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Quotes
Rick Runcie sent me a Synanon timeline from about 1980 that contained a number of CED quotations in addition to events.  It dawned on me that Synanon is nothing without the words of Chuck, Betty, and many others.  These quotations were the common currency of Synanon.  We must not forget them.
All these quotations are copyright © by the Synanon Archives Trust.
22 Quotes (In order by approximate date)
Date
(approximate)		 Subject Sent by
1958 The Game
The Game began with an idea I had of getting people together in a room to pursue a conversation with a "line of no line." I began to yell and curse and accuse and ridicule: I talked to everyone in the room as if he had a tail. Boy I felt great, and everyone else loved it too. The next week they all came back. That was the birth of the Synanon Game, which basically hasn't changed at all since 1958. -- CED		 Colleen Runcie
1958 Knock it Off
Before the days of Synanon nobody had ever told addicts to stop using drugs. People tried to love them out of it, reason them out of it, and motivate them out of it. We said to them: "Hey, KNOCK THAT OFF! If you shoot dope here we'll throw your ass out." -- CED		 Colleen Runcie
1961 Mother Love
Synanon came into existence because our society is composed of mama's boys and daddy's little girls who have been innundated by attempts to produce nothing but agreeable sensations in them. Character disorders, quite simply, are people who had too strong a dose of "mother love" and were never properly housebroken by fathers. -- CED		 Colleen Runcie
1962 Get the people, the money will follow.
The childish idea that money can accomplish something without people is rampant in our society. At the top, its always the manipulation of people -- the people business -- that makes for success or failure. -- CED		 Colleen Runcie
1964 Father Principle
I am proposing a counter-philosophy, a rather old-fashioned, commonsense approach to things: "Good boys and good girls get good things -- bad boys and bad girls get bad things." This idea is the very basis of Synanon. We are a father principle phenomenon which rewards good behavior and punishes bad behavior. -- CED		 Colleen Runcie
1965 Act As If
The only way to become powerful in your own universe is to say to yourself, "I'm going to open my mind, adopt a position, and then ACT AS IF that position is valid." -- CED		 Colleen Runcie
1965 Childrearing
My theory of childrearing is that the more quickly you can get a child out from under the shadow of its mother and into a situation in which demands are made of it by its peers and by adults who are not connected to it by bloodlines, the better it is for the child. -- CED		 Colleen Runcie
1968 Thickened Light
I never have to work very hard to use the information that I live in a motion-normal universe, that what is here today will inevitably change tomorrow. The only thing in this universe which resists movement is the human ego, which is probably the reason we are always so uncomfortable. Synanon is simply my attempt to get a few other heads in tune with the very simple scientific truth that things don't stand still. -- CED		 Colleen Runcie
1969 Unicept
The only thing that we human beings have over giraffes is that it is possible for us to consciously participate in the evolution of our own species. I think that humanity is wasted on anybody who doesn't do that. Why not be a mule, or a squirrel, or a stalk of celery? -- CED		 Colleen Runcie
1971 The first day of the rest of your life
Today is the first day of the rest of your life -- CED		 Colleen Runcie
1972 Synanon School
Synanon is a new kind of school which contains an old-fashioned educational posture: we knock a kid on its ass if it doesn't behave properly. I was educated that way in a Jesuit high school. It think it did me a lot of good to have some great big son-of-a-bitch in a black nightgown occasionally put his nose right up to mine and growl "Dederich, do you want to have your teeth rattled?" -- CED		 Colleen Runcie
1972 Research University
We became a research university, doing research into the business of living. Everybody researches everything else. You know, we spend billions of dollars every year figuring out new ways to make cheese spread. So why not spend a little money finding out why everybody in the world is so miserable that people can't think of anything better to do than walk around with sour looks on their faces buying things? -- CED		 Colleen Runcie
1973 Dying
"Dying" is a word which should be eliminated from the English language, because there is no such thing. Death is not a process, death is an event. You die at a single point in time, but up to that point, you're not "dying" you're living. The trick then, is to think this way. The trick is to live until you die. -- CED		 Colleen Runcie
1973 Banking Character
You can lay money up for a rainy day by putting it in a bank, but how do you bank character? In the memories of executives, that’s where. One of the biggest problems in any organization is selecting executives who will not forget demonstrations of honesty, loyalty, and guts. -- CED		 Colleen Runcie
1974 Synanon is a Religion
What we're doing in Synanon is providing ways for religious experience to coexist with a twentieth century mind. Synanon is a religion of irreverance. All other religions, with the possible exception of Zen, are religions of reverence, which don't provide too much room for laughter. I think that if you are going to cope with the increasing amount of frustration in modern life, you've got to learn to laugh at yourself. -- CED		 Colleen Runcie
1976 Acting in Unison
There is something thrilling and a little frightening about a bunch of people acting in unison. Whenever we in Synanon act in unison, like clip our heads or stop smoking cigarettes, we scare the hell out of the natives. Which is great, because if you scare them badly enough, they'll do what you tell them. Somebody has to tell them what to do, for God's sake. It might as well be us. -- CED		 Colleen Runcie
1977 Sexual Tension
The notion that embarking on a love affair should consist of a holding back rather than a mad dash for physical realization is a lost art in this country. For most Americans, the object of courting is to mount as quickly as possible, slam the member into the yawning aperture and fall back on the bed, exhausted, with a look of temporary triumph on one's face. -- CED		 Colleen Runcie
1977 Changing Partners
Love is the result of cherishing. You can't just decide to love someone -- the love muscle is involuntary. But if you go through certain cherishing motions of conversation, physical affection, and consideration, with another human being, love will come as the inevitable result. In fact there's nothing you can do to stop it. -- CED		 Colleen Runcie
1977 Communication
Birds chirp, dogs bark, man must communicate. -- Carl Frazzano		 Stephen Bagger
1978 I want to be paid for what I do.
It is a traditional article of faith in the United States that if you get up early and work hard making mayonnaise, you should make lots of money, but if you get up in the morning and work hard to teach some dunderhead how to stay out of jail, you're supposed to get your rewards in rich warm feelings. I don't get MY reward from rich warm feelings. I'm an American. I want to be paid for what I do. -- CED		 Colleen Runcie
1978 Betty D
A great life is possible in Synanon. She reached a peak. She became as good as you can get. We are not gods; we are human beings. She did leave us better than she found us, and she'll make us better than she left us. It seems to me that summarizes a great life. -- CED		 George Farnsworth
n/a It Takes Two
"It takes two to touch ten thousand" -referring to the influence Chuck and Betty had. -- CED		 Lisa Steinkraus Sanchez
© 2001 George Farnsworth