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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.

A. J. Jacobs

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A. J. Jacobs
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: March 20
Journalist
Writer
New York City
New York
AJ Jacobs
Arnold Steven Jacobs
Jr.
Honey K Balani
Honey K. Balani
A.J. Jacobs
A J Jacobs
Arnold Stephen Jacobs
Jr.
Part
Careers
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Accepting
Writing
Writer
Huge
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Nice
Rejection
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More quotes by A. J. Jacobs

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The Bible improved my ethical IQ. I started to act like a good person. I tried not to gossip, and lie, and covet, and just by pretending I was a good person, I think I actually became a little bit better of a person. I'm not Gandhi or Angelina Jolie, but it was a baby step.
A. J. Jacobs
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Since I was relatively new to the Bible, I was surprised by the Old Testament God. He's wrathful, but at other times, He's incredibly compassionate. He's not a one-dimensional figure at all.
A. J. Jacobs
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I've rarely said the word Lord, unless it's followed by of the Rings.
A. J. Jacobs
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I have little shame, no dignity – all in the name of a better cause.
A. J. Jacobs
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After a while, if you're committed, you start to believe in the things in which you're praying. It's just cognitive dissonance. You can't live a completely religious life and not start to have it sink in.
A. J. Jacobs
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When I was with the serpent-handlers in Tennessee, it was the most bizarre method of worship I could think of. Yet when you sit with these people, you can kind of see how it makes sense.
A. J. Jacobs
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Sometimes miracles occur only when you jump in.
A. J. Jacobs
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I know that history is simultaneously a bloody mess and a collection of feats so inspiring and amazing they make you proud to share the same DNA structure with the rest of humanity. I know you'd better focus on the good stuff or you're screwed.
A. J. Jacobs
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Med students panic their first year when they learn all the diseases. It's not until the second year that they learn the cures.
A. J. Jacobs
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I always thought the name of Utah’s major newspaper was some sort of weird misspelling of the word “desert.” But no, Deseret is the “land of the honeybee,” according to the Book of Mormon. I guess I should have figured they would have caught a typo in the masthead after 154 years.
A. J. Jacobs
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I'm addicted to self-improvement. The thing is, there's so damn much about myself to improve.
A. J. Jacobs
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I prefer the earlier birth control techniques, which ranged from the delicious (using honey as a spermicide) to the aerobic (jumping backward seven times after coitus).
A. J. Jacobs
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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. J. Jacobs
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The Bible talks a lot about thankfulness, and I'm more thankful than I ever was. I try to concentrate on the hundreds of things that go right in a day, instead of the three or four that go wrong.
A. J. Jacobs
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I am officially Jewish, but I’m Jewish in the same way the Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant.
A. J. Jacobs
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My reading list grows exponentially. Every time I read a book, it'll mention three other books I feel I have to read. It's like a particularly relentless series of pop-up ads.
A. J. Jacobs
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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.
A. J. Jacobs
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A loud noise will get your fight-or-flight response going. This, over the years, can cause real cardiovascular damage.
A. J. Jacobs
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Behavior shapes beliefs.
A. J. Jacobs
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The year showed me beyond a doubt that everyone practices cafeteria religion... But the important lesson was this: there's nothing wrong with choosing. Cafeterias aren't bad per se... the key is in choosing the right dishes. You need to pick the nurturing ones (compassion), the healthy ones (love thy neighbor), not the bitter ones.
A. J. Jacobs