The key ideas

Greenlights

Matthew McConaughey, 2020

What do you do when life gives you a red light? Matthew McConaughey kept diaries for thirty-five years, then took them into the desert to work out what he had learned from a strict Texas home, a year in the Australian outback, his father's death and turning down millions. His book is about catching more greenlights, and noticing when a red one is really pointing you forward.

Who it is for

For anyone standing at a crossroads or living through a run of rejections. And for everyone who loves stories about life turning somewhere it was never meant to go.

Sometimes we don't need advice. Sometimes we just need to hear that we're not the only ones.

Fifty-two days in the desert

One day Matthew McConaughey gathered up thirty-five years of his diaries, bought a one-way ticket and took them into the desert. There was no family there, no film set, and at first not even electricity. He wanted to reread his own life and see what had really happened in it.

Those pages grew into the book Greenlights. McConaughey, an actor with an Oscar to his name, warns you right away: this is not a traditional memoir and not a book of advice. He calls it an approach book. It holds stories, prayers, poems and short rules that read like bumper stickers. He also calls it a love letter to life.

The main idea hides in the title. A greenlight means "go". Yellow and red lights slow us down: illness, rejection, loss, failure. McConaughey believes that sometimes they are exactly what we need. And in the rearview mirror, many of them turn green with time. This is a book about catching more yeses in a world that so often says no, and about recognising the no that will turn out to be a yes.

Ahead of you: a Texas home with strict rules, a year in the Australian outback and a chance night in a bar that made him an actor. Then his father's death, sudden fame and turning down a huge sum of money. And what he took away from each of these stories.

A home where you couldn't say "I can't"

McConaughey grew up in Texas, in a family where the rules were not up for debate. His parents didn't hope their sons would follow them. They expected it. All three brothers knew the three laws: don't lie, don't say "I can't" and don't say "I hate". Breaking one meant a whipping, and once Matthew got one just for saying "I can't".

His parents' own life together was stormy. One fight at the dinner table turned into a brawl where even the ketchup came into play. It ended with the two of them making up right there on the kitchen floor. McConaughey tells it without resentment, even with tenderness.

He writes that his first twenty years taught him the value of values. A strictness some would call cruel, he remembers as tough love, and he says he wouldn't give back a single whipping. That is his view of his own childhood, not advice on raising children. From that home he carried away what he calls outlaw logic. First learn the rules, and you can break them once you've grown into it.

That gives you the book's first idea. At the start of anything new, you need discipline and limits: time to learn, to watch and to listen. Later, when you know the craft, the people and the plan, you can create freely. In McConaughey's words, creativity needs boundaries.

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About the author

Matthew McConaughey is an American actor from Texas who won an Oscar for his role in Dallas Buyers Club. He also starred in Interstellar and in the series True Detective.

All books by this author: Matthew McConaughey

Terms from the book

  • Amazon
  • Austin
  • Mandino
  • Hyatt
  • Memoir
  • Oscar: The top American film award, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
  • Greenlight: The book's central image: anything that tells you "go". In McConaughey's telling, yellow and red lights stand for hardships and stops. It is the author's metaphor, not a technical term.
  • Outlaw logic: McConaughey's phrase for how he was raised: first obey the rules strictly, and earn the right to break them once you have grown into it. An image from the book, not a technical term.
  • Warnervale: A small town in the Australian state of New South Wales, north of Sydney. McConaughey spent the first months of his exchange year there.
  • Forced winter: McConaughey's image for a hard stretch when there is nothing outside to lean on and you have to look inward. He says those were the times he grew the most.
  • Process of elimination: The author's way of finding himself: first work out who you are not and what you don't want, and only then who you are.
  • Phillips: Don Phillips, an American casting director. After a chance meeting in a bar, he invited McConaughey to read for Linklater's film.
  • Casting director: The person who chooses the actors for the roles in a film or a series.
  • Linklater: Richard Linklater, an American film director from Texas. He made Dazed and Confused (1993), the film that started McConaughey's career.
  • Wooderson: David Wooderson, McConaughey's character in Dazed and Confused: an older guy who still hangs out with high school kids.
  • Schumacher: Joel Schumacher, an American film director. He made A Time to Kill (1996), based on John Grisham's novel, and gave McConaughey the lead role.
  • Peru: A country in South America. Part of it is covered by the forests of the Amazon basin.
  • Alves: Camila Alves, a Brazilian model and entrepreneur, McConaughey's wife. They married in 2012.
  • Levi: Levi McConaughey, the elder son of Matthew and Camila, born in 2008.
  • Rom-com: Short for "romantic comedy": a light film about love with a happy ending.
  • Malibu: A beach town on the California coast near Los Angeles, where many celebrities live.
  • Paparazzi: Photographers who chase pictures of celebrities, often without their consent.

All terms

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