Life Changing Book Quotes & Sayings

Anyone looking back at the log later, trying to piece together a mystery, would find nothing but times and dry entries. It was a lazy Sunday. What made it meaningful were not the facts or details, but the imperceptibles. Inner life. The smell of the beach grass and the feel of sand on a bathroom floor when changing out of a swimsuit. The heat of American summer. Line ten of the log read simply: 10:22 Condor ate second breakfast. It couldn't capture the perfect toasting of the onion bagel or the saltiness of the fish in contrast with the thickness of cream cheese. It was time lost in a book - a journey of imagination, transportation - which to others simply looks like sitting or lying stomach-down on the rug in front of a summertime fire, legs bent at the knees, up ninety degrees, kicking absently, feet languid in the air. — Noah Hawley

There are innumerable writing problems in an extended work. One book took a little more than six years. You, the writer, change in six years. The life around you changes. Your family changes. They grow up. They move away. The world is changing. You're also learning more about the subject. By the time you're writing the last chapters of the book, you know much more than you did when you started at the beginning. — David McCullough

Childrens books change lives. Stories pour into the hearts of children and help make them what they become. — Jane Yolen

The right books are like crowbars for our imaginations. When we find ourselves stuck at some place in life, the right book can pry open our inner idea banks. You know those moments: life has become so routine you could do it in your sleep-in fact, you wish you could. You need a change, but you're not sure if it calls for a career switch, a life overhaul, or just a new hairstyle.
During these seasons, the right book challenges you to think differently, to see life in a new light, to bring resolution to a problem, or make a life-changing decision.
Books can propel you out of life's occasional ruts. Through their mind-expanding, heart swelling, pulse-quickening words and ideas, books become like WD-40 for our brains — Pat Williams

This room had long served as a retreat from the disharmony and sadness of the first floor, and it was here I had fallen in love with these books and authors in a way that only lifelong readers know and understand. A good movie had never once affected me in the same life-changing way a good book could. Books had the power to alter my view of the world forever. A good movie could change my perceptions for a day. — Pat Conroy

I could probably write a book on the complexities of our relationship, on my constantly shifting emotions, my ever-changing mind, but let's just say that nothing is ever as black and white as it seems, that love is not only blind but pathetic too. It can make us into victims and fools, reduce us to the kind of people who infuriate us on soap operas, the kind you want to scream at for allowing the creep or bitch to walk all over them. — J.M. Morris

I am a book reviewer. I write for a glossy magazine called 'SCI FI.' The money is not life-changing, but it's a low-stress gig. Publishers send me their books. More than I could possibly read. I pick a few and write about them, put a very few others on the shelf, to be perused at my leisure, someday. — Adam-Troy Castro

A life without books is like body without a soul. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Any day we wish we can discipline ourselves to change it all. Any day we wish; we can open the book that will open our mind to new knowledge. Any day we wish; we can start a new activity. Any day we wish; we can start the process of life change. We can do it immediately, or next week, or next month, or next year. — Jim Rohn

Once of the tricks about life is that it's always changing. Sometimes the changes are good. Sometimes you think they're good and you end up disappointed. Other times you think life has handed you a lemon and it turns out to be a diamond. And there are other times when it just is what it is. It's not what you wanted, but there's nothing you can do about it, so you just have to accept what's happened and go on. Those are the toughest times in my book, the times when you simply have no choice and life just does what it wants without even asking what anybody thinks. — Melodie Ramone

Things like taking a few dollars out of a paycheck, putting it into savings, and leaving it there. Or doing a few minutes of exercise every day - and not skipping it. Or reading ten pages of an inspiring, educational, life-changing book every day. Or taking a moment to tell someone how much you appreciate them, and doing that consistently, every day, for months and years. Little things that seem insignificant in the doing, yet when compounded over time yield very big results. You could call these "little virtues" or "success habits." I call them simple daily disciplines. Simple productive actions, repeated consistently over time. That, in a nutshell, is the slight edge. — Jeff Olson

I journaled: "Why do I feel like crap after being offered a book deal by one of the best publishers on the planet?" The answer that I came up with surprised me. I knew there were people who would have done anything to get their work out into the world this way. i knew there were people who had worked their butts off and still hadn't made it. I knew there were people who had amazing, life-changing things to say who didn't have the platforms to say it yet. I knew there were people who would have been doing cartwheels in the street if they were me right now. And I felt like because they wanted it more, they should have it instead of me. — Kate Northrup

Some of us, I imagine, write out of anger; some out of pain; some write out of prejudice or loss, some out of passion, the promise of something better, perhaps the belief that - even now - a book can be capable of changing a life. Some of us write to remember, some to forget; some to change things, some to ensure things stay the same. Some of us - as my editor and agent will all too easily testify - write because we cannot stop. — R.J. Ellory

With 'Ilustrado,' I set out to change the way we read literature, and I think I failed spectacularly. In fact, I know I failed. In reaching further than I could, I may not have produced a life- or literature-changing book, but I did produce one I am proud of. — Miguel Syjuco

