Top 75 Quotes & Sayings by Neil Strauss

To me, I think it's awesome to meet your heroes and find out who they are and where they came from and what made them choose to communicate in the form that connected with you.

I know that I need honesty from the people I interview. I also know that the truth is more interesting than made up stuff, and also, people don't connect with you if you're not honest.

A good organizer is key to anyone with a busy social life.

Never ask a woman if you may kiss her. Instead, learn to read body language.

While I am impulsive in many areas of my life, marriage is not one of them.

You need to be careful with a Bluetooth headset. Because some guys look crazy with them.

When it comes to meeting and attracting women, many men are resigned and complacent. We figure some guys were born with that particular power and other guys weren't. I wasn't.

Your intention for a book is never the same as the reception.

Because it's so easy to medicate our need for self-worth by pandering to win followers, 'likes' and view counts, social media have become the metier of choice for many people who might otherwise channel that energy into books, music or art - or even into their own Web ventures.

Fame won't make you feel any better about yourself.

When I look down at my pale, skinny body, I wonder why any woman would want to sleep next to it, let alone embrace it.

A lot of guys are very intimidated by an attractive woman, and they dehumanise her because our culture perceives beautiful women as commodities. But I think if you're able walk up to a person and get to know them, and you see their flaws and their impurities, and realise that they're like you, then you can humanise them again.

People don't come out for book events. They want to feel an emotion and be entertained.

I think there are just a million interviews in anthologies with famous musicians that are about the music, and they're really boring to read.

Dating is for tools.

A lot of women - not all of them, a lot of them - feel insecure about men being men.

I think my love is storytelling. No matter what it is, it's storytelling. And so whatever the medium is, what's right for the story, I enjoy doing it.

Anyone who hates something feels threatened by it. A guy who says he hates feminism (a) doesn't understand or know feminism, and (b) is scared of powerful women. Most attacks come from fear.

I've noticed a pattern in stars that start acting out in public. Every one of them felt like they grew up without love.

Almost everyone who reaches a plateau where he or she is happy and comfortable says it's because of finding balance between work, relaxation, exercise, socialising and family - plus some alone time to do something contemplative, creative, or educational.

Since I was 18, I've been under orders from magazines and newspapers - chiefly The New York Times and Rolling Stone - to step into the lives of musicians, actors, and artists, and somehow find out who they really are underneath the mask they present to the public. But I didn't always succeed.

Men are a hundred times worse than you can imagine. We are thinking the worst, shallowest thoughts, all the time.

When I was in college, my whole goal was to write for the 'Village Voice,' and I think I was doing that by the time I was twenty-one or twenty, so everything else has kind of been gravy, you know?

A pick-up artist gave me a good piece of advice: the three most important things in a relationship are honesty, trust and respect, and if you don't have those, you don't have love.

I always wanted to interview Michael Jackson, because I just wanted to humanize him.

There can be people who are feminist, and people who hold the completely opposite view but are still feminists. It seems to me from the outside that there's a lot of people busy fighting each other rather than working toward their goals. It's a shame.

Growing up, I was watched by my parents and strongly critiqued. Instead of saying they loved me or showing physical attention, they would joke that I had a Roman nose - that it was roamin' all over my face. Teasing was their way of showing love, but then you are young, sometimes you can't tell the difference.

I feel like rock stars feel a sense of entitlement, whereas I just feel a sense of good fortune.

I've begun to look at the world through apocalypse eyes. Our society, which seems so sturdily built out of concrete and custom, is just a temporary resting place, a hotel our civilization checked into a couple hundred years ago and must one day check out of.

They say that love is blind, but it's trauma that's blind. Love sees what is.

I've seen rock stars agonize over the fact that another artist has far more Facebook 'likes' and Twitter followers than they do.

When the Internet first came into public use, it was hailed as a liberation from conformity, a floating world ruled by passion, creativity, innovation and freedom of information. When it was hijacked first by advertising and then by commerce, it seemed like it had been fully co-opted and brought into line with human greed and ambition.

Many people we consider legends, such as Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry, remain so scarred by scandals, injustices and regrets from decades earlier that they're barely able to appreciate their accomplishments.

The good thing is that women have such high expectations of men that it inspires us to live up to them. That's what I learned about male-female relationships.

The trick, when you're flirting, is figuring how to keep a balance between being engaging enough to retain someone's attention and not seeming overly available. So you tease a person a little.

To get a woman, you have to be willing to risk losing her.

there are only so many ways to get rejected or ignored. It doesn't hurt at all anymore because why should someone who's a complete stranger have any control over your sense of selfworth?

Alcohol has never caused anyone to do something they didn't want to do. It only enables them to do what they've always wanted but have instead repressed.

After all, everyone's favorite subject is themselves.

We have this idea that love is supposed to last forever. But love isn't like that. It's a free-flowing energy that comes and goes when it pleases. Sometimes, it stays for life; other times it stays for a second, a day, a month or a year. So don't fear love when it comes simply because it makes you vulnerable. But don't be surprised when it leaves either. Just be glad you had the opportunity to experience it.

In fact, every woman I met seemed disposable and replaceable. I was experiencing seducer's paradox: The better a seducer I became, the less I loved women. Success was no longer defined by getting laid or finding a girlfriend, but by how well I performed.

The strong live off the weak and the clever live off the strong.

In life, people tend to wait for good things to come to them. And by waiting, they miss out. Usually, what you wish for doesn't 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 isn't because the universe is cruel. It's because the universe is smart. It has its own cat-string theory and knows we don't appreciate things that fall into our laps.

Life is more fun when you open your mouth.

It's not enough to just be yourself. You must be your best self

One of the things I'd learned ... was how to take a compliment. Just say, "Thank you." It's the only response a confident person can make.

Without commitment, you cannot have depth in anything, whether it's a relationship, a business or a hobby.

Almost everyone who reaches a plateau where he or she is happy and comfortable says its because of finding balance between work, relaxation, exercise, socialising and family - plus some alone time to do something contemplative, creative, or educational.

A couple of kind words can not only make a person's day, but earn you a friend and supporter for life. For the rest of the week, whenever you see someone you want to judge negatively, pay them a compliment instead. See what happens.

We're just fragile machines programmed with a false sense of our own importance. And every now and then the universe sends a reminder that we don't really matter to it.

If there was anything I'd learned, it's that the man never chooses the woman. All he can do is give her an opportunity to choose him.

You have to build systems to protect against your lesser self.

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

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 don't. RICHIE: Nothing. Not one thing. What was at the top was all the experiences that you had to get there.

Instead of putting others down, try improving yourself instead. The only person you have a right to compete with is you. In the meantime, treat others how you'd like to be treated. One trait that some of the best (communicators) share is empathy. A couple of kind words can not only make a person's day, but earn you a friend and supporter for life. For the rest of the week, whenever you see someone you want to judge negatively, pay them a compliment instead. See what happens.

I want to learn martial arts," he said docilely, "so when I want to kill someone, I can do something about it.

Fear makes you docile.

In life, people tend to wait for good things to come to them. And by waiting, they miss out.

We make fun of those we're most scared of becoming.

Accepting others' life choices is something most people only learn with age.