Michiko Kakutani Quotes

I can't really stand self-help stuff myself.

There is a lot of stigma and snobbiness about the self-help genre, and I can't vouch for everything out there, but for me, the idea of giving someone else the gift of inspiration and making them feel passionate and capable in an area of their life is the most incredible thing in the world.

If you're reading it in a book, folks, it ain't self-help. It's help.

I'm totally into new age and self-help books. I used to work in a bookstore and that's the section they gave me, and I got way into it. I just loved the power of positive thinking, letting yourself go.

I'm really wary of self-help books.

I've never read a self help book... the most self-help I've read is on a beer mat.

While I ridicule books of self-help, I'm also quite susceptible to them. They help simplify things.

If you're looking for self-help, why would you read a book written by somebody else?

I believe that men are here to grow themselves into best good that they can be - at least, this is what I want to do.

I was never at my best when I was at my worst. When I did do good stuff in the past, it was because I was able to transcend the parts of my being that weren't healthy.

I think every individual has his or her own power, and it's a matter of working, taking time and defining what that power is.

We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves.

Before you can do something you must first be something.

As a teacher I realize that what one learns in school doesn't serve for very much at all, that the only thing one can really learn is self-understanding, and this is something that can't be taught.

We may win when we lose, if we have done what we can; for by so doing we have made real at least some part of that finished product in whose fabrication we are most concerned: ourselves.

Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple, and it is also that difficult.

You think life is a beautiful thing, and you've got to live accordingly. You've got to magnify all your better feelings and better urges and better conscious ideas, and that's your life's evolvement.

Dream and give yourself permission to envision a You that you choose to be.

I think that we all have within us the potential for almost anything. If we play close attention to our lives, then we can get at it somehow.

I'm not a great believer in self-help.

I can't get enough of self-help books of all kinds.

I think we all strive to push ourselves, to overcome our struggles. And when we do, we get to know ourselves better.

What we earnestly aspire to be, that in some sense we are.

The self is just our operation center, our consciousness, our moral compass. So, if we want to act more effectively in the world, we have to get to know ourselves better.

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