Quotes & Sayings About Self Help Books

Joseph's story just parted company with the volumes of self-help books and all the secret-to-success formulas that direct the struggler to an inner power ("dig deeper"). Joseph's story points elsewhere ("look higher"). — Max Lucado

[ ... ] I'm about to get on a plane here, and I'm packing recovery literature. All I know is I'm going to be the guy reading the book on co-dependency. That's what I know about me. — Marc Maron

You can love more than one person at a time, and I don't give a damn what the self-help books say. — Rita Mae Brown

Everybody wants confidence but you don't find it in self help books. You find confidence in the Holy Spirit. — Rick Warren

Self-help books are for the birds. Self-help groups are where it's at. — Janice Dickinson

The apartment was tiny, but neat: the bed was made; a few books (business books and a self-help book, all in English and all from the library) were stacked on a nightstand. — Patrick Hoffman

Like many self-help books, The Deepest Blue is full of horrifyingly simplistic language and some admittedly good advice. Somehow the women in the book learn to say: That's my depression talking. It's not "me."
As if we could scrape the color off the iris and still see. — Maggie Nelson

Self-Help books are for bitchesss — Deyth Banger

That these mandates exist is hardly news, but their cumulative effect on women's lives tends to be examined through a fragmented lens, one-pathology-at-a-time, the eating disorder lit on the self-help shelves separated from the books on women's troubled relationships with men, the books on compulsive shopping separated from the books on female sexuality, the books on culture and media separated from the books on female psychology. Take your pick, choose your demon: Women Who Love Too Much in one camp, Women Who Eat Too Much in another, Women Who Shop Too Much in a third. In fact, the camps are not so disparate, and the question of appetite - specifically the question of what happens to the female appetite when it's submerged and rerouted - is the thread that binds them together. One woman's tub of cottage cheese is another's maxed-out MasterCard; one woman's soul-murdering love affair is another's frenzied eating binge. — Caroline Knapp

Life is very difficult. There's nothing to be ashamed of by reading self-help books. If you're stuck in a dark place it can be incredibly uplifting and hope providing to engage with those tools. So go out there and do it!! — Jim Dooley

No matter what the shrinks, or the pundits, or the self-help books tell you, when it comes to love, it's luck. — Woody Allen

Self-help books for women are part of a multibillion-dollar industry, sensitively attuned to our insecurities and our purses. — Harriet Lerner

Self-Help Books of the Twentieth Century: Exploiting Hope and Fear," and — Margaret Atwood

I put the books I was returning on the appropriate desk, and I began looking at the shelves of new arrivals. Most of them were some permutation on self-help. Going by how popular these books were and how often they were checked out, everyone in Bon Temps should have become perfect by now. — Charlaine Harris

Your ability to navigate and tolerate change and its painful uncomfortableness directly correlates to your happiness and general well-being. See what I just did there? I saved you thousands of dollars on self-help books. If you can surf your life rather than plant your feet, you will be happier. — Amy Poehler

Elevation Book Publishing drives each book to their highest peak and afford authors the opportunity to rise to their full potential. We create thriving partnerships. — Rhonda Wilson

When I die I hope it may be said:
'Her suffering was black, but her books were read'. — Shannon L. Alder

Reading will help you to discover your sacred-self — Lailah Gifty Akita

Depression is a serious problem, but drugs are not the answer. In the long run, psychotherapy is both cheaper and more effective, even for very serious levels of depression. Physical exercise and self-help books based on CBT can also be useful, either alone or in combination with therapy. Reducing social and economic inequality would also reduce the incidence of depression. — Irving Kirsch

There are many self-help books by Ph.D.s, but I hold a different degree: an I.B.T.I.A.-I've Been Through It All. This degree comes not on parchment but gauze, and it entitles me to tell you that there is a way to get through any misfortune. — Joan Rivers

People do whatever the hell they want to do at any age they fancy. Last month you were thirty-five. That means you're five years from forty. Do you think that the day you reach forty you will be any different than you were at thirty-nine or forty-one for that matter? People create little ideas about ages so they can write silly self-help books, stick stupid comments in birthday cards, create names for internet chat rooms and look for excuses for crisis that are happening in their life. — Cecelia Ahern

I don,t just want success for my self ,I want my success to benefit others .
Osman Gulum — Osman Gulum

If you read stories, you will learn the valuable lessons of life situations, survival and build strength. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I can't get enough of self-help books of all kinds. — Bruce Eric Kaplan

