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The question

Which book reshaped how you think, and in what way?
Sylvia Earle

Marine biologist and oceanographer; first woman to serve as Chief Scientist of NOAA

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
I fell in love with the stories by William Beebe, who was an ocean explorer. He discussed what it was like to go down inside a submersible, and peer out of a port hole and see beautiful, luminescent fish, with lights down the side like ocean liners. Bizarre creatures of the sort that you just don’t see walking down the street, or going into the forest, or even looking around in shallow water.

Academy of Achievement recorded interview, American Academy of Achievement, 27 January 1991 source ↗

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Yehuda Amichai Poet
Very much so. I went to synagogue regularly. My first education was interpreting the Bible. But I also grew up with German folk songs and stories, which became as much a part of my imagination as the Bible stories. My sense of history came from these stories—I was fascinated with what you might call fairy-tale-shaped history. But from the beginning I felt I belonged to a different people, which wasn’t any problem for me. I made the German landscape, which was very beautiful to me—flowing rivers, mountains, forests, lakes—into a biblical landscape. The valley of sunshine into which we went on school excursions in my imagination became the valley in which David and Goliath fought.
Recorded Lawrence Joseph, Cafés in Greenwich Village, New York, The Paris Review, Issue 122, Spring 1992, 1992 source ↗
Wendy Kopp Founder of Teach For America; chief executive of Teach For All
The Fountainhead , I think, pretty much saved me in the initial years of Teach For America. I loved that book, but I’m not sure books were the seminal thing that guided my path. ... I think it was sort of about “the creator against the world,” and I was probably feeling at that point that I was up against lots of boulders, to pull off the big idea of Teach For America.
Recorded Academy of Achievement recorded interview, American Academy of Achievement, 17 September 2013 source ↗
Anthony Kennedy Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1988–2018
I think fiction is very important because it gets us into the mind of a person. Hamlet is a tremendous piece of literature. You know Hamlet better than you know most real people. Do you know the reason? Because you know what he’s thinking. And this teaches you that every human has an integrity and an autonomy and a spirituality of his own, of her own, and great literature can teach you that.
Recorded Academy of Achievement recorded interview, American Academy of Achievement, 3 June 2005 source ↗
Sebastian Junger War correspondent and author; co-director of the documentary Restrepo
It’s amazing. I just started looking at everything differently. I love that book. But a book is a kind of thing of magic. It contains a universe of information.
Recorded Tim Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, 1 January 2018 source ↗

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Question What counsel would you give your twenty-year-old self — and what should they ignore? Time & hindsight
They encouraged me, the way I do others now, that if you really have something that you like to do, that’s what you probably should do. Despite what everybody says, that you can’t make a living, or that’s not practical, or a thousand reasons why you may not do this or this or this. If that’s what your heart says you should do, chances are that you ought to listen.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, 27 January 1991 source ↗

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