Evil or manipulative people don't need a book, they just do it anyway.

Understand: as children and young adults, we are taught to conform to certain codes of behavior and ways of doing things. We learn that being different comes with a social price.

I'd done a lot of research in Hollywood and in academia. I love research and so I wanted to kind of ground the book in history, in things that I read that were universal and timeless and then kind of let my own experiences sort of filter through all of this history.

The Nihilistic Troll might pretend to be acting in the service of some cause or leader, but don't be fooled. The cause and their supposedly strong convictions are simply a way to justify and provide cover for their abusive behavior.

Even as a child, Muhammad Ali got perverse pleasure out of being different. He liked the attention it got him, but most of all he just liked being himself: odd and independent.

When I was researching my book 'The 33 Strategies of War', I studied Napoleon extensively and I found myself wanting to ask Napoleon questions about things he did, and if was I interpreting his actions correctly.

Emotions are continually affecting our thought processes and decisions, below the level of our awareness. And the most common emotion of them all is the desire for pleasure and the avoidance of pain.

To Sun-tzu and the ancient Chinese, doing something extraordinary had little effect without a setup of something ordinary. You had to mix the two - to fix your opponent's expectations with some banal, ordinary maneuver, a comfortable pattern that they would then expect you to follow.

In the world today many people rightfully feel entitled to have success and the good things in life, but they usually understand it will require sacrifice and hard work.

With colleagues in the work environment, we fail to see the source of their envy or the reason for their manipulations; our attempts at influencing them are based on the assumptions that they want the same things as ourselves.

I've always loved black culture; I don't know any other way to put it. Since I was a kid I loved music and early jazz, Sly and the Family Stone. I'm older - I'm in my early 50s - so you'll have to excuse me. That was always very exciting to me to connect to the culture on that level.

The great thing about America is that you can come from the worst circumstances and become something remarkable.

Over the years I've met quite a few big rappers. Then it exploded with 50 Cent, and I did a book with him. It's always a strange meeting of two worlds, it's very exciting.

Pool, it became clear to me, is all about angles. First, there are simple angles, as you must hit the cue ball to either side when you are not straight on.

I was a little worried that young people would think the only game was being political and manipulative when really the bigger game is being so good at what you do that nobody can argue with your results.

I find with most of my readers are kind of like me, sort of people who were a little bit naive in life and then learned the hard way that this is what's going on, the political games and most of my readers write to me telling me that the book helped them open their eyes to what other people are doing to them.

Humans cannot avoid trying to influence others. Everything we say or do is examined and interpreted by others for clues as to our intentions.

Often people become our friend or follower with an undercurrent of resentment in our having more success than they have. They secretly desire the opportunity to take us down a notch; they have a nose for any misstep on our part they can exploit.

We are often attracted to the wrong things, whether it be money, fame, or approval.

Your energy, your spirit are important considerations. Feeling petty and frustrated can have reverberating consequences for your ability to think strategically and reach your goals.

What happens if you stick at something long enough, and study it for so long, you have a different kind of intelligence. It's not an intellectual thing. It's almost like an animal intelligence. I call it our form of instinct, almost how a lion knows exactly where its prey is.

Few are drawn to the person whom others avoid and neglect; people gather around those who have already attracted interest.

Smooth functioning of social life has always depended on the recognition of certain basic limits to behavior. We cannot simply say or do anything we wish, or offend people, without paying consequences - isolation, ostracism, etc.

As social animals, we are extremely susceptible to the moods of other people. This gives us the power to subtly infuse into people the appropriate mood for influencing them.

Waste brings woe, and sorrow hates despair.

I don't follow all the 48 laws. Like, I've never crushed anyone totally.

A master performer like Bill Clinton never lost sight of the fact that as president he had to project confidence and power, but if he was speaking to a group of autoworkers he would adjust his accent and his words to fit the audience, and do the same for a group of executives.

For as one star another far exceeds, So souls in heaven are placed by their deeds.

Though men determine, the gods doo dispose: and oft times many things fall out betweene the cup and the lip.

I went to an extreme for literary purposes because I felt all the self-help books out there were so gooey and Pollyanna-ish and nauseating. It was making me angry.

Plumbers can be masters, the guy who did my patio is a master, some people are masters at raising really great children.