Neil Strauss Quotes

What most of us present to the world isn’t necessarily our true self: It’s a combination of years of bad habits and fear-based behavior. Our real self lies buried underneath all the insecurities and inhibitions. So rather than just being yourself, focus on discovering and permanently bringing to the surface your best self.

A lot of people make the mistake of trying to defend principles in relationships. My goal is long-term happiness. And I make choices that aren’t going to undermine that goal.

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.

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

If you possess the ability to learn from your mistakes, then failure is literally impossible, because each rejection brings you closer to perfection.

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

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.

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

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.

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

The natural instincts of men seem to be to alternate between periods of love relationships and periods of hedonistic bachelorhood, with some traumatized kids thrown in as an evolutionary imperative.

The great thing about the heart is that it has no master, despite what reason may think.

Unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments.

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

Every adventure to be had in this room is on the dark side. The people on the light side are asleep right now. And they are dreaming about the dark side. Because the more you try to repress the dark side, the stronger it gets, until it finds its own way to the surface. I sleep well. I dream of angels and sponge cake and panda bears. I don’t see the dark side until I open my eyes.