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Anne Lamott Quotes - Page 18

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

The beauty of modesty ... a virtue the world doesn't have much truck with: one ordinary flower in a vase, as opposed to a bouquet.

The beauty of modesty ... a virtue the world doesn't have much truck with: one ordinary flower in a vase, as opposed to a bouquet.

Flower, Ordinary, World

Anne Lamott (2008). “Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith”, p.65, Penguin

Grief is just so scary.... If we finally begin to cry all those suppressed tears, they will surely wash us away like the Mississippi River. That's what our parents told us. We got sent to our rooms for having huge feelings. In my family, if you cried or got angry, you didn't get dinner.

Grief, Rivers, Parent

Why couldn't Jesus command us to obsess over everything, to try to control and manipulate people, to try not to breathe at all, or to pay attention, stomp away to brood when people annoy us, and then eat a big bag of Hershey's Kisses in bed?

Jesus, Kissing, People

When we did art with the kids, the demons would lie down.

Art, Lying, Kids

Anne Lamott (2006). “Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith”, p.68, Penguin

It feels like I'm babysitting in the Twilight Zone. I keep waiting for the parents to show up because we are out of chips and diet cokes.

Twilight, Waiting, Parent

We're like Magic 8-Balls. After you ask your question and shake the 8-Ball, you read the answer in the little window. If you ever broke open a Magic 8-Ball with a hammer, you discovered that it contained a many-sided plastic object, with an answer on every facet, floating in a cylinder of murky blue fluid. The many-sided core held the answer to your question. My theory is that, as with our children, as with every surface of that geodesic dome inside the 8-Ball, every age we've ever been is who we are.

Children, Blue, Magic

Anne Lamott (2008). “Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith”, p.64, Penguin

I'd wanted to be a writer my whole life. But when I finally made it, I felt like a greyhound catching the mechanical rabbit she'd been chasing for so long--discovering it was merely metal, wrapped in cloth. It wasn't alive; it had no spirit. It was fake.

Long, Fake, Rabbits

Anne Lamott (2006). “Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith”, p.304, Penguin

No one is more sentimentalized in America than mothers on Mother's Day, but no one is more often blamed for the culture's bad people and behavior.

Inspiring, Mothers Day, America

It's funny where we look for salvation, and where we actually find it.

Looks, Salvation

What people somehow forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here.

Children, Order, People

Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.32, Anchor

Slowly, after dozens of rejection slips and failures and false starts and postponed dreams - what Langston Hughes called dreams deferred - I stepped onto the hallowed ground of being a published novelist, and then 15 years later, I even started to make real money.

Dream, Real, Years

Anne Lamott (2006). “Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith”, p.304, Penguin

I think we're all pretty crazy on this bus. I'm not sure I know anyone who's got all the dots on his or her dice.

Crazy, Thinking, Dots

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

Having a child as a single mother was a crucible - maybe this is true for all parents. I got rid of so much stuff that didn't really matter in the scheme of things-like throwing stuff out of an airplane that kept me flying too low. What was left was essential, i.e. not a lot of extraneous stuff that had kept me busy and people-pleasing. I just didn't have the luxury of wasting my life force on so much stupidity and distraction. That made me strong.

Mother, Strong, Children

Source: www.psychologytoday.com

One line of dialogue that rings true reveals character in a way that pages of description can't.

Character, Lines, Pages

Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.47, Anchor

The truth is that progress is usually small and sneaky.

Progress, Truth Is, Sneaky

Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Don't worry about appearing sentimental. Worry about being unavailable; worry about being absent or fraudulent.

Writing, Emotional, Worry

I honestly think that in order to be a writer you have to learn to be reverent. If not, why are you writing? Why are you here?

Writing, Thinking, Order

Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.99, Anchor

There is a door we all want to walk through and writing can help you find it and open it.

Writing, Doors, Want

Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.13, Anchor

Mine was a patchwork God, sewn together from bits of rag and ribbon, Eastern and Western, pagan and Hebrew, everything but the kitchen sink and Jesus.

Jesus, Kitchen, Together

Anne Lamott (2000). “Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith”, p.41, Anchor

[Her] work taught me that you could be all the traditional feminine things -- a mother, a lover, a listener, a nurturer -- and you could also be critically astute and radical and have a minority opinion that was profoundly moral.

Mother, Minorities, Taught

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

Frederick Buechner is one of my favorite writers. The Eyes of the Heart is beautiful and wise, full of insight, charm, and tenderness.

Beautiful, Wise, Heart

At some point I started getting published, and experienced a meager knock-kneed standing in the literary world, and I started to get almost everything that many of you graduates are hoping for--except for the money. I got a lot of things that society had promised would make me whole and fulfilled--all the things that the culture tells you, from preschool on, will quiet the throbbing anxiety inside you. I got some stature, the respect of other writers, even a low-grade fame. The culture says these things will save you, as long as you also manage to keep your weight down. But the culture lies.

Lying, Long, Anxiety

Anne Lamott (2006). “Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith”, p.303, Penguin

Some people may have thought that this book was too personal, too confessional. But what these people think about me is none of my business.

Book, Thinking, People

If you are hoping to find your self-worth and fulfillment in other peoples' opinion of your writing, you will never find it.

Writing, Self Worth, Opinion

Toni Morrison said, "The function of freedom is to free someone else," and if you are no longer wracked or in bondage to a person or a way of life, tell your story. Risk freeing someone else. Not everyone will be glad that you did. Members of your family and other critics may wish you had kept your secrets. Oh, well, what are you going to do?

Risk, Secret, Wish

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