1. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
  2. Peace Is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh
  3. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
  4. Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
  5. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  6. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
  7. Uniformity With God’s Will By Saint Alphonsus de Liguori
  8. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
  9. Daring Greatly by Brene Brown
  10. They Call Me Coach by John Wooden
  11. The Winner Within by Pat Riley
  12. In My Own Words by Mother Teresa
  13. The World According to Mister Rogers by Fred Rogers
  14. “Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman!” by Richard P. Feynman
  15. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  16. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
  17. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
  18. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Patterson
  19. My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
  20. Four Miles to Pinecone by Jon Hassler
  21. Runaway Ralph by Beverly Cleary
  22. Skinnybones by Barbara Park
  23. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
  24. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
  25. At Home by Bill Bryson
  26. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
  27. Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes
  28. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
  29. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
  30. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
  31. Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson
  32. Shane by Jack Schaefer
  33. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
  34. Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman
  35. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Richard Feynman

 

“Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman!”

Adventures of a Curious Character

 

by Richard P. Feynman

 
 

I know I told you that we would be focusing all of April on books that focus solely on quotes, but…well, I lied. I didn’t intentionally lie, so I guess it’s not a lie per se. I just changed my mind I guess. (How dare this Buri guy do that! I was hoping to see Cheryl Strayed’s “Brave Enough” on this next next. Where is “Brave Enough” Buri?!?! Argh! Stupid free blog with great free articles.)

Sorry about that. Security, can you remove that gentleman from the room. Give him a free Nothing Any Good hat on his way out for his troubles.

The point is, we’re don’t doing any more books of quotes, at least not right now. Our next Sticky Book is one that is by my second favorite contemporary scientist (after Albert Einstein of course) and should be required reading for any science lover. It is funny and captivating and awe-inspiring.

 

 

“All the time you’re saying to yourself, ‘I could do that, but I won’t,’ — which is just another way of saying that you can’t.”

 

“You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It’s their mistake, not my failing.”

 

“Of course, you only live one life, and you make all your mistakes, and learn what not to do, and that’s the end of you.”

 

“Learn what the rest of the world is like. The variety is worthwhile.”

 

“That’s the trouble with not being in your own field: You don’t take it seriously.”

 

“Anything can happen, in spite of what you’re pretty sure should happen.”

 

“I don’t know what’s the matter with people: they don’t learn by understanding; they learn by some other way—by rote, or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!”

 

“The individual member of the social community often receives his information via visual, symbolic channels.” I went back and forth over it [trying to understand it], and translated. You know what it means? “People read.”

 

“There were lot of fools at the conference – pompous fools – and pompous fools drive me up the wall. Ordinary fools are alright; you can talk to them and try to help them out. But pompous fools – guys who are fools and covering it all over and impressing people as to how wonderful they are with all this hocus pocus – THAT, I CANNOT STAND! An ordinary fool isn’t a faker; an honest fool is alright. But a dishonest fool is terrible!”

 

“So I have just one wish for you – the good luck to be somewhere where you are free to maintain the kind of integrity I have described, and where you do not feel forced by a need to maintain your position in the organization, or financial support, or so on, to lose your integrity. May you have that freedom.”

 

“Professor Feynman?” “Hey! Why are you bothering me at this time in the morning?” “I thought you’d like to know that you’ve won the Nobel Prize.” “Yeah, but I’m sleeping! It would have been better if you had called me in the morning.”—and I hung up.”

 

“How much do you value life?” “Sixty-four.”

 

Find more writing and publishing tips at Nothing Any Good.
 

Sticky Books are those that you just can’t get out of your head. They stick with you long after you have put the book down and have moved on to something else. These are some of my Sticky Books. I don’t enjoy reviewing books myself. I find I am either full of far too much praise for the book because I know how difficult it can be to write a book, or I am far too negative about a book because, well, I guess I was just in a bad mood. So instead of reviews, I have pulled some of my favorite quotes from each Sticky Book.