It's Not A Good Idea To Define

At The End Of Our Conversation She (martha Stout) Turned To Address You, The Reader. She Said If You're Beginning To Feel Worried That You May Be A Psychopath, If You Recognize Some Of Those Traits In Yourself, If You're Feeling A Creeping Anxiety About It, That Means You Are Not One.

When I Asked Robert Spitzer About The Possibility That He'd Inadvertently Created A World In Which Ordinary Behaviours Were Being Labelled Mental Disorders, He Fell Silent. I Waited For Him To Answer. But The Silence Lasted Three Minutes. Finally He Said, 'i Don't Know.

Trying To Solve The Mystery Is What I Enjoy Most About Writing.

As I Glanced At The Phraseology Of The Research Report, Dull And Unfathomable To Outsiders Like Me, I Thought That If You Have The Ambition To Become A Villain, The First Thing You Should Do Is Learn To Be Impenetrable. Don’t Act Like Blofeld—monocled And Ostentatious. We Journalists Love Writing About Eccentrics. We Hate Writing About Impenetrable, Boring People. It Makes Us Look Bad: The Duller The Interviewee, The Duller The Prose. If You Want To Get Away With Wielding True, Malevolent Power, Be Boring.

I Think If Somebody Is So Set In Their Ways About What They Feel About Something - And You Get This A Lot In Academia, Of Course, And Also Different Sorts Of Journalism Too - You're Going To Sweep Under The Carpet The Facts That Don't Suit Your Thesis. And I Think That Happens Quite A Lot In The Courtroom, For Instance.