Neil Strauss Quotes

The success of a relationship should be measured by its depth, not by its length.

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.

The ignorant are not blissful; they are the butt of a joke they're not even aware of.

Only when our love for someone exceeds our need for them do we have a shot at a genuine relationship together.

Nature knows no tragedies or catastrophes. It knows no good or evil. It knows only creation and destruction. and one can never truly be happy and free, in the way we were as children before learning of our mortality, without at some point confronting our destruction. And all we can ask for, all we can hope for, all we can beseech God for, is to win a few battles in a war we will ultimately lose.

Love is a velvet prison.

A man has two primary drives in early adulthood: one toward power, success, and accomplishment; the other toward love, companionship, and sex. Half of life then was out of order. To go before them was to stand up as a man and admit that I was only half a man.

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.

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

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

A life is just one letter away from a lie.

In order to excel at anything, there are always hurdles, obstacles, or challenges one must get past. It's what bodybuilders call the pain period. Those who push themselves, and are willing to face pain, exhaustion, humiliation, rejection, or worse, are the ones who become champions. The rest are left on the sidelines.

There’s no better place to hide from intimacy than in a relationship.

Trust is a chain that gets longer the less you pull on it.

Most guys who define themselves as "too nice" only behave nicely because they want everybody to like them and don’t want anyone to think badly of them. Don’t mistake being fearful and weak-minded for being nice.