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Anne Lamott Quotes - Page 5

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

Butterflies and birds are like one perfect teaspoon of creation.

Butterflies and birds are like one perfect teaspoon of creation.

Butterfly, Perfect, Bird

...the three things I cannot change are the past, the truth, and you.

Past, Three, Three Things

Anne Lamott (2012). “Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers”, p.14, Penguin

If you always dreamed of writing a novel or a memoir, and you used to love to write, and were pretty good at it, will it break your heart if it turns out you never got around to it? If you wake up one day at eighty, will you feel nonchalant that something always took precedence over a daily commitment to discovering your creative spirit? If not--if this very thought fills you with regret--then what are you waiting for?

Regret, Writing, Heart

I'm not going to change the way people think about me, but I can say you know what? I'm not going to carry that in my backpack.

Thinking, People, Way

Source: www.pbs.org

Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises.

Writing, Giving, Surprise

Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.26, Anchor

All those years I fell for the great palace lie that grief should be gotten over as quickly as possible and as privately. But, what I've discovered is that the lifelong fear of grief keeps us in a barren, isolated place, and that 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.

Lying, Grief, Grieving

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

I think this is how we are supposed to be in the world-present and in awe.

Thinking, World, Dark Clouds

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

In a library, you can find small miracles and truth, and you might find something that will make you laugh so hard that you will get shushed, in the friendliest way. I have found sanctuary in libraries my whole life, and there is sanctuary there now, from the war, from the storms of our families and our own minds. Libraries are like mountains or meadows or creeks: sacred space. So this afternoon, I'll walk to the library.

War, Space, Laughing

Anne Lamott (2006). “Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith”, p.143, Penguin

All freedom comes from discipline.

Discipline

I am going to notice the lights of the earth, the sun and the moon and the stars, the lights of our candles as we march, the lights with which spring teases us, the light that is already present.

Stars, Spring, Moon

Anne Lamott (2006). “Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith”, p.145, Penguin

It's incredibly touching when someone who seems so hopeless finds a few inches of light to stand in and makes everything work as well as possible. All of us lurch and fall, sit in the dirt, are helped to our feet, keep moving, feel like idiots, lose our balance, gain it, help others get back on their feet, and keep going.

Moving, Fall, Helping Others

Anne Lamott (2008). “Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith”, p.36, Penguin

I spent my whole life helping my mother carry around her psychic trunks like a bitter bellhop. So a great load was lifted when she died, and my life was much easier.

Mother, Psychics, Helping

And she is going to dance, dance hungry, dance full, dance each cold astonishing moment, now when she is young and again when she is old.

Dance, Cold, Moments

Trying to reason with an addict was like trying to blow out a lightbulb.

Blow, Trying, Reason

Anne Lamott (2010). “Imperfect Birds: A Novel”, p.192, Penguin

The world is always going to be dangerous, and people get badly banged up, but how can there be more meaning than helping one another stand up in a wind and stay warm?

Wind, People, World

Sometimes grace works like water wings when you feel you are sinking.

Wings, Water, Grace

Anne Lamott (2008). “Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith”, p.43, Penguin

Dancing almost always turns out to be a good idea.

Dance, Ideas, Dancing

Anne Lamott (2008). “Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith”, p.35, Penguin

A man dies and goes to heaven. He is being shown around by an angel. Everything is just so sweet and gentle, the total golden tender presence of God everywhere, a pond over there, a beautiful field there, and some hills for people who like to hike, and this expansiveness in every direction of sky and light and physical beauty. And there is this section separated from the rest; it has beautiful high walls. The man who's just come to heaven says, "What's over there?" The angel says, "That's for the fundamentalists. They don't consider it heaven if anyone else got in.

Beautiful, Sweet, Wall

A hundred years from now? All new people.

Memorable, Years, People

Small is how blessings, healing, progress and increase occur.

Healing, Blessing, Progress

If you have a body, you are entitled to the full range of feelings. It comes with the package.

Feelings, Body, Range

Anne Lamott (2008). “Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith”, p.74, Penguin

You are not your bank account, or your ambitiousness. You're not the cold clay lump with a big belly you leave behind when you die. You're not your collection of walking personality disorders. You are spirit, you are love.

Personality, Clay, Spirit

Anne Lamott's Commencement Address at University of California in Berkeley, California, www.salon.com. July 6, 2003.

Perfection is shallow, unreal, and fatally uninteresting.

Perfection, Shallow, Unreal

This is one thing they forget to mention in most child-rearing books, that at times you will just lose your mind. Period.

Children, Book, Mind

Anne Lamott (2006). “Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith”, p.96, Penguin

Prayer is talking to something or anything with which we seek union, even if we are bitter or insane or broken. (In fact, these are probably the best possible conditions under which to pray.) Prayer is taking a chance that against all odds and past history, we are loved and chosen, and do not have to get it together before we show up.

Prayer, Past, Odds

Anne Lamott (2013). “Help, Thanks, Wow”, p.8, Hachette UK

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