Ursula K. Le Guin Quotes

People who want to manipulate you will fear your joy, because it's not easily controlled.

The most dangerous of all flattery is the inferiority of those about us.

...counselling man to treat her as a slave while persuading her that she is a queen.

Honestly, it’s so easy to get what you want from people if they think you’re a psycho.

Nobody will admit to playing power games in relationships, but they do.

Nobody can be kinder than the narcissist while you react to life in his own terms.

Attention isn't really earned. It's invoked; it's manipulated. It can be heady and make you feel powerful, but it isn't something you accomplish; you get it - or you don't.

I've always found that you can control people better if you don't see too much of them.

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

The heart of manipulation is to empathize without being touched.

Understand: A person of power instills a kind of fear by deliberately unsettling those around him to keep the initative on his side.

You can't be loved for long if you're not feared.

Intelligence can be used to manipulate.

I'm told I'm very charming when people do what I want.

I won’t snatch, harm, or scare to death people with you or use checking up on you as an excuse to cause trouble. You’re worse than my mother, Rachel.” “Mine, too,” Jenks muttered.

They try to make you think they care about what you do but they don't. They don't want you to act a certain way. So you're easy to understand. So you won't pose a threat to them.

You will find ambiguity a great ally on your road to power. Give a sign of Slytherin on one day, and contradict it with a sign of Gryffindor the next; and the Slytherins will be enabled to believe what they wish, while the Gryffindors argue themselves into supporting you as well. So long as there is uncertainty, people can believe whatever seems to be to their own advantage. And so long as you appear strong, so long as you appear to be winning, their instincts will tell them that their advantage lies with you. Walk always in the shadow, and light and darkness both will follow.

She suddenly understood why she had let him kiss her in the diner, why she had wanted him at all. She wanted to control him. He was every arrogant boyfriend that had treated her mother badly. He was every boy that told her she was too freaky, who had laughed at her, or just wanted her to shut up and make out. He was a thousand times less real than Roiben.

I've had meetings where a guy actually told me, "What we're trying to figure out is how we can control you." In the meeting, to me! Why do you want to control me?

Power is the test. Some, once they have it, are content to buy the show of liking, and punish those who withhold it; then you have a despot. But some keep a true eye for how they seem to others, and care about it, which holds them back from much mischief.

He had the uncanny capacity to know exactly what your weak point is, know what will make you feel small, to make you cringe," Joanna Hoffman said. "It's a common trait in people who are charismatic and know how to manipulate people. Knowing that he can crush you makes you feel weakened and eager for his approval, so then he can elevate you and put you on a pedestal and own you.

politics and religion in the United States work like the twin grips of a pair of pliers on a critical mass of the masses.

I know there are women, like my best friends, who would have gotten out of there the minute their boyfriend gave them a gun to hide. But I didn't. I got to admit the truth. It turned me on.

Woman is mistress of the art of completely imbittering the life of the person on whom she depends.

I don't need a director who's 'good with actors.'...A master manipulator is heaven.