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Anne Lamott Quotes about Writing - Page 3

All Anne Lamott 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 quotes

Don’t underestimate this gift of finding a place in the writing world: if you really work at describing creatively on paper the truth as you understand it, as you have experienced it, with the people or material who are

Don’t underestimate this gift of finding a place in the writing world: if you really work at describing creatively on paper the truth as you understand it, as you have experienced it, with the people or material who are in you, who are asking that you help them get written, you will come to a secret feeling of honor.

Writing, People, Feelings

There are a lot of us, some published, some not, who think the literary life is the loveliest one possible, this life of reading and writing and corresponding. We think this life is nearly ideal.

Reading, Writing, Thinking

Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.232, Anchor

Write regularly, whether you feel like writing or not, and whether you think what you're writing is any good or not.

Writing, Thinking, Feels

If you are writing the clearest, truest words you can find and doing the best you can to understand and communicate, this will shine on paper like its own little lighthouse. Lighthouses dont go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.

Running, Writing, Shine On

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

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

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

I am not writing to try and convert people to fundamental Christianity. I am just trying to share my experience, strength and hope, that someone who is as messed up and neurotic and scarred and scared can be fully accepted by our dear Lord, no questions asked.

Writing, Dear Lord, People

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

That thing you had to force yourself to do-the actual act of writing-turns out to be the best part.

Writing, Being The Best, Force

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

I'm drawn to almost any piece of writing with the words 'divine love' and 'impeachment' in the first sentence. But I know the word 'divine' makes many progressive people run screaming for their cute little lives, and so one hesitates to use it.

Cute, Running, Writing

The society to which we belong seems to be dying or is already dead. I don't mean to sound dramatic, but clearly the dark side is rising. Things could not have been more odd and frightening in the Middle Ages. But the tradition of artists will continue no matter what form the society takes. And this is another reason to write: people need us, to mirror for them and for each other without distortion-not to look around and say, 'Look at yourselves, you idiots!,' but to say, 'This is who we are.

Mean, Writing, Dark

Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.234, Anchor

The real payoff is the writing itself, that a day when you have gotten your work done is a good day, that total dedication is the point.

Real, Good Day, Writing

Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.215, Anchor

Needless to say, there was no one around remotely fitting the description of a normal person: I was at a writing conference.

Writing, Normal, Fitting

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

I didn't write about my mother much in the third year after she died. I was still trying to get my argument straight: When her friends or our relatives wondered why I was still so hard on her, I could really lay out the case for what it had been like to be raised by someone who had loathed herself, her husband, even her own name.

Mother, Husband, Writing

Plot springs from character... I've always sort of believed that these people inside me- these characters- know who they are and what they're about and what happens, and they need me to help get it down on paper because they don't type.

Spring, Character, Writing

