The Road to Jonestown Quotes

“No one listening [to Jones' sermons], even those who were the most devoted to him, could take it all in. But at some point each follower heard something that reaffirmed his or her personal reason for belonging to Peoples Temple, and for believing in Jim Jones. As Jonestown historian Fielding McGehee observes, "What you thought Jim said depended on who you were.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“In years to come, Jim Jones would frequently be compared to murderous demagogues such as Adolf Hitler and Charles Manson. These comparisons completely misinterpret, and historically misrepresent, the initial appeal of Jim Jones to members of Peoples Temple. Jones attracted followers by appealing to their better instincts. The purpose of Peoples Temple was to offer such a compelling example of living in racial and economic equality that everyone else would be won over and want to live the same way.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“Jim Jones was a dedicated Esquire reader, and for him its January 1962 issue (which reached newsstands in December 1961) could not have been timelier. One lead story, touted on the cover, was titled “9 Places in the World to Hide,” the cities and/or regions where inhabitants had the best odds of survival following nuclear war. Reporter Caroline Bird”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“It was ironic—the great socialists could only survive by becoming capitalists.” But”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“Jimmy’s two earliest and most enduring lessons from his mother were these: there was always some Them out to get you, and reality was whatever you believed.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“A nation could choose to observe socialist tenets. Communism meant rigid government control—people had no choice other than to comply, and government mandate rather than personal accomplishment determined the course of their lives. Peoples Temple socialism was intended to change hearts through example, not coercion.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“In fact, in its most basic form, socialism was a belief in more equitable distribution of wealth, with everyone afforded the opportunity to thrive in accordance with personal achievement regardless of race or social position.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“Keep them poor and keep them tired, and they’ll never leave.” How well he understood his people.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“Carter, like almost everyone else in the Temple who got to know Milk, grew to like him immensely: “Before him, all I knew about gays were that some of them were bears and others were queens. But Harvey became a friend of mine, and I went to his house and spent time with him and his partner and realized that a gay couple was just that, a couple. See, that was something good about the Temple—if you were part of it, you always had the opportunity to grow as a person, to be around and learn to accept, to appreciate, all different kinds of people.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“The consensus was what they termed “Christian communism,” since they believed that “from each according to ability, to each according to need” was the proper church approach.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“Jim Jones had wanted his grand gesture to make an impression on the entire world, and, to that extent, he succeeded. But the Jonestown deaths quickly became renowned not as a grandly defiant revolutionary gesture, but as the ultimate example of human gullibility.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“Individual suicide was wasteful, but mass suicide that sent a message of defiance, and that encouraged future generations to fight oppression to the death, was admirable.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“On Jones’s instruction, Larry Schacht ordered one pound of sodium cyanide, enough for 1,800 lethal doses. It cost $8.85.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“conformity. They believed in and followed the same rules, respecting parents and teachers above all. This was typical throughout Indiana—according to state historian James H. Madison, “Moderation has been the Indiana way, a moderation firmly anchored in respect for tradition. Among the revolutions that have not occurred in Indiana is a generational revolt.” Lynn”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“Shaw resented being questioned by the Temple Planning Commission. It felt especially offensive because, besides her constant responsibilities as a foster parent, she had a day job as well, contributing her entire salary to the Temple.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“They mistook access for influence.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“But Jones never accepted limits. It stemmed from his mother, Lynetta, who, in her sporadic attempts at parenting, regaled him with tales of visions and reincarnation and how it was preordained that her son should do great things.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“What the man lacked in sophistication, he more than made up for in charisma and genuine commitment.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“Laws permitting segregation had been struck down, but in the opinion of many whites the government continued to give blacks unfair advantages, everything from college and hiring quotas to a welfare system that leached away even the most marginal financial security from hardworking, law-abiding white folks. These beliefs were at complete variance from the daily experience of African Americans trapped in crushing poverty and inadequate housing. Far from effortlessly benefiting from federal largesse and rioting at the slightest perceived provocation, they struggled with bureaucratic red tape in the social service and legal systems. Applying for welfare, Social Security, and disability payments was a complex, often tortuous process. Gangs and drugs were rampant in slums and public housing. A disproportionate percentage of poor black males were either in prison or at risk of it. In too many instances, black women had to raise extended families without an adult male presence or financial support. And, always, there was the despairing sense that things were never going to get much better.