“Their callousness typically emerges in less dramatic, though still devastating, ways: parasitically bleeding other people of their possessions, savings, and dignity; aggressively doing and taking what they want; shamefully neglecting the physical and emotional welfare of their families; engaging in…”— Robert D. Hare, amazon.com
“Most people without conscience are more like Skip or Stamp Man, or the mother who uses her children as tools, or the therapist who deliberately disempowers vulnerable patients, or the seduce-and-manipulate lover, or the business partner who empties the bank account and vanishes, or the charming "fri…”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“When sociopathy and blood lust come together in the same person, the result is a dramatic-even a cinematic-nightmare, a horror figure who seems larger than life. But most sociopaths are not mass murderers or serial killers. They are not Pol Pot or Ted Bundy. Instead, most are only life-size, like th…”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“After all, violence is conspicuous, and unless performed against the utterly powerless, such as children or animals, it is likely to get the perpetrator caught.”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“The methods sociopaths dream up to control others - the schemes contrived to ensure "wins" - are quite various, and only a few of them have to do with physical violence.”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“About one in twenty-five individuals are sociopathic, meaning, essentially, that they do not have a conscience. It is not that this group fails to grasp the difference between good and bad; it is that the distinction fails to limit their behavior.”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“Very few people, no matter how educated they are in other ways, know the meaning of the word sociopathic. Far less do they understand that, in all probability, the word could be properly applied to a handful of people they actually know.”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“The high incidence of sociopathy in human society has a profound effect on the rest of us who must live on this planet, too, even those of us who have not been clinically traumatized. The individuals who constitute this 4 percent drain our relationships, our bank accounts, our accomplishments, our s…”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“But after twenty-five years of treating trauma survivors, I have learned that getting hit is actually one of the more bearable ways a person can be assaulted.”— Martha Stout, amazon.com