Listen to yourself speak, saying, "The knowledge of God has no practical application." Do you know why all your Christian bookstores are filled up with self-help books, and five ways to do this or that, and six ways to be godly, and 10 ways not to fall? - because people don't know God! And so they have to be given all sorts of trivial little devices of the flesh to keep them walking as sheep ought to walk! "Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame" (1Co 15:34). Why the rampant sinning even among God's people? It is a lack of the knowledge of God! — Paul David Washer

Insull was a serious and driven young man. Born into a family of temperance crusaders, he spent his boyhood poring over books with titles like Lives of the Great Engineers and Self-Help. — Nicholas Carr

Do you think that the day you reach forty you will be any different than you were at thirty-nine or forty-one for that matter? People create little ideas about ages so they can write silly self-help books, stick stupid comments in birthday cards, create names for internet chat rooms and look for excuses for crises that are happening in their life. — Cecelia Ahern

You just have to say to yourself, "I am not willing to accept anything less than what I deserve! I am smart! I am Beautiful! I am a good woman and I deserve to be happy!" It all starts with you. — Amari Soul

Describing good relatedness to someone, no matter how precisely or how often, does not inscribe it into the neural networks that inspire love. Self-help books are like car repair manuals: you can read them all day, but doing so doesn't fix a thing. Working on a car means rolling up your sleeves and getting under the hood, and you have to be willing to get dirt on your hands and grease beneath your fingernails. Overhauling emotional knowledge is no spectator sport; it demands the messy experience of yanking and tinkering that comes from a limbic bond. If someone's relationship today bear a troubled imprint, they do so because an influential relationship left its mark on a child's mind. When a limbic connection has established a neural pattern, it takes a limbic connection to revise it. (177) — Thomas Lewis

I'm really wary of self-help books. — Darin Strauss

instead of reading loads of self-help books, attending various seminars, listening to different preachers, we should just pick one thing. Something that feels true for us. Then practice it fiercely. — Kamal Ravikant

I don't usually read self-help books, but I read a great book by a guy called Wayne Dyer: 'The Power of Intention,' which I loved. — Chris Pine

Horror. I can't manage it. I become
well
horrified. Self-help books have a similar effect.
When asked, "Any literary genre you simply can't be bothered with?" - (By the Book: Writers on Literature and the Literary Life from the NYT Book Review, by Pamela Paul) — Emma Thompson

Use your will to conquer fears and weaknesses! — Tae Yun Kim

Despite the third word of the title, this is not an instruction manual that will tell you anything useful about how to be happy. Those books are located in the self-help section two aisles over, and once you've bought one, done everything it says to do, and found yourself miserable anyway, you can always come back here to understand why. — Daniel M. Gilbert

Self-help isn't really self-help unless someone else is also helping you. We'd like to be that someone. — Kenneth Schwarz

Where in the self-help section of Barnes and Noble does one find a guide on dealing with a supernatural stalker? — Cosmo Knox

An honest bookstore would post the following sign above its 'self-help' section: 'For true self-help, please visit our philosophy, literature, history and science sections, find yourself a good book, read it, and think about it. — Roger Ebert

I don't read thrillers, romance or mystery, and I don't read self-help books because I don't believe in shortcuts and loopholes. — Isabel Allende

A very enjoyable meditation on the curious thing called 'Zen' -not the Japanese religious tradition but rather the Western clich of Zen that is embraced in advertising, self-help books, and much more ... Yamada, who is both a scholar of Buddhism and a student of archery, offers refreshing insight into Western stereotypes of Japan and Japanese culture, and how these are received in Japan. — Alexander Gardner

Lucy doesn't read self-help books about how to be a dog; she just is a dog. — Donald Miller

If you haven't cried at least once while writing a chapter of your inspirational book, then you have to ask yourself if your're writing fiction. — Shannon L. Alder

A few diaries could replace tons of self help books simply because their written in the first person ... — Stanley Victor Paskavich

People rely on intelligence to solve problems, and they are naturally baffled when comprehension proves impotent to effect emotional change. To the neocortical brain, rich in the power of abstractions, understanding makes all the difference, but it doesn't count for much in the neural systems that evolved before understanding existed. Ideas bounce like so many peas off the sturdy incomprehension of the limbic and reptilian brains. The dogged implicitness of emotional knowledge, its relentless unreasoning force, prevents logic from granting salvation just as it precludes self-help books from helping. The sheer volume and variety of self-help paraphernalia testify at once to the vastness of the appetite they address and their inability to satisfy it. (118) — Thomas Lewis

