“A normal person wouldn’t engage in the behavior. A sociopath wouldn’t give a shit. You’re somewhere in between.”— Wes Jones, Wendy Rhoades, Maggie Siff, imdb.com
“Aria: I never understood why Alison chose me, what made me so special. Mona: When you don't feel anything, it must be really fun to mess with somebody who feels a lot. Alison picked you because you care. And she can't.”— I. Marlene King, Mona Vanderwaal, Janel Parrish, imdb.com
“Mona: She assembled the perfect group. Smart, loyal, admiring, and compassionate. Aria: Perfect group for what? Spencer: For a sociopath to manipulate.”— I. Marlene King, Mona Vanderwaal, Janel Parrish, imdb.com
“The malignant narcissists who walk among you are probably people you know and like – and if you haven’t personally been victimized by them, you’re none the wiser to who they truly are behind closed doors.”— Shahida Arabi, thoughtcatalog.com
“Sociopathic predators are very skilled at fooling and duping others. They can be very likeable and charming. They can provoke their victims into reacting after months or years of covert abuse, only to use those reactions as proof that their victims are unstable.”— Shahida Arabi, thoughtcatalog.com
“Why are conscience-bound human beings so blind? And why are they so hesitant to defend themselves, and the ideals and people they care about, from the minority of human beings who possess no conscience at all? A large part of the answer has to do with the emotions and thought processes that occur in…”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“The intense charm of people who have no conscience, a kind of inexplicable charisma, has been observed and commented on by countless victims, and by researchers who attempt to catalog the diagnostic signs of sociopathy. It is a potent characteristic.”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“In general, how can any of us live, as we all do, among significant numbers of destructive liars and con artists and fail to confront them, or even notice them?”— Martha Stout, 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
“If anything, people without conscience tend to believe their way of being in the world is superior to ours. They often speak of the naïveté of other people and their ridiculous scruples, or of their curiosity about why so many people are unwilling to manipulate others, even in the service of their m…”— 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
“By the time she is thirty, the valiant little girl's "Ick!" - her tendency to respond, to rock the boat, when someone's actions are "really mean" - may have been excised from her behavior, and perhaps from her very mind.”— 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
“Do not set her up to be gaslighted. When she observes that someone who is being really mean is being really mean, tell her she is right and that it is okay to say so out loud.”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“Apart from knowing someone well for many years, there is no foolproof decision, rule or litmus test for trustworthiness, and it is extremely important to acknowledge this fact, unnerving though it may be.”— Martha Stout, amazon.com