Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey
I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.
Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges – how to get relative with the inevitable – you can enjoy a state of success I call “catching greenlights.”
So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops.
Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.
It’s a love letter. To life.
It’s also a guide to catching more greenlights – and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too.
Good luck.
For the Reading Challenge(s):
2026 Nonfiction Reader Challenge
2026 52 Book Club Reading Challenge (Prompt #42: Includes a handwritten interior font)
The Reason
Someone recommended it highly to me, and it fit the 2026 52 Book Club Reading Challenge prompt so I moved it up my TBR.
The Quotes
“I haven’t made all A’s in the art of living. But I give a damn. And I’ll take an experienced C over an ignorant A any day.”
“Life is our resume. It is our story to tell, and the choices we make write the chapters. Can we live in a way where we look forward to looking back?”
“I have a lot of proof that the world is conspiring to make me happy.”
“I never wrote things down to remember; I always wrote things down so I could forget.”
“Sometimes which choice you make is not as important as making a choice and commiting to it.”
The Narrator(s)
The author, Matthew McConaughey. I loved it!
My Thoughts
This is probably one of the best books I’ve read this year. I had no strong feelings towards Matthew McConaughey as an actor before reading this book. I’d loved many movies he’d been in and I have always thought he was a great actor but I just didn’t know very much about him. Now after reading the book, I have so much more admiration and respect for him.
I respect his confidence and work ethic, and the way he went after what he wanted in life. I also really love his attitude and approach to life; he seems like an introspective person who doesn’t take any of his accomplishments in life for granted. I listened to this book on audio while also reading it on a physical copy – because there were many notes, photos, and other notions included in the physical copy – and I loved seeing copies of his handwritten notes, featured quotes, and more. There were so many quotable words of wisdom, and I’m pretty sure that if it wasn’t a library copy, I would’ve highlighted almost the whole book!
This is one book that I would recommend reading both on audiobook and on the physical copy if you can. His narration is wonderful to listen to, so high energy it lifts you up too, and it sounds like he’s just having a nice conversation with you. And reading the physical book is wonderful too because of the format and the included photos and notions. I loved the whole experience.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
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