My life is on loan, like money borrowed from a bank. God is the lender, and He retains the right to call in the loan any time. Though I am responsible for taking care of it, I do not own this life; it is borrowed. Why should I fear its loss or the loss of anything else in this world when I must surrender it all anyway? — James Dillehay

The self-help books and websites haven't come up with a proper title for spouses living in the purgatory that exists before the courts have officially ratified your personal tragedy. — Jonathan Tropper

The Bible and several other self help or enlightenment books cite the Seven Deadly Sins. They are: pride, greed, lust, envy, wrath, sloth, and gluttony. That pretty much covers everything that we do, that is sinful ... or fun for that matter. — Dave Mustaine

88. Like many self-help books, The Deepest Blue is full of horrifyingly simplistic language and some admittedly good advice. Somehow the women in the book all learn to say: That's my depression talking. It's not "me." 89. As if we could scrape the color off the iris and still see. 90. — Maggie Nelson

The dogged implicitness of emotional knowledge, its relentless unreasoning force, prevents logic from granting salvation just as it precludes self-help books from helping. The sheer volume and variety of helf-help paraphernalia testify at once to the vastness of the appetite they address and their inability to satisfy it. — Thomas Lewis

I'm considering writing a self-help book and giving people 20 cents to read it. This way, I can be sure they all get new paradigms. — Ryan Lilly

In my many years of working with people, I have never seen things change by chance, you have to work it out yourself ... life really sucks but YOU have what it takes to change it. — Nkem Paul

Right now, we're living in an ugly chapter of our lives, but books always get better! — Chris Colfer

I am not a self-help writer. I am a self-problem writer. When people read my books, I provoke some things. I cannot justify my work. I do my work; it is up to them to classify it, to judge. — Paulo Coelho

-Those who never face oppositions always stop at propositions.
-Those who never confront obstacles live with delays and postponements — Ikechukwu Joseph

Whereupon then can I hope, or wherein may I trust, save only in the great mercy of God, and the hope of heavenly grace? For whether good men are with me, godly brethren or faithful friends, whether holy books or beautiful discourses, whether sweet hymns and songs, all these help but little, and have but little savour when I am deserted by God's favour and left to mine own poverty. There is no better remedy, then, than patience and denial of self, and an abiding in the will of God. — Thomas A Kempis

You've got all these books on self help, getting to know yourself, doing the right thing, eating the so-called right foods, even down to what books you have on your shelves. People are encouraged to look to themselves first as opposed to being a part of society. — Samantha Morton

Sometimes when I watch my dog, I think about how good life can be, if we only lose ourselves in our stories. Lucy doesn't read self-help books about how to be a dog; she just IS a dog. All she wants to do is chase ducks and sticks and do other things that make both her and me happy. It makes me wonder if that was the intention for man, to chase sticks and ducks, to name animals, to create families, and to keep looking back at God to feed off his pleasure at our pleasure. — Donald Miller

Even though it doesn't look like it, I run. On a treadmill. And I bounce around to all the songs on my iPod - the Pixies, Wagner, Richard and Linda Thompson, even books on tape. Just not self-help ones. — Bill Hader

Self-help books are making life downright unsafe. Women desperate to catch a man practice all the ploys recommended by these authors. Bump into him, trip over him, knock him down, spill something on him, scald him, but meet him. — Florence King

Yes, I found happiness. And no, it didn't take years of struggles, hours of meditation or tons of self-help books and yoga lessons. It just happened. Here, it follows me wherever I go. During the day, it joins me, like a willing ally, through the usual cycle of grasping and craving, and, at night, it lets me fall asleep, my mind quiet, no rambling thoughts filling it. — Carol Vorvain

Self-help books for those who believe You can have it all often advise, Follow your bliss and money will follow. With the collapse of the stock markets the reality of trade-offs is more like, When you follow your bliss, it's money you'll miss. — Warren Farrell

I'm not a fan of self-help books - how can something be 'self-help' if the book itself is purportedly helping you? — Harlan Coben

The meritocratic spectrum of self-determinist, self-help, books are as follows: on one end there's the _ steps towards a path to true bliss. On the other end of the spectrum there's the _ steps to cope with not reaching a path of true bliss. — Chester Elijah Branch

Well, there are lot of people who make a lot of money off the fifth- and sixth-life crises. All of a sudden they have a ton of consumers scared out of their minds and willing to buy facial cream, designer jeans, SAT test prep courses, condoms, cars, scooters, self-help books, watches, wallets, stocks, whatever ... all the crap that the twenty-somethings used to buy, they now have the ten-somethings buying. They doubled their market! — Ned Vizzini

