
Lilies
News
Oil
Rain
Texas
Blossom
Breath
Entire
Hop
Millionaires
Price
Races
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Societies that depend on natural resources tend to have certain inherent problems. The limited concentration of wealth - whether from oil, coal, diamonds, or bauxite - often leads to corruption and authoritarianism.
Lawrence Wright / Author
Authoritarianism
Coal
Concentration
Corruption
Inherent
Natural Resources
Depend
Diamonds
Leads
Limited
Societies
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Coolness is temporary. You can't capture it or create it, it has to be discovered. It has to do with the people that are in a place, not with monuments or institutions. It's a momentary conjunction of personalities.
Lawrence Wright / Author
Institutions
People
Personality
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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 / Author
Conflict
Beliefs
Oftentimes
Religious Beliefs
Struck
Transformative
Wherever
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To me the notion that Palestinians are actually Jews is, I think, quite revelatory and very radical and a possible bridge that has been ignored, I think, in this entire controversy and there's ample evidence to support it.
Lawrence Wright / Author
Bridges
Controversy
Evidence
Ignored
Notion
Support
Thinking
Ample
Bridge
Jews
Palestinians
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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 / Author
Israelis
Obstacle
Palestinians
Strangers
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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 / Author
Able
Communicate
Different Ways
Might
Paper
Stage Performance
Advantages
Medium
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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.
Lawrence Wright / Author
Technology
People
Remedy
Trying
Focusing
Pulled
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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!
Lawrence Wright / Author
Article
Contract
Per
Magazine
New Yorker
Yorker
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We've been sending billions and billions of dollars to Israel and Egypt for decades to keep the peace. So as an American taxpayer, I have an interest in this. It's galling to feel that as an American I have a higher stake, a higher interest in peace than you do.
Lawrence Wright / Author
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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 / Author
Reasonable
Right Thing
Explain
The Right Thing
Understands
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I read a lot of books. Here are the books I'm using for my 9/11 project. [Wright gestures to three six-foot-long shelves of books.] As I read them I highlight certain passages. Then I have an assistant write down each quote on an index card and note where it came from.
Lawrence Wright / Author
Book
Feet
Writing
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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 / Author
Blue
Blue Sky
Jail
Leaving
Monotony
Quarters
Sky
Unending
Sunsets
Texans
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Paralysis, anxiety stomachs, arthritis and many ills and aberrations have been relieved by auditing them. An E-Meter shows them up and makes them confess their misdeeds. They are probably just compartments of the mind which, cut off, begin to act as though they were persons.
Lawrence Wright / Author
Anxiety
Cutting
Mind
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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 / Author
Dallas
Friday
Sole
Named
Elizabeth
Essay
Grade
Ninth
Incorporate
So Much Fun
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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 / Author
American History
Blunders
Chaos
Invasion
Islamic
Partners
Throwing
Turmoil
Coalition
Empire
Region
Stands
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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 / Author
Prison
Surprise
Article
Large Part
New Yorker
Published
Spoken
Yorker
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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.
Lawrence Wright / Author
Barriers
Entering
Esoteric
Journalist
Outsiders
Penetrate
Inside
Love World Important
Love World Difficult
Oftentimes
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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.
Lawrence Wright / Author
Active
Authenticity
Mormonism
Theology
Work Ethic
Appealing
Charities
Ethic
Functions
Immaterial
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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 / Author
Egypt
Teaching
Two
Upset
World Culture Me
Attacked
Culture World Me
Fond
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If you get into Scientology, you will go to auditing. It's like therapy except that there is an E-meter between you and your auditor. That's a device that actually measures your galvanic skin responses. It's two metal cans that you hold. They used to be Campbell's Soup cans with the label scraped off.
Lawrence Wright / Author
Soup
Therapy
Campbell
Cans
Device
Label
Measures
Metal
Responses
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It's funny how sometimes historians sneer at journalists, yet they depend on us in the future for the material that they mine. You realize that some of the stories wouldn't have been told if you hadn't gotten to them. There is that sense of capturing a moment that was just about to go over the horizon.
Lawrence Wright / Author
Moments
Realizing
Sometimes
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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 / Author
Absurd
Belief
Believe
Country
People
Faith Believe Me
Drawn
Interests
Outsider
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There are a lot of reporters who I feel are a lot more courageous and fool-hardy than I am. Maybe at the top I'd put Dexter Filkins. He's an extraordinary man in terms of his nerve and ability to get into dangerous situations and tell the story cogently. He's bringing back real human stories. I admire that.