I think you're never the same person when you close a book as when you open one; it changes your life very subtly. — Cheryl Tiegs

Before entering the seminary, I had not encountered the life-changing potential of reading as a source of meaning, as a way of ordering one's inner life, and being rooted in the world. — James Carroll

What I have learned from about twenty years of serious reading is this: It is sentences that change my life, not books. What changes my life is some new glimpse of truth, some powerful challenge, some resolution to a long-standing dilemma, and these usually come concentrated in a sentence or two. I do not remember 99% of what I read, but if the 1% of each book or article I do remember is a life-changing insight, then I don't begrudge the 99%.
From Quantitative Hopelessness and the Immeasurable Moment — John Piper

Destiny is manifested only through action. — Suzy Kassem

There were two books I remember changing my life as a introverted, bookish 14 year old. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand and The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien. One was set in a fantastic world, populated by outlandish characters,tired prose, foul monsters, evil incarnate and a message about losing one's humanity. The other book was about hobbits. — Christopher Odell Homsley

The content of a book holds the power of education and it is with this power that we can shape our future and change lives. — Malala Yousafzai

What better way to learn about life in the ocean
and how we are changing it
than through stories of blind zombie worms, immortal jellyfish, and unicorns of the sea? The Extreme Life of the Sea is an insightful book that inspires awe and wonder about our ocean, and brilliantly shows us the immense possibilities of life on Earth. — Enric Sala

I used to be pro-choice." ... "I was once pro-choice and the thing that changed my mind was, I read my husband's biology books, medical books, and what I learned ... At the moment of conception, a life starts. And this life has its own unique set of DNA, which contains a blueprint for the whole genetic makeup. The sex is determined. We know there's a life because it's growing and changing. — Kathy Ireland

What is it about human nature that when we are touched in a way that is life changing we want to share the experience with others. I have to think it is about bringing gifts from spirit back to the spirit in humans. All I know is that after I experienced the four years of intimate conversations with God/spirit/my higher self/the universe and the resulting growth and healing, I would ask myself, "What should I do?" and the answer was always, relentlessly, write a book and share it. — Bobbi Junod

One of the things I want to do in the book is to explore how philosophy can be done in literature. I start doing that in the first chapter, by introducing the idea of "philosophy by showing". What literature/philosophy shows is how to look at some important facets of life in a new way, thus changing the frame in which subsequent philosophical argument proceeds. — Philip Kitcher

I do believe that books can change lives and give people this kind of language they wouldn't have had otherwise, — Jacqueline Woodson

I wrote the story, but you will bring to it your own experience of life, and some other reader will do the same, and it will become a different story with each reader. I believe that even the time in your life when you read the book will determine how you receive it. Our lives are changing constantly, and therefore not even our own story is always what we think it is. — Elizabeth Strout

Maybe it's working because I'm an author, and maybe it's working because Karen works like life depends on this bookstore, or because we have a particularly brilliant staff, or because Nashville is a city that is particularly sympathetic to all things independent. Maybe we just got lucky. But my luck has made me believe that changing the course of the corporate world is possible. Amazon doesn't get to make all the decisions; the people can make them by how and where they spend their money. If what a bookstore offers matters to you, then shop at a bookstore. If you feel that the experience of reading a book is valuable, then read the book. This is how we change the world: we grab hold of it. We change ourselves. — Ann Patchett

Women who were housewives, who were pretty miserable ... felt inspired by her book and their life changed. They didn't become megastars, but they became a librarian or something. I've heard women say again and again when the subject of Germaine comes up: 'Well, her book changed my life for the better.' And they'll be modest women living pretty ordinary lives, but better lives. — Germaine Greer

You could be writing the book that changes your life. — Brandon Sanderson

The Book of Mormon changes lives. — Thomas S. Monson

In this story the father represents the Heavenly Father Jesus knew so well. St. Paul writes: "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their trespasses" (2 Corinthians 5:19 - American Standard Version). Jesus is showing us the God of Great Expenditure, who is nothing if not prodigal toward us, his children. God's reckless grace is our greatest hope, a life-changing experience, and the subject of this book. — Timothy Keller

Never underestimate the power of gaining a new perspective by simply changing your immediate environment. Going for a walk, reading a book, or talking to a friend can provide you with life-changing insights that you not otherwise attain while remaining stagnant. — Hal Elrod

I'm not in the speech making business. I'm not in the seminar business. I'm not in the writing book business. I'm in the changing lives business. — Zig Ziglar

She wished she could capture the moment and make it physical somehow, turn it into something that she could hold in her hands, or put somewhere safe like she would a book or a vase. But life wasn't like that. You didn't get to hold on to the moments that defined you or touch the things that touched you - not in the palm of your hand or with the tips of your fingers, at least. Destiny's machinations were as elusive as a sculptor's tool, swooping in, changing your contours, and then moving on to the next piece of clay. — J.R. Ward

Neither Christ nor Buddha nor Socrates wrote a book, for to do so is to exchange life for a logical process. — William Butler Yeats