H.G. Beverly > Quotes

“we all think we can tell when someone’s lying. Professionals especially. The result is that we very often get duped.”
― H.G. Beverly, The Other Side of Charm: Your Memoir

“Some people become proficient at acting and often show emotion they don’t feel— appearing intensely interested in your problems or causes, thumping their chests and saluting your flag and weeping crocodile tears over your losses, even while working behind the scenes to cause them.”
― H.G. Beverly, The Other Side of Charm: Your Memoir

“You will learn that when the truth isn't pretty, expected, or delivered with a fair dose of charm, people will almost always put their faith in a lie.”
― H.G. Beverly, The Other Side of Charm: Your Memoir

“People don't know how to hear a lie. Even people who are trained to hear the truth. Even professionals. Especially professionals. Especially professionals who are trained to know, who absolutely should know and who should absolutely understand the consequences of not seeing the difference. You will learn that one of the easiest things to do on this earth is get lost in a lie follow the mirage to the horizon and wake up there in the middle of your own demise. In that place where everything goes up in smoke.”
― H.G. Beverly, The Other Side of Charm: Your Memoir

“To us, warmth and likeability mean safety and trust—because if someone’s going to hurt us, we’ll see shifty eyes and feel a certain coldness, we’re sure. That is, until we meet the privately brutal behavior of a devastatingly warm person.”
― H.G. Beverly, The Other Side of Charm: Your Memoir

“the only thing you'll remember your dad saying about religion at all is that it's more important to walk the walk he'll be tying up his farm boots he will send you off to church on your own he will say I'm not going to go sit beside someone who gets all dressed up on Sunday and sits in church asking for forgiveness and then walks out that door and spends the rest of the week screwing people over.”
― H.G. Beverly, The Other Side of Charm: Your Memoir

“you'll wonder again, later, why so many psychologists remain so vocal about having more and better training than anyone else in the field when every psychologist you've ever met but one will also have lacked these identification skills entirely when it seems nearly every psychologist you meet has no real ability to detect deception. You will wonder, later, why the assessment training appears to have been reserved for the CIA and the FBI is it because we as a society don't want to imagine that any other professionals will need the skills? And what about attorneys? What about training programs for guardian ad litems or anyone involved in approving care for all the already traumatized and marginalized children? You'll have met enough of those children after they grow up to know that when a small girl experiences repeated rapes in a series of households throughout her childhood, then that little girl is pretty likely to have some sort of "dysfunction" when she grows up. And you won't have any tolerance for the people who point their fingers at her and demand that she be as capable as they are it is, after all, a free country. We all get the same opportunities. You'll want to scream at all those equality people that you can't ignore the rights of this nation's children you can't ignore them and then get pissed when any raped and beaten little girls and boys grow up to be traumatized and perhaps hurtful or addicted adults. No more pointing fingers only a few random traumatized people stand up later as some miraculous example of perfectly acceptable societal success and if every judgmental person imagines that I would be like that I would be the one to break through the barriers then all those judgmental people need to go back in time and prove it, prove to everyone that life is a choice and we all get equal chances. You'll want anyone who talks about equal chances to go back and be born addicted to drugs in complete poverty and then to be dropped into a foster system that's designed for good but exploited by people who lack a conscience by people who rape and molest and whip and beat tiny little six year olds and then you will want all those people to come out of all that still talking about equal chances and their personal tremendous success. Thank you, dear God, for writing my name on the palm of your hand. You will be angry and yet you still won't understand the concept of evil. You'll learn enough to know that it's not politically correct to call anyone evil, especially when many terrible acts might actually stem from a physiological deficit I would never use the word evil, it's not professional but you will certainly come to understand that many of the very worst crimes are committed by people who lack the capacity to feel remorse for what they've done on any level. But when you gain that understanding, you still will not have learned that these individuals are more likable than most people that they aren't cool and distant that they aren't just a select few creepy murderers or high-profile con artists you won't know how to look for a lack of conscience in noncriminal and quite normal looking populations no clinical professors will have warned you about people who exude charm and talk excessively about protecting the family or protecting the community or protecting our way of life and you won't know that these types would ever stick around to raise kids you will have falsely believed that if they can't form real attachments, they won't bother with raising children and besides most of them will end up in prison you will not know that your assumptions are completely erroneous you won't understand that many who lack a conscience keep their kids close and tight for their own purposes.”
― H.G. Beverly, The Other Side of Charm: Your Memoir

“You'll find out later that no one you've ever met in your life could identify evil, especially when it's under their nose.”
― H.G. Beverly, The Other Side of Charm: Your Memoir

“you'll watch those same people become automatically terrified of a burly man with tattooed knuckles even as they embrace the charismatic yet humble blonde man offering a drink with a smile you'll come to understand that people only see the soft spot in certain kinds of people and that appearances mean more than maybe they should and you'll know that's why even Children's Protective Services would dismiss a case called in by a therapist and a physician on a white dad in flannel living on an idyllic farm but would on the same day show up at a mobile home in the middle of a junk graveyard and start a file on a father living in poverty right away, especially if that poor dad shows up at the door without a tooth and especially if he's any shade of brown. Perhaps the rich dad molested his daughter. Perhaps the poor dad hasn't had electricity for a month. You'll know that the poor dad will be the one most likely to get it—not the rich—because you'll see these things happen. You'll stop wondering why we can't say the truth about these things you'll start to understand why people hide pain and oppression as if that means it isn't really happening you'll start to see that some people actually use those human tendencies to their advantage.”
― H.G. Beverly, The Other Side of Charm: Your Memoir

“You will be outraged by this who's going to protect the kids involved when battered women can't even tell their truth your attorney will tell you listen, you don't understand something, the court doesn't protect children the court doesn't care about children the law treats children like property of their parents so when you divorce, you're basically dividing them up. And why would they give equal parts to a woman who lets herself get beat up. This will piss you off even more you will rise out of your chair how am I letting myself get beat up I LEFT and why is that my bad and not his and what about children's rights!? He will turn to you coldly you think children have rights? Children don't have rights. You have rights. Your ex has rights. Your children are your joint property. They don't have rights. Even with the outrage and the disbelief and the rush of dizziness you'll feel over this news, you will still not know to utter the words systemic evil.”
― H.G. Beverly, The Other Side of Charm: Your Memoir

“The most treacherous form of evil is often invisible. This form can shift to engage it can take on the appearance and expectation of justice and goodness. It will play on your sense of belonging it will make you think you're doing everything right it will make you think it's doing everything right it will make you believe that it cares for you it will raise its arms in exaltation it will use captivating language it will be fueled by power and money and control and when it sweeps in and fills a system of justice it will be nearly impossible to nail down because such a system is not inherently evil and therefore not every piece and part of its giant apparatus will necessarily be out for blood. Some parts will be good, some people will be good, and that goodness will keep us hopeful and when we're hopeful we're most easily blinded. We're most likely to ignore discrepancies or to blame individuals or groups for their own fate when the inherently good system points itself at them and devastates their lives. With hope, we can feel that we're legitimately teaching our children that it's all good and that it's all about justice and that it's all about making things right. And then those children will grow up. Like you, many of them will have ingrained beliefs about the way things are. You will take justice for granted you will believe that any historic or current flaws in the system are or will be naturally self-correcting you will believe that people who work for justice are actually and honestly working for justice you will believe that the people who work for justice are deeply and unwaveringly working to protect children and human rights and equality. You will be wrong.”
― H.G. Beverly, The Other Side of Charm: Your Memoir