When you keep a strong image of what you want in your mind, and possess the conviction that it is yours by right, you send out powerful vibrations to the farthest reaches of the universe. — Stephen Richards

My earliest books focus almost entirely on psychological tools to help readers employ effective commonsense approaches to problems. There are no references to God or a higher self in the first 15 or so years of my publishing history. — Wayne Dyer

The good thing about a self-help book is that if you misunderstand something then it won't mock you. — Stephen Richards

I had to re-write "Philosophy" a lot. It was more obscure than what's in the book now, even! Some things I had to go back to and excise my former self, who was even more dense. I think you should teach whatever you want, Brian! That's the point of books like White Girls, to help free our thoughts! — Hilton Als

Self help books are pointless. Here's something for you ... Men are from Mars, women are from Venus, and self help books are from Uranus. — Craig Ferguson

We finish our own story. The details of our journey are still a mystery. — Steven Cuoco

Sometimes you only get one chance to rewrite the qualities of the character you played in a person's life story. Always take it. Never let the world read the wrong version of you. — Shannon L. Alder

I have had moments where I've had mental-health issues and I've felt like yoga and meditating and reading these Buddhist self-help books actually really help. — Mike White

Within the new self-help books for women, patriarachy and male domination are rarely identified as forces that lead to the oppression, exploitation, and domination of women. Instead, these books suggest that individual relationships between men and women can be changed solely by women making the right choices. — Bell Hooks

Books are sacred wisdom. — Lailah Gifty Akita

The genre of self-help for depression is littered with well-intentioned books that overpraise solutions and raise false hopes. It would be nice to defeat your depression in ten easy steps, but rarely is it so easy. Books that overpraise solutions produce frustrated, disappointed and demoralized readers and damage the credibility of experts. — Jonathan Rottenberg

Once you fight the demons that live in your heart, the ones that live outside will never knock you door. — Birdy Fogh

I learned how to believe in myself. Learned how to set goals, you know, self help books man. I just read every single one I can get a hold of, and I still do. — Drew Carey

Writing is such an industry now. In many ways, that's a good thing, in that it removes all the muse-like mystique and makes it a plain old job, accessible to everyone. But with industry comes jargon. I was aware that jargon was starting to fill those growing shelves of Writer's Self Help books, not to mention the blogosphere. Wherever I looked, the writing of a script was being reduced to A, B, C plots, Text and Subtext, Three Act Structure and blah, blah, blah. And I'd think, that's not what writing is! Writing's inside your head! It's thinking! It's every hour of the day, every day of your life, a constant storm of pictures and voices and sometimes, if you're very, very lucky, insight. — Russell T. Davies

Most of the books I have are indicators of my insecurity. I really wanted to be an intellectual. I really wanted to understand Sartre. I thought that was what made people smart. I have tried to read Being and Nothingness no fewer than twenty times in my life. I really thought that every answer had to be in that book. Maybe it is. The truth is, I can't read anything with any distance. Every book is a self-help book to me. Just having them makes me feel better. I underline profusely but I don't retain much. Reading is like a drug. When I am reading from these books it feels like I am thinking what is being read, and that gives me a rush. That is enough. I glean what I can. I finish some of the unfinished thoughts lingering around in my head by adding the thoughts of geniuses and I build from there. There are bookmarks in most of the denser tomes at around page 20 to 40 because that was where I said, "I get it." Then I put them back on the shelf. — Marc Maron

Although I enjoy digging through the library to help students find books, my aim is to help them develop self-confidence in choosing books for themselves. — Donalyn Miller

Changing yourself is supposed to mean hope, at least according to the self-help books and magazine paradigms, but for me - and I suspect many others - it simply means finding new ways to feel inadequate. — Noelle Howey

Black is associated with power because all vibrational energies of all colors are drawn into one place, ready to be used. Wear black when you feel the need to draw energy to yourself for reviving your strength, energy, and will. — Tae Yun Kim

After reading about ten of those self-help books, I saw that they were leading nowhere. They have an immediate effect, but that effect stops as soon as I close the book. They're just words, describing an ideal world that doesn't exist, not even for the people who wrote them. — Paulo Coelho

If the self-help books worked, it would be a shrinking industry not a growing one. — Steve Maraboli

I recommend anybody go to a bookstore, go down the self-help or new-age section, and just walk those aisles. See what book jumps out at you; there's a good chance it's a book you need in your life. That's basically how I find the books that I read. — Tom Araya

