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Anne Lamott Quotes - Page 20

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

I was raised by my parents to believe that you had a moral obligation to try and save the world. You sent money to the Red Cross, you registered people to vote, you marched in rallies, stood in vigils, picked up litter.

I was raised by my parents to believe that you had a moral obligation to try and save the world. You sent money to the Red Cross, you registered people to vote, you marched in rallies, stood in vigils, picked up litter.

Believe, People, Parent

Anne Lamott (2000). “Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith”, p.9, Anchor

The evidence is in, and you are the verdict.

Evidence, Verdict

Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.46, Anchor

by then I'd figured out the gift of failure, which is that it breaks through all that held breath and isometric tension about needing to look good: it's the gift of feeling floppier.

Break Through, Feelings, Looks

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

When hope is not pinned wriggling onto a shiny image or expectation, it sometimes floats forth and opens like one of those fluted Japanese blossoms, flimsy and spastic, bright and warm. This almost always seems to happen in community.

Faith, Expectations, Community

When you're conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader.

Real, Writing, Caring

Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.225, Anchor

There is nothing as sweet as a comeback, when you are down and out, about to lose, and out of time.

Sweet, Down And, Comeback

Write as if your parents are dead.

Writing, Parent, Ifs

Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.199, Anchor

Sometimes, no matter how screwed up things seem, I feel like we're all at a wedding. But you can't just come out and say, We're at a wedding! Have some cake! You need to create a world into which we can enter, a world where we can see this.

Cake, Needs, World

Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.236, Anchor

Looking back on the God my friend believed in, he seems a little erratic, not entirely unlike her father - God as borderline personality.

God, Father, Personality

Anne Lamott (2000). “Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith”, p.11, Anchor

if you want to know how God feels about money, look at whom she gives it to.

God, Money, Giving

Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.128, Anchor

I could become like that dyslexic agnostic in the old joke - the one who lies in bed and tries to figure out if his dog exists.

God, Dog, Lying

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

I went to Goucher College in Maryland for the best possible reasons - to learn - but then I dropped out at 19 for the best possible reasons - to become a writer.

College, Reason, Maryland

Anne Lamott's commencement speech at University of California in Berkeley, www.graduationwisdom.com. 2003.

When we're dealing with the people in our family - no matter how annoying or gross they may be, no matter how self-inflicted their suffering may appear, no matter how afflicted they are with ignorance, prejudice or nose hairs - we give from the deepest parts of ourselves.

Ignorance, Hair, Self

Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something-anything-down on paper. A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft-you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft-you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it's loose or cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy.

Writing, Effort, Healthy

Rituals are a good signal to your unconscious that it is time to kick in.

Inspirational, Writing, Signals

Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.117, Anchor

For some of us, good books and beautiful writing are our ultimate solace, even more comforting than exquisite food.

Beautiful, Book, Writing

Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.108, Anchor

There is ecstasy in paying attention.

Attention, Pay Attention, Ecstasy

Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.100, Anchor

A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way.

Lying, Way, Steps

Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.52, Anchor

I wish there were shortcuts to wisdom and self-knowledge: cuter abysses or three-day spa wilderness experiences. Sadly, it doesn't work that way. I so resent this.

Wisdom, Self, Wish

Here are the two best prayers I know: 'Help me, help me, help me,' and 'Thank you, thank you, thank you.' A woman I know says, for her morning prayer, 'Whatever,' and then for the evening, 'Oh, well,' but has conceded that these prayers are more palatable for people without children.

Morning, Prayer, Children

Anne Lamott (2000). “Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith”, p.75, Anchor

Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers.

Prayer, Wow, Essentials

Anne Lamott (2014). “Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace”, p.1, Penguin

I realized I was going to get through this disappointing service, and anyway, you have to be somewhere: better here, where I have heard truth spoken so often, than, say, at the DMV, or home alone, orbiting my own mind. And it's good to be out where others can see you, so you can't be your ghastly spoiled self. It forces you to act slightly more elegantly, and this improves your thoughts, and thereby the world.

Home, Self, Mind

only grieving can heal grief; the passage of time will lessen the acuteness, but time alone, without the direct experience of grief, will not heal it.

Grief, Grieving, Alone Time

Anne Lamott (2000). “Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith”, p.63, Anchor

Sometimes it feels like God has reached down and touched me, blessed me a thousand times over, and sometimes it all feels like a mean joke, like God's advisers are Muammar Qaddafi and Phyllis Schlafly.

Life, God, Blessed

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

The worst part about celebrating another birthday is the shock that you're only as well as you are.

Birthday, Celebrate, Shock

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