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Anne Lamott Quotes - Page 15

All Quotes Acceptance Age Animation Anxiety Art Atheist Awakening Belief Caring Certainty Character Children Church Commitment Community Culture Dancing Discipline Doubt Drinking Earth Effort Energy Expectations Faith Fear Feelings Giving Giving Up God Goodness Grace Gratitude Grief Grieving Hardship Hate Healing Heart Heaven Home Hurt Inspiration Inspirational Inspiring Intuition Jesus Joy Laughter Life Loss Lying Magic Makeup Mask Memories Morning Mountain Pain Parenting Past Perfectionism Prayer Progress Reading Reality Recovery Resentment Running Self Esteem Shame Silence Singing Son Soul Spring Struggle Students Suffering Sunday Tea Understanding Vision Waiting Water Worry Writing

My main problem is that over and over again, I try to get all my characters to say stuff that I think is so witty or erudite you know, so that everybody will go.

My main problem is that over and over again, I try to get all my characters to say stuff that I think is so witty or erudite you know, so that everybody will go.

Witty, Character, Thinking

Interview with Austin Allen, bigthink.com. April 6, 2010.

The difference between a writer who toughs it out and one who doesn't is that you push through the parts where you know that you've just written seven pages when all you're looking for is one paragraph.

Differences, Pages, Seven

Interview with Austin Allen, bigthink.com. April 6, 2010.

I see that children fill the existential hollowness many people feel; that when we have children, we know they will need us, and maybe love us, but we don't have a clue how hard it is going to be.

Children, People, Needs

You can change the world with a hot bath, if you sink into it from a place of knowing that you are worth profound care, even when you're dirty and rattled.

Dirty, Knowing, Profound

Anne Lamott (2014). “Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace”, p.37, Penguin

We want a sense that an important character, like a narrator, is reliable. We want to believe that a character is not playing ages or being coy or being manipulative, but is telling the truth to the best of his or her ability...We do not wish to be crudely manipulated...We want to be massaged by a masseur, not whapped by a carpet beater.

Believe, Character, Wish

Sometimes grace is a ribbon of mountain air that gets in through the cracks.

Air, Grace, Mountain

Anne Lamott (2008). “Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith”, p.23, Penguin

My idea of everything going smoothly on an airplane is (a) that I not die in a slow-motion fiery crash or get stabbed to death by terrorists and (b) that none of the other passengers try to talk to me. All conversation should end at the moment the wheels leave the ground.

Airplane, Ideas, Flying

Anne Lamott (2000). “Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith”, p.55, Anchor

Tell the truth as you understand it. If you're a writer, you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act - truth is always subversive.

Truth, Moral, Revolutionary

These are pictures of the people in my family where we look like the most awkward and desperate folk you ever saw, poster children for the human condition.

Children, People, Awkward

Frequently, as so many poets and psalmists and songwriters have said, the invisible shift happens through the broken places.

Broken, Invisible, Poet

"Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers". Book by Anne Lamott, 2012.

There are these people who keep taking you in and feeding you and loving you and making the world a tiny bit safer than it feels. People have community and family, but existentially we are deeply isolated.

People, Loving You, Community

Goodreads Interview, www.goodreads.com. March 2012.

I naturally prefer the company of people who hold grudges, as long as they are not held against me.

Long, People, Grudge

Right foot, left foot, right foot, breathe.

Feet, Breathe, Left

Anne Lamott (2006). “Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith”, p.5, Penguin

What an incredible drug fear is.

Fear, Drug, Incredibles

Anne Lamott (1994). “Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year”, Fawcett

There is nothing more touching to me then a family picture where everyone is trying to look his or her best, but you can see what a mess they all really are.

Touching, Trying, Looks

Anne Lamott (2000). “Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith”, p.190, Anchor

Greasy food is so comforting when you are hungover.

Comforting

Source: www.cosmopolitan.com

Writing is how I communicate my deepest beliefs, and what I hope are helpful observations about our dual citizenship, as children of God, as regular old mixed-up, worried, flawed, precious human beings.

Children, Writing, Belief

"Interview with Anne Lamott, Author of Help, Thanks, Wow". Interview with Jana Llewellyn, www.friendsjournal.org. January 30, 2013.

Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.

Writing, Bird, Kitchen Table

Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, Anchor

Every woman's path is difficult, and many mothers were as equipped to raise children as wire monkey mothers. I say that without judgment: It is, sadly, true. An unhealthy mother's love is withering.

Mother, Children, Love Is

Jealousy is such a direct attack on whatever measure of confidence you’ve been able to muster. But if you continue to write, you are probably going to have to deal with it, because some wonderful, dazzling successes are going to happen for some of the most awful, angry, undeserving writers you know-people who are, in other words, not you.

Writing, People, Awful

Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.122, Anchor

I have a giant ego and terrible self-esteem, so I need to hit the re-set button fairly regularly - to get into presence, and humility, and being right-sized.

Self Esteem, Humility, Ego

"Anne Lamott on 'Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers'". Interview with Lois Alter Mark, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 21, 2012.

And my fear of failure has been lifelong and deep. If you are what you do- and I think my parents may have accidentally given me this idea- and you do poorly, what then? It’s over; you’re wiped out. All those prophecies you heard in the dark have come true, and people can see the real you, see what a schmendrick you are, what a fraud.

Real, Dark, Thinking

What if we gave fifty percent of our discretionary budget to the world’s poor and then counted on the moral power of that action to protect us?

What If, World, Fifty

I knew that the world was a harsh place, and my family was a mess, and even though I danced as fast as I could, I did not feel welcome, did not feel the great Shalom. THIS WORLD WAS NEVER A GOOD MATCH FOR ME. But my belief was that there was a loving magical energy in the world - seen in Nature's beauty and awesomeness, my best girl and women friends, art, music.

Girl, Art, Energy

Source: www.cosmopolitan.com

My theology is based on what I tell my Sunday-school kids - that they are loved and chosen, AS IS, now, today. That the moment is holy, sacred, and all there is - and that we are only as sick as our secrets. So TELL IT.

School, Kids, Sunday

Source: www.cosmopolitan.com

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