Stop caring about what other people think of you, how they perceive you, or if they approve of you. Start to focus on your inner peace. — Tisha Marie Payton, MHR

When I look for self-help books for myself, I used to be scared that I was going to pick up a book that would depress me even more. — Vinny Guadagnino

A lot of books in the self-help section of your bookstore really belong in the fiction section. — Steve Maraboli

When I wanted to quit smoking cannabis a few years ago and found that I couldn't do it under my own steam I went in search of a self-help book to show me the way. Annoyingly all I could find were books on how to cultivate the damn stuff. So to exact my revenge on the world of publishing I decided to one day write that book myself. — Chris Sullivan

I definitely have a spiritual outlook. I don't usually read self-help books, but I read a great book by a guy called Wayne Dyer, The Power of Intention, which I loved. I'm not a religious guy, in fact I'm probably agnostic but I thought what this writer had to say was really powerful. — Chris Pine

Much popular self-help literature normalizes sexism. Rather than linking habits of being, usually considered innate, to learned behavior that helps maintain and support male domination, they act as those these difference are not value laden or political but are rather inherent and mystical. In these books male inability and/or refusal to honestly express feelings is often talked about as a positive masculine virtue women should learn to accept rather than a learned habit of behavior that creates emotional isolation and alienation ... Self-help books that are anti-gender equality often present women's overinvestment in nurturance as a 'natural,' inherent quality rather than a learned approach to caregiving. Much fancy footwork takes place to make it seem that New Age mystical evocations of yin and yang, masculine and feminine androgyny, and so on, are not just the same old sexist stereotypes wrapped in more alluring and seductive packaging. — Bell Hooks

It's no secret that most memoirs are really self-help books in disguise. — Nathan Hill

I read, and underline, anything I can get my hands on, but I have a particular weakness for self-help books. I love these books, though I dislike the term "self-help." For one thing, it's not accurate. You're not helping yourself. The person who wrote the book is helping you. The only book that can accurately be called self-help is the one you write yourself. The other problem, of course, with self-help books is that they broadcast weakness, and thus invite judgement. That's why my wife insists I keep my sizable collection hidden in the basement, lest dinner guests suspect she is married to a self in need of help. — Eric Weiner

Many self-help books give you these neat, tidy formulas that are really illusions. They dupe people into thinking, 'Well if I can just do that, then everything's going to be okay.' My work differs in that I don't offer quick solutions and simple explanations. — John Bradshaw

While self-help and science-of-happiness books fill whole quadrants of bookstores, the fact that business is booming is a verdict unto itself: We may buy each new bestseller on the power of positivity, but each fresh purchase suggests its lack. As much as we wish it were true, we can't seem to prove that the positive thinking industry is working itself out of a job. — William McDavid

This paying attention is the foundational act of empathy, of listening, of seeing, of imagining experiences other than one's own, of getting out of the boundaries of one's own experience. There's a currently popular argument that books help us feel empathy, but if they do so they do it by helping us imagine that we are people we are not. Or to go deeper within ourselves, to be more aware of what it means to be heartbroken, or ill, or six, or ninety-six, or completely lost. Not just versions of our self rendered awesome and eternally justified and always right, living in a world in which other people only exist to help reinforce our magnificence, though those kinds of books and movies exist in abundance to cater to the male imagination. Which is a reminder that literature and art can also help us fail at empathy if it sequesters us in the Big Old Fortress of Magnificent Me. — Rebecca Solnit

Change is the only constant. Your ability to navigate and tolerate change and its painful uncomfortableness directly correlates to your happiness and general well-being. See what I just did there? I saved you thousands of dollars on self-help books. If you can surf your life rather than plant your feet, you will be happier. Maybe I should have called this book Surf Your Life. The cover could feature a picture of me on a giant wave wearing a wizard hat. I wonder if it's too late. I'll make a call. — Amy Poehler

Life is all about choices. Make the right one and find your happiness. Don't waste a minute thinking of what others have, be contented with what you have. Ask God to help you achieve. He will, if you believe in Him, if you work hard, and if you do not give up on your dreams. After all, if you give up on your dreams how can you blame others who give up on you? — Cecile Rischmann

You cannot control anyone but yourself in this life, and that means you ultimately have the choice in whether you would like life's struggles to define you and keep you down, or would you like them to fuel you to be the very best version of you that you can be. — L.K. Elliott

you know those self-help books that give you permission to love yourself? This one gives you permission to love punctuation. — Lynne Truss