Quotes from Lawrence Wright

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.

Every form has its merits. And I like to work in a lot of different forms.

I got my initiation into the Middle East in 1969 when I went there to teach at the American University in Cairo for two years.

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.

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.

The baby boom eventually prompted Hubbard to order that no one could get pregnant without his permission; according to several Sea Org members, any woman disobeying his command would be "off-loaded" to another Scientology organization or flown to New York for an abortion.

The only thing they had in common was the grandeur of their vision.

After the war Cairo became a sanctuary for Nazis, who advised the military and the government. The rise of the Islamist movement coincided with the decline of fascism, but they overlapped in Egypt, and the germ passed into a new carrier.

In the United States, constitutional guarantees of religious liberty protect the church from actions that might otherwise be considered abusive or in violation of laws in human trafficking or labor standards.

What is true is what is true for you. No one has any right to force data on you and command you to believe it or else. If it is not true for you, it isn't true. Think your own way through things, accept what is true for you, discard the rest. There is nothing unhappier than one who tries to live in a chaos of lies.

Chaos and barbarism, which always threatened to overwhelm the movement, sharply increased as bin Laden took the helm.

Success in the pulps depended on speed and imagination, and Hubbard had both in abundance. The church estimates that between 1934 and 1936, he was turning out a hundred thousand words of fiction a month. He was writing so fast that he began typing on a roll of butcher paper to save time. When a story was finished, he would tear off the sheet using a T-square and mail it to the publisher.