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Anne Lamott Quotes - Page 24

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 have a very dark sense of humor. I swear. I have a very playful relationship with Jesus.

I have a very dark sense of humor. I swear. I have a very playful relationship with Jesus.

Jesus, Dark, Sense Of Humor

I don't think you have time to waste not writing because you are afraid you won't be good at it.

Writing, Thinking, Waste

I get to tell my truth. I get to seek meaning and realization. I get to live fully, wildly, imperfectly. That's why I'm alive. And all I actually have to offer as a writer is my version of life. Every single thing that has happened to me is mine.

Realization, Alive, Offers

She lived in fear of ifonic endings.

Fear

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

Dialogue that is written in dialect is very tiring to read. If you can do it brilliantly, fine. If other writers read your work and rave about your use of dialect, go for it. But be positive that you do it well, because otherwise it is a lot of work to read short stories or novels that are written in dialect. It makes our necks feel funny.

Writing, Being Positive, Dialect

I do not have deep theological understanding or opinion, but I do not read the Bible as the literal word of God.

Understanding, Opinion, Theological

"'Like a puppy in a Christmas stocking'". Interview With Susan Olasky, world.wng.org. September 20, 2003.

My deepest belief is that to live as if we're dying can set us free. Dying people teach you to pay attention and to forgive and not to sweat the small things.

Sweat, People, Forgiving

Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.125, Anchor

Now. Maybe you think it is arrogant or self centered, or ridiculous for me to believe that God bothered to wiggle a cheap bolt out of my new used car because he or she needed to keep me away for a few days until just the moment when my old friend most needed me to help her mother move into whatever comes next. Maybe nothing conscious helped to stall me so that I would be there when I could be most useful. Or maybe it did. I’ll never know for sure. And anyway, it doesn’t really matter.

Mother, Believe, Moving

Anne Lamott (2000). “Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith”, p.102, Anchor

You simply keep putting down one damn word after the other, as you hear them, as they come to you. You can either set brick as a laborer or as an artist.

Writing, Artist, Bricks

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

All parents are an embarrassment to their kids. Often grandparents are the relief. Kids don't have to resist you.

Kids, Grandparent, Relief

"Anne Lamott's directions for grandparents: 'Some Assembly Required'". Interview with Katia Hetter, www.cnn.com. April 6, 2012.

I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her. (Although when I mentioned this to my priest friend Tom, he said that you can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.)

Hate, Writing, Thinking

"Bird by Bird". Book by Anne Lamott, 1994.

I took notes on the people around me, in my town, in my family, in my memory. I took notes on my own state of mind, my grandiosity, the low self-esteem. I wrote down the funny stuff I overheard. I learned to be like a ship's rat, veined ears trembling, and I learned to scribble it all down.

Memories, Self Esteem, People

Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.23, Anchor

Over and over I feel as if my characters know who they are, and what happens to them, and where they have been and where they will go, and what they are capable of doing, but they need me to write it down for them because their handwriting is so bad.

Writing, Character, Needs

I do believe that God is with us even when we're at our craziest and that this goodness guides, provides, and protects.

Believe, Goodness, Guides

Anne Lamott (2000). “Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith”, p.99, Anchor

I am skittish about relationships, as most of the marriages I've seen up close have been ruinous for one or both parties.

Party, Has Beens

Anne Lamott (2014). “Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace”, p.31, Penguin

Everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy, and scared, even the people who seem to have it more or less together.

Broken, Scared, Clingy

"'Every single thing I know, as of today': Author Anne Lamott shares life wisdom in viral Facebook post" by Erin Clements, www.today.com. April 10, 2015.

To be great, art has to point somewhere.

Art, Greatness, Great Art

Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.205, Anchor

Many mornings I check out the news as soon as I wake up, because if it turns out that the world is coming to an end that day, I am going to eat the frosting off an entire carrot cake; just for a start. Then I will move onto vats of clam dip, pots of crime brûlée, nachos, M & M's etc. Then I will max out both my credit cards.

Morning, Moving, Future

We were raised to believe in books, music, and nature.

Believe, Book, Raised

Life does not seem to present itself to me for my convenience, to box itself up nicely so I can write about it with wisdom and a point to make before putting it on a shelf somewhere.

Writing, Doe, Boxes

Anne Lamott (2000). “Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith”, p.69, Anchor

I write everything as a wake-up call to myself and others, to anyone who may have gotten tired of hitting the snooze button.

Writing, Tired, Hitting

I sat down in the sand, breathless with shame and failure. God, I thought, some defender of the weak. Some freedom fighter: Joan of Arc in sunscreen.

Fighter, Shame, Sand

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

My mother was a not-too-devoted atheist. She went to Episcopal church on Christmas Eve every year, and that was mostly it.

Mother, Atheist, Years

Can you imagine the hopelessness of trying to live a spiritual life when you’re secretly looking up at the skies not for illumination or direction, but to gauge, miserably, the odds of rain?

Spiritual, Rain, Odds

Anne Lamott (2000). “Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith”, p.204, Anchor

My understanding is that you get to choose which of your thoughts to go with.

Understanding

Anne Lamott (2012). “Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers”, p.12, Penguin

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