Mary L. Trump

“All the kids - well, I don't know about the girls in the family, but all the boys - worked in my grandfather's office in the summers and maybe on weekends once in a while, so they saw how he operated. They saw how he treated people. They saw the kinds of people he rubbed elbows with.”

“And how can you be happy if you don't laugh or appreciate humor?”

“The traits my grandfather came to value in Donald were the traits that were a result of my grandfather's maltreatment of Donald - the bullying, the tendency not to care about other people's feelings, the willingness to cheat, lie to get what he wanted. And eventually, my grandfather started to see a kindred spirit.”

“I saw firsthand what focusing on the wrong things, elevating the wrong people can do - the collateral damage that can be created by allowing somebody to live their lives without accountability.”

“Donald, following the lead of my grandfather and with the complicity, silence and inaction of his siblings, destroyed my father. I can't let him destroy my country.”

“I blame my grandfather 100 percent for his oldest son's death. I don't think there's any ambiguity there.”

“Donald's ego has been and is a fragile and inadequate barrier between him and the real world, which, thanks to his father's money and power, he never had to negotiate by himself.”

“You know, when my grandfather died, we were told that his estate was worth about $30 million. And it turns out it was closer to a billion. So that's hardly a rounding error.”

“That's what sociopaths do: they co-opt others and use them toward their own ends - ruthlessly and efficiently, with no tolerance for dissent or resistance.”

“Donald has been institutionalized for most of his adult life, so there is no way to know how he would thrive, or even survive, on his own in the real world.”

“This is far beyond garden-variety narcissism; Donald is not simply weak, his ego is a fragile thing that must be bolstered every moment because he knows deep down that he is nothing of what he claims to be.”

“I can't say there was a last straw because there have been so many straws, but certainly the horrors at the border, separating children from their parents, the torture, the kidnapping and the incarceration of them in cages was unthinkable, unbearable. When an opportunity presented itself to me to do something, I needed to take a leap.”

“You know, I think it was very important that my grandmother be perceived a very particular way in terms of being charitable or generous. I don't think Donald cares about those two things necessarily. He has his own version of what he wants the world to see.”

“My grandfather, I don't think was really, had real positive feelings towards anybody except perhaps Donald.”

“From a fairly young age, Donald had a really hard time reading social cues. You know, the rules in the house, my grandparents' house were very different from the rules in school. So, he had a difficult time adjusting to that.”

“Donald's need for affirmation is so great that he doesn't seem to notice that the largest group of his supporters are people he wouldn't condescend to be seen with outside of a rally.”

“Bill Barr has gutted the Justice Department. Mike Pompeo has gutted the State Department. We are in serious danger here.”

“Donald Trump may have a long undiagnosed learning disability that for decades has interfered with his ability to process information.”

“It's impossible to know who Donald might have been under different circumstances and with different parents.”

“Donald saw his younger brother Robert as weaker and therefore enjoyed tormenting him. He repeatedly hid Robert's favorite toys, pretending he had no idea where they were.”