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“Max, if you want to reach the top, you’ve got to play the part.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“Jones generally forbade drinking alcohol, but on this night at the Geary Boulevard temple he told the P.C. members that it was all right for once. Each of them drank some, and after their cups were emptied Jones informed them that their wine had been laced with poison—all of them would die within forty-five minutes to an hour. There was no antidote. They were doomed.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“As Jonestown historian Fielding McGehee observes, “What you thought Jim said depended on who you were.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“These Temple members felt that they were exhibiting the proper socialist attitude, living the way everyone else should—and someday would, thanks to them. They were better than anyone else because they proved that everyone was equal. None had either the leisure time or the inclination to consider the contradiction. Observing with satisfaction what had literally become his kingdom, Jones observed to Terri Buford, “Keep them poor and keep them tired, and they’ll never leave.” How well he understood his people.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“For the first time, though only in private, he began incrementally revealing the considerable divide between the Bible-based religion he still preached and his true beliefs. Jones talked about reincarnation—not only his faith in it, but his conviction that “Jim Jones” was simply the latest physical manifestation of a spirit previously occupying the earthly bodies of other great men, all of them dedicated to equality and justice.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“If there was something about Jones’s demands on his followers that they didn’t understand, it shouldn’t be questioned—God didn’t want them doing that, either. To challenge Jim Jones was to challenge the Lord, and God would respond accordingly.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“Because he voraciously read newspapers and magazines, Jones was conversant on a wide variety of topics. But mostly he challenged those who had been well educated and financially well off before joining the Temple, especially when they seemed resentful of the demands placed on them. They’d been spoiled by the privileges they’d enjoyed at the expense of the working poor, Jones said.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“Because he voraciously read newspapers and magazines, Jones was conversant on a wide variety of topics. But mostly he challenged those who had been well educated and financially well off before joining the Temple, especially when they seemed resentful of the demands placed on them. They’d been spoiled by the privileges they’d enjoyed at the expense of the working poor, Jones”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“Nothing was more important than the cause, facts included.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“could find him any time Jones wanted. I felt uncomfortable doing it, and I never went out on something like that again. But [Jones] had other people to send.” Juanell Smart, present at the Planning Commission meeting where Jones humiliated Laurie Efrein, was disgusted by the incident, and further offended when, at another meeting, someone alleged that her husband, David Wise, had tapped Jones’s phone with Smart’s full knowledge, if not cooperation. “I started crying, and I told Jim that I wanted out. He said to me, ‘Then you’ll have to move a hundred miles away.’ I told him I wouldn’t, that I’d lived in L.A. for most of my life. So then he comes up with these other conditions.” Jones told Smart that before she left, “I’d have to sign my four kids over to the church. Well, I realized that signing something like that wouldn’t mean anything in court. So I did it. Then he has somebody bring out this gun, and they make me put my hand on it, hold it, and after they had my fingerprints on it they put it in a bag and took it away. The threat was, if I went out and said or did something against Jones or the Temple, the gun could be used in some criminal way and I’d be [implicated].” For a while, Smart’s three youngest children lived with their father, and her nineteen-year-old daughter, Tanitra, lived with her grandmother Kay. All four remained active in the Temple. Smart believed that “at least there, they still were away from the streets and the drugs. Tanitra found a boyfriend in the Temple named Poncho, and of course she always wanted to be with him. So I stayed out and they stayed in.” Jones sometimes used emissaries to try talking defectors into returning, particularly former members who’d been of particular use to the Temple. Garry Lambrev was the first Californian to join the Temple and afterward ran a church antique shop and worked on the staff of The Peoples Forum. Lambrev had an ongoing disagreement with Jones about Lambrev’s desire for a long-term, loving gay relationship, and had left and rejoined the Temple several times. But in 1974, his latest defection seemed that it might last. Lambrev still kept in touch with Temple friends, and”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

“The couple was odd, no doubt about it. But now, for the first time, little Jimmy Jones was loose on the town streets, and it soon became apparent that compared to the boy, his parents were almost normal.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple