Augusten Burroughs Quotes

Did vampirism encourage Stockholm syndrome?

I mean, they call it Stockholm Syndrome and post traumatic stress disorder. And, you know, I had no free will. I had virtually no free will until I was separated from them for about two weeks.

I had been, you know, held in the closet for two months and, you know, abused in all manner of ways. I was very good at doing what I was told.

The Way teaches that people outside the cult are evil - of the Devil. In line with that belief, the members tried to alienate me from my family, to whom I am very close, and from my friends. So I just drifted away. In seeing my three-month involvement as 'just a phase,' my parents were lucky rather than wise.

Anyone? On Snow's visit before the Victory Tour, he challenged me to erase any doubts of my love for Peeta. "Convince me," Snow said. It seems, under that hot pink sky with Peeta's life in limbo, I finally did. And In doing so, I gave him the weapon he needed to break me.

They made us participate in their own madness, because we couldn't help but retrace their steps, rethink their thoughts, and see that none of them led to us.

The thoughts he put in her head. Someone should’ve arrested him for it.

When people leave cults, they don't know that they left a cult.

You think you know her. Just wait and see the change. I'll have her trained in no time.

All forms of tampering with human beings, getting at them, shaping them against their will to your own pattern, all thought control and conditioning is, therefore, a denial of that in men which makes them men and their values ultimate.

Since I was 9, I'd been told what to say, what to think.

When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions.

Propaganda is the art of persuading others of what one does not believe oneself.

Propaganda is not French, it is not civilized to want other people to believe what you believe because the essence of being civilized is to possess yourself as you are, and if you possess yourself as you are, you of course cannot possess any one else, it is not your business.

If I were designing a phony religion, I'd surely include a version of this little gem -- but I'd have a hard time saying it with a straight face:, If anybody ever raises questions of objections about our religion that you cannot answer, that person is almost certainly Satan. In fact, the more reasonable the person is, the more eager to engage you in open-minded and congenial discussion, the more sure you can be that you're talking to Satan in disguise! Turn away! Do not listen! It's a trap!, What is particularly cute about this trick is that it is a perfect "wild card," so lacking in content that any sect or creed or conspiracy can use it effectively. Communist cells can be warned that any criticism they encounter is almost sure to be the work of FBI infiltrators in disguise, and radical feminist discussion groups can squelch any unanswerable criticism by declaring it to be phallocentric propaganda being unwittingly spread by a brainwashed dupe of the evil patriarchy, and so forth. This all-purpose loyalty-enforcer is paranoia in a pill, sure to keep the critics muted if not silent.

I can't manipulate anybody's minds.

There's a lot of things that are good in Scientology, because I wouldn't have been in it. And that's the thing: a lot of people trivialize this thing, like, 'Oh, it's Xenu, and it's a volcano, and it's jumping on couches and acting crazy.' These people are victims. We've been victimized. We believed in something because it starts out very normal.

It's easier to control people when they're afraid.

Cults make people sing so hard for so long - because it over-oxygenates the blood and sets them up to faint.

It's not enough to bash in heads. You've got to bash in minds.

All it takes is one generation to brainwash a population and convince them that reality doesn't exist

That's more than three questions, Max. And sometimes whether someone is your friend or enemy is all in how you look at it. But if you must know, I consider myself your friend, a good friend who loves you very much. No one loves you more than I do, Maximum. Now listen. I ask the questions, not you. You're just here... for the ride. For the incredible, indescribable Maximum Ride.

When I got the chance I asked them a slew of questions. They offered to burn me; it was the only thing they knew.

So you've just slept with him, given him your virginity, a man who doesn't love you. In fact, he has odd ideas about you, wants to make you some sort of kinky sex slave.

I was in a cult for thirty-four years. Everyone else could see it. I don’t know why I couldn’t.