Lawrence Wright / Author
Courageous
Extraordinary
Real Human
Reporters
Bringing
Dexter
Nerve
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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 / Author
Covering
Electric
First Person
Forbidden
Fright
Hiding
Nashville
Race
Rights
Carried
Charge
Reporter
Strictly
Trained
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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 / Author
Conclusive
Confronted
Documentary
Documentary Film
More Or Less
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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 / Author
Government
Allies
Country
Differences
Arab
Arab Countries
Enemies
Extent
Governments
Largely
Nominal
Oppressive
Repressive
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If we're talking about Sinai, we can't understand it without the 1967 and 1973 wars, and you can't understand it without the biblical story of Moses leading his people through the wilderness. These are essential elements in the modern conversation about what's going on in the Middle East that seem to have been lost.
Lawrence Wright / Author
War
Biblical
People
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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 / Author
Conflict
Enlightenment
Modest
Urgency
Profoundly
Region
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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 / Author
Ancient
Public Life
Understood
Life World People
American Public
Celebrities
Feature
How Many People
Increasingly
Minor
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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 worshipped as minor deities were in the ancient world. The idea was: if you could get them, think how many people would follow.
Lawrence Wright / Author
Ideas
People
Thinking
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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 / Author
Determine
Luck
Willingness
Education Future Work
Acquired
Deserved
Divinely
Favored
Education Work Future
Uniquely
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I grew up in the American South, the segregated South. Now we have a black man who is president. It was an age of apartheid, and now that's over. It was an age of two superpowers frozen in a cold war, and now that's resolved. So history marches on, except for this Arab-Israel conflict, which seems to have a claim on being eternal.
Lawrence Wright / Author
Men
War
Black
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Radicalism usually prospers in the gap between rising expectations and declining opportunities. This is especially true where the population is young, idle, and bored; where the art is impoverished; where entertainment—movies, theater, music—is policed or absent altogether; and where young men are set apart from the consoling and socializing presence of women.
Lawrence Wright / Author
Art
Opportunity
Men
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Churches are tax exempt because they are supposed to provide a public good. To prove that good to the IRS, churches arent supposed to hoard their money. They are supposed to spend it on goods and services for the faithful. Under this pretense, the church has made massive investments in tax free real estate all over the world. And when it comes to labor costs, they are almost free.
Lawrence Wright / Author
Church
Faithful
Real
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It's easy enough to predict that there will be conflict, but you place yourself in a maelstrom when you offer a view about the conflict, and I don't have an investment in one side or the other; I feel compassion for both sides. I've spent a fair amount of time in Gaza and Israel, done a lot of reporting and lived over there, and the tragedy is sometimes overwhelming. At the same time, America does have an investment in what happens.
Lawrence Wright / Author
Compassion
Done
Tragedy
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It's the hardening of these narratives that makes peace so difficult. If each side can see the narrative, the claims that the other has, then there is a much more likely possibility of making a resolution. But what I see is the opposite. There is a total disclaiming of the validity of the other side, and talk that I find really unsettling, the kind of chatter you get from ultra-right Israelis and Hamas is of annihilation. In that kind of dialogue, there's no way to move toward peace.
Lawrence Wright / Author
Kind
Moving
Resolution
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In my couple of books, including Going Clear, the book about Scientology, I thought it seemed appropriate at the end of the book to help the reader frame things. Because we've gone through the history, and there's likely conflictual feelings in the reader's mind. The reader may not agree with me, but I don't try to influence the reader's judgment. I know everybody who picks this book up already has a decided opinion. But my goal is to open the reader's mind a little bit to alternative narratives.
Lawrence Wright / Author
Book
Couple
Goal
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When I'm writing about complicated subjects, it usually involves a world. It could be the world of Scientology or the world of Al Qaeda, or the world of counter-terrorism.I look for emblematic beasts of burden - what I call "donkeys" - who can carry the reader through this world. They serve a different purpose. Donkeys are not especially interesting or likeable, but they are serviceable. They will take you into this world. The distinction I'm trying to make is: It's not about them. It's about the world.
Lawrence Wright / Author
Interesting
Trying
Writing
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We hear a lot about theological justifications for the conflicts, but very little about the scientific evidence, which in no way supports them. The time period in which Moses was leading his people out of Egypt, into the Promised Land, the Promised Land was Egypt. We know that. Archaeological records are very clear. The Egyptians were avid bureaucrats even in those days and kept very scrupulous records. I think it's important for us to realize this conflict is built on a legend. It has no scientific support.
Lawrence Wright / Author
People
Support
Thinking
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I think we give Jimmy Carter too much credit to think he knew what was going to happen when he used the word "apartheid." It's provocative, but it was like a nuclear bomb in Israel. And yet that word is used all the time in the Israeli press. There's a double standard there. He probably picked it up in Israel, as it's commonly discussed. I'd be a little surprised if he understood how it was going to be used against him. He doesn't have a highly developed emotional detector. As a politician, that was a weakness.
Lawrence Wright / Author
Emotional
Giving
Thinking
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Lawrence Wright Quotes - Page 2

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