Photo by Shiromani Kant on Unsplash
“A book is a gift you can open again and again.”
– Garrison Keillor
The beginning of the new year is for many a time for reflection and review, as well as an opportunity to look ahead.
For me, together with my yearly goal setting, revisiting the books I read in the previous year and the notes I have taken while reading them has become an integral part of my own reflection and planning routine.
For the past six years now I have picked and shared a quote from each book. Below are the 25 books I read (or re-read) this past year, 2023, along with one quote that, for one reason or another, resonated with me.
Non-Fiction
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race (Walter Isaacson)
“As we learn to treat mood disorders with drugs and eventually with genetic editing, will we have more happiness but fewer Hemmingways? Do we wish to live in a world where there are no van Goghs?”
Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making (Tony Fadell)
“Early adulthood is about watching your dreams go up in flames and learning as much as you can from the ashes. Do, fail, learn. The rest will follow.”
Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be (Steven Pressfield)
“The Muse does not count hours. She counts commitment. It is possible to be one hundred percent committed ten percent of the time. The Goddess understands.”
The Little Book of Ikigai: The essential Japanese way to live a happy and long life (Ken Mogi)
“Ikigai gives your life a purpose, while giving you the grit to carry on.”
Don’t Shoot the Dog! The New Art of Teaching and Training (Karen Pryor)
“Positive reinforcement is anything which, occurring in conjunction with an act, tends to increase the probability that the act will occur again.”
The Magic of Thinking Big (David J. Schwartz)
“Big ideas and big plans are often easier – certainly no more difficult – than small ideas and small plans.”
Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity (Peter Attia)
“The more active you want or plan to be as you age, the more you need to train for it now. […] I think of strength training as a kind of retirement saving.”
The Creative Curve: How to Develop the Right Idea at the Right Time (Allen Gannett)
“Being able to balance familiarity and novelty isn’t just useful for creating fortunes, it is essential.”
The Way of Nagomi: How to Find Peace & Harmony in Your Life (Ken Mogi)
“To endlessly pursue youth is to overlook the beauty that can come with age.”
The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results (Gary Keller)
“Extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow you can make your focus. […] When you say yes to something, it’s imperative that you understand what you’re saying no to.”
Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier (Kevin Kelly)
“You are what you do. Not what you say, not what you believe, not how you vote, but what you spend your time on.”
The Creative Act: A Way of Being (Rick Rubin)
“The universe is only as large as our perception of it. When we cultivate our awareness, we are expanding the universe.”
On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss (Elisabeth Kübler-Ross)
“We do things hopefully because they add life to our living, but not with the illusion they will help us escape death when our time comes.”
Doom Guy: Life in First Person (John Romero)
“Execution is everything: Success is not defined by an idea. It is determined by your ability to execute on that idea.”
The Mom Test: How to Talk to Customers & Learn if Your Business is a Good Idea when Everyone is Lying to You (Rob Fitzpatrick)
“Compliments are the fool’s gold of customer learning: shiny, distracting, and worthless.”
The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance (Steven Kotler)
“If we are hunting the highest version of ourselves, then we need to turn work into play and not the other way round.”
Fiction
Motherless Brooklyn (Jonathan Lethem)
“Consensual reality is both fragile and elastic, and it heals like the skin of a bubble.”
Out of the Silent Planet (C. S. Lewis)
“The love of knowledge is a kind of madness.”
The Quantum Thief (Hannu Rajaniemi)
“The criminal is a creative artist; detectives are just critics.”
Temeraire (Naomi Novik)
“Temeraire said, ‘It is very nice how many books there are, indeed. And on so many subjects!’”
The Way of Kings (Brandon Sanderson)
“Expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack.”
Words of Radiance (Brandon Sanderson)
“As I fear not a child with a weapon he cannot lift, I will never fear the mind of a man who does not think.”
Oathbringer (Brandon Sanderson)
“The question,’ she replied, ‘is not whether you will love, hurt, dream, and die. It is what you will love, why you will hurt, when you will dream, and how you will die. This is your choice. You cannot pick the destination, only the path.”
Trust (Hernan Diaz)
“God is the most uninteresting answer to the most interesting questions.”
The Blade Itself (Joe Abercrombie)
“Some things have to be done. It’s better to do them, than to live with the fear of them.”
I hope you found as much inspiration in these ideas as I have, or got curious to pick up some of these books yourself.
If you still haven’t had enough quotes, here are my lists from 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022.
And with that, I wish you an amazing 2024, full of great books, big ideas, and impactful actions.