Best Quotes From All The Books I Read In 2020
2020 was another great year for me in terms of books. I discovered ideas that flipped by world view upside down; I read words that opened my mind and expanded my idea of the possibilities available to me.
That’s the amazing thing about books. They allow you to get inside the mind of millionaires, celebrities, philosophers: some of the greatest and smartest men that ever lived. I had never thought about the way I think, or about the possibility of having an open, or multiple open, long term relationships.
I discovered those ideas, and more, in the books I read this year.
Over the last 12 months,
I stumbled upon some new books,
continued my practice of revisiting important ones, and
rediscovered a classic from my childhood. (Re-reads are denoted by an asterisk. *)
In 2020, I read books in digital version on the Kindle app for the first time, and listened more on Audible. Digital copies of books are much more convenient, as I can carry dozens of books in my pocket, as well as effectively “read” while I work out or do house projects. I still enjoy highlighting, and scribbling in physical copies, so I did buy actual books that I really loved.
Here is the best of everything I read in 2020.
Business/ Money
Unscripted- MJ DeMarco
Unscripted is this decade’s Four Hour Work Week. You’ll hear many Youtubers mention it, which is where I heard about it first. DeMarco drops huge mindset shifts, and turns the idea of “quick internet millions” on its head.
His main points are that you shouldn’t follow popular advice about jobs, money, investments. Produce value, he advises, and you will make money.
“If you want to live well, produce well. The more production you thrust into society, the bigger your house, the faster your car, and the juicier your steak.”
The book gets preachy in parts and has some “Old Man Yells At Cloud” moments, but overall, the advice is golden. This is the best business/ mindset book I read in 2020.
“There is no shortcut, hard work and late nights are required.”
“The shortcut scam is the idea that extraordinary results can be achieved by uncovering a secret bypass or a miracle weapon.”
“Success is simpler than you think. Axe the shortcut, honor the process principle, and to the necessary work.”
2. Alpha Money Strategies- Alpha Male Strategies
AMS isn’t a poet or a philosopher.
He’s a plain spoken guy from backwoods Alabama, who turned a $600 personal training certificate into a 6 figure business.
Then he turned crappy, unedited videos filmed in his bedroom, on an iPhone, into Youtube channel with hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Since 2018, he’s written 3 books, built a seven figure Patreon, and influenced MILLIONS of men to “get on their purpose”, exhorting them to pursue success and achievement over chasing women.
“To accomplish anything in life, it’s going to require some type of sacrifice. People who aren’t willing to sacrifice end up working for an employer who was willing to sacrifice.”
There’s nothing in this book that he hasn’t said on his wildly popular Youtube channel, but it’s good to have it all in one place, without distractions. Honestly, I’ve gotten laid plenty of times from AMS’ free advice; I’m happy to support anything he does.
The book is a quick read with solid, actionable advice. His mentality is one you will hear OVER AND OVER in the Manosphere: the complete man MUST build his own business, and work for himself.
“Selling your time for money is shortsighted and not seeing the big picture.”
“Successful people think, ‘How is this going to benefit me twenty years from now?’ Poor people think, ‘How is this going to affect me today?’”.
“Anytime you ask someone for something more than once, you’re basically begging at that point.”
3. Tribes- Seth Godin
There was the Industrial Age, the Information Age, the Gig Economy, and now, the Influencer Age. If you haven’t noticed, everyone and their mom has a monetized blog, Youtube channel, and an IG account. (Present company included.)
This is a short, fun read about the importance of connecting like-minded people together effectively, and how to profit from doing so.
“A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea.”
“A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate.”
“Life’s too short to hate what you do all day. Life’s way too short to make mediocre stuff.”
“Successful heretics create their own religions.”
Dating/ Sex
Atomic Attraction- Chris Canwell
The fundamentals of game are:
1. Be Attractive, and 2. Don’t Be Unattractive.
In this book, psychologist Chris Canwell references university studies and data to show what sparks feelings of attraction in women. He explains that modern men have been purposely deluded and lied to about women wanting “nice guys”, and throws that idea out the window, in favor of the truth.
Women aren’t hard to understand, they just think opposite of what you’ve been taught. I recommended this book previously in my post “How To Get Girls”.
“Attractive people have easier lives. Attractive people make more money, get more promotions, get better jobs, have more friends, and have more sex.”
“Women are attracted to strength and masculinity. Anything you can do to enhance your strength and masculinity will make you significantly more attractive to women.”
“A man is limited only by his beliefs and his imagination.”
“A woman will never hold it against you for making your intentions clear and expressing interest.”
How to Be A 3% Man*- Corey Wayne
I read and re-read this book several times A MONTH on Audible. It’s safe to say I have it memorized at this point. Frankly, Corey Wayne is a god to me.
I’ve read MANY books about attraction, masculinity, and female psychology. This one is the BEST combination of all 3 of those aspects, as well as the one book that contains the most practical advice.
3% Man is a playbook.
Corey Wayne explains EVERYTHING the woman will say, and explains what she means. He also tells you EVERYTHING you should do and say, as well as NOT do and say, from the moment you meet a woman, until you get her in bed, or walk her down the aisle, if that’s what you want.
There are many important books on game, but if you had to read JUST ONE, make it this one.
I recommended this book in a previous post “How to Get Girls: Three Books to Massively Improve Your Dating & Sex Life”.
“Most men talk women out of dating and sleeping with them.”
“Women should be doing 70- 80% of the talking. Ask questions, and shut up.”
“Women want a man who is a challenge.”
“Women are curious: be a mystery and keep her guessing.”
Attraction Is Not A Choice*- David DeAngelo
“To most men who have never experienced it, success with women is unexplainable—it basically looks like magic. “
“If you meet a woman and interact with her long enough for her to form an initial impression of you, and she feels no attraction for you, then THERE‘S BASICALLY NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT! No amount of kicking, screaming, calling, trying, buying her things, or taking her out will do a damn thing about it.”
“Ask yourself this question: How many ―physically attractive women have you known? Most people have met HUNDREDS of attractive women…
A REAL MAN, however, who has life together is FAR MORE RARE AND DESIRABLE than an attractive woman.”
The Unchained Man- Caleb Jones
I grabbed this on Audible on a whim. I’d never heard of the author, or the title before.
It’s excellent, just for the new ideas that it injected into my consciousness.
I’d never considered having multiple open long term relationships, or the importance of prioritizing health, financial success, and sex, before I read this book. Jones’ ground rules are, a man MUST 1. own his own financially successful business, and 2. have sex AT LEAST twice a week, and optimally with more than one woman. He also explains his philosophy of “7 Life Areas”, some times management tips, advice about business and money.
Great stuff.
“The world is full of people doing things that make them unhappy.”
Free Agent Lifestyle- Coach Greg Adams
One of the top 10 books I read this year. It impacted me so much that I wrote a post about it previously. Read my full review here.
Mindset
Psycho-Cybernetics- Maxwell Maltz
This book is a hidden classic. It’s the foundation of EVERYTHING in NLP, self-development, and everything that ever came out of Tony Robbins mouth (no disrespect intended). Everything I ever or heard in any aspect of self-help was written in Psycho-Cybernetics in the 1950s.
NLP The Essential Guide- Tom Hoobyar, Tom Dotz, Susan Sanders
“NLP is the revolutionary study of the PROCESS of human thought.”
“The funny thing is, when I changed, the people around me changed too.”
“Here’s my point: how you think can profoundly affect what you think.”
Ultra-learning (didn’t finish)
Good concept, but I found it boring, and didn’t finish. For me, it was a lot of platitudes and filler.
The main point is, “Anyone can learn anything really fast, with the right approach.”
There, now you don’t even have to read it.
The Rational Male- Rollo Tomassi
This goes on your bookshelf right next to The Holy Bible.
As such, I quote it on the blog often. Other books I’ve recommended teach practical application, this book is higher level theory, loaded with excellent, eye-opening ideas.
If I could get EVERY man in the world to read ONE book, it would be this one.
“Sexuality is a woman’s first, best agency.”
“Relationships last best when you spin more plates, or at the very least, keep each other at arms’ length.”
“The closer you get to the truth, the louder women screech.”
“Women tell the complete truth with their actions.”
“You’re more skeptical of things you don’t want to believe, and demand a higher burden of proof.”
Eat That Frog- Brian Tracy
Brian Tracy is a legend in the self-development field, and with good reason. He writes actionable advice that you can implement immediately. You could rip a page out of any Brian Tracy book and get enough actionable advice to change your career.
“Just find out what other successful people do and do the same things until you get the same results.”
“The ability to concentrate single-mindedly on your most important task, to do it well and to finish it completely, is the key to great success, achievement, respect, status, and happiness in life.”
“Your success in life and work will be determined by the kinds of habits you develop over time.”
Society
De-Evolution- Coach Greg Adams
Coach is a legendary as the hardest working man in the Manosphere. In the last 2 years, he built 6 Youtube channels with 200k subscribers, dropped a men’s self-improvement course, and wrote two books.
Devolution explores the fallout of feminism, which he boldly asserts is “worse than slavery”. Excellent follow-up to his first book The Free Agent Lifestyle, also on this list.
“As soon as you’re not raining praise, accolades, and empowering phrases upon women, they want you to be silent.”
“Relationships have become a one-sided deal because women feel entitled to receive all of the benefits associated with the union, and provide very little in return.”
“When men were incentivized to be responsible, they did it.”
Bronze Age Mindset- Bronze Pervert
I don’t know how to describe this book, except to say that I liked it a lot.
It’s thought provoking, interesting, and fresh. It’s rambling, idealistic, and vulgar, with intentional misspellings and shitty grammar. It’s as if he’s mocking society as a whole, and “nerds” who care about such trivial matters.
"Nerds, so prized by the clothmos who rule the cities and want to think that, well, at least they’re smart and deserve RESPECT, are people who possess a kind of self-destructive parody of intelligence. Their facility with pointless concepts and abstractions make them think they have an understanding of real things when all they have is a misunderstanding of words and grammar, overgeneralized to the point of meaninglessness.”BAP asserts that modern technology and leftist politics have made humanity, especially men, soft, spiritually estranged, and “bug-like”. He offers:
“Spiritually your insides are all wet, and there’s a huge hole through where monstrous powers are fucking your brain, letting loose all your life and power of focus.”
It’s been called “racist”, but that doesn’t make him 100% wrong, and that’s not really the point.
I heard Bronze Age Mindset called the On The Road of this generation, and I agree.
I was enraptured by Kerouac in my late teen college years. I felt the same sense of wonder, and a realization of huge new possibilities from reading this book.
“No kind of distress is worse than the feeling that you are trapped.”
“Life has a thing inside it that reaches beyond itself.”
“The desire for respect is the true mark of the forever slighted.”
“You don’t see yourself as you really are, but maybe some nightmare can show it to you.”
His views on religion and gods were most piercing:
“The weakness and spinelessness of modern man- no god would show himself to such creatures, to be jeered at!”
The Lives of Three Golden Age Bodybuilders- Raw Egg Nationalist
I follow this guy (@Babygravy9) on Twitter.
When it dropped, I bought the book just to support a guy who’s thoughts I appreciate. I ended up enjoying the hell out of this book. Along with Bronze Age Mindset, and Coach Greg Adams’ two books, there is some excellent ideas being published in independent media, mostly because today’s “cancel culture” prohibits interesting ideas from reaching the mainstream
“It [Roman history] was by its' very nature… meant to edify and not just inform. It was a ‘monumental essay’… stories that empower the reader with noble examples to emulate in the present.”
He talks about Golden Age bodybuilders and how they thought, lived, and trained. It’s offered as an alternative to the narcissistic bodybuilding lifestyles of modern Instagram twinks.
“To put it another way, you could say that every life has the form of a quest, within which are nested multiple smaller quests, some of a narrower, more local meaning and others meaningful only within the whole.”
“For some, there is only vain, directionless striving… the random movement of particles, before they are snuffed out- but for others, men of power, there is direction, coherence, purpose- triumph.”
“For those wanting to build a body in service of a life, rather than dedicate their life to the service of a body, I give you: Reg Park, Chuck Sipes, and Chet Yorton. Let the monuments of their lives inspire you to great deeds.”
Relationships
Just Listen- Mark Goulston
A clinical psychologist and former FBI hostage negotiator explains why the best way to handle any relationship is to “Just Listen”.
Most people don’t have anyone to talk to about their deep feelings and thoughts, because everyone is always talking about themselves. You can set yourself apart, make your relationships deep and meaningful, and become a person that everyone turns to by simply listening.
48 Laws of Power*- Robert Greene
A classic that I re-read at least once a year. Every time I go back to this book, I get a new insight that I’d missed before.
Ironically, I think the MOST VALUABLE part of this book is the introduction, where he just talks about the nature of power itself.
“Patience is a skill. Patience is the supreme virtue of the gods, who have nothing on their hands but time.”
“Concentrate on a single goal, and beat it into submission.”
“Be a source of pleasure.”
“When you say less than necessary, you appear greater than you are.”
Fiction
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn*- Mark Twain
I listened to the Audible version narrated by Elijah Wood. If there is such a thing as an Oscar for audiobook narrators, he should have won it.
This book is a fantastic classic of adventure and boyhood. I read this as a child first. There was something magical about enjoying it as an adult.
