Explore Quotes by A. J. Jacobs

There's a beauty to forgiveness, especially forgiveness that goes beyond rationality. Unconditional love is an illogical notion, but such a great & powerful one

There's a very passionate pro-chewing movement on the Internet called Chewdiasm. They say that we should be chewing 50 to 100 times per mouthful, which is insane. I tried that. It takes like a day and a half to eat a sandwich. But their basic idea is right. If you chew, you'll eat slower and you will get more nutrients.

I tried the paleo diet, which is the caveman diet - lots of meat. And I tried the calorie restriction diet: The idea is that if you eat very, very little - if you're on the verge of starvation, you will live a very long time, whether or not you want to, of course.

I pledged to become the world's greatest expert in a field I knew nothing about.

I've never before been so aware of the thousands of little good things, the thousands of things that go right every day.

My goal? To test out every diet and exercise regimen on planet earth and figure out which work best. I sweated, I cooked, I learned to pole dance. In the end, I lost weight, lowered my cholesterol and doubled my energy level. I feel better than I ever have.

The best we can do, to paraphrase Pollan, is to eat whole foods, mostly plants, and not too much.

I was what they call 'skinny fat' - a body that resembled a python after swallowing a goat.

I was very good at sitting. But I just read so much research about how horrible sitting is for you. It's like, it's really bad. It's like Paula-Deen-glazed-bacon-doughnut bad. So I now move around as much as possible.

The World Health Organization ... estimated that 1.6 million years of healthy living are lost every year in Europe because of noise pollution.

A loud noise will get your fight-or-flight response going. This, over the years, can cause real cardiovascular damage.

More people die on a per mile basis from drunk walking than from drunk driving.

Very few people changed the world by sitting on their couch.

Giulia Melucci has written a wonderfully funny and moving book. It's like Eat, Pray, Love, with recipes.

If my former self and my current self met for coffee, they'd get along OK, but they'd both probably walk out of the Starbucks shaking their heads and saying to themselves, “That guy is kinda delusional.”

I have little shame, no dignity – all in the name of a better cause.

I’d recommend learning to accept rejection. Become friends with rejection. Be nice to rejection, because it’s a huge part of being a writer, no matter where you are in your career.

Its sort of my job to feel good.

I’m not a fan of ‘write what you know.’ If you don’t know, find out. I knew nothing about the Bible before I started writing ‘The Year of Living Biblically.’ That was kind of the point – to learn.

A 2002 Oxford study showed counting sheep actually delays the onset of sleep. It's just too dull to stop us from worrying about jobs and spouses.

I know that you should always say yes to adventures or you'll lead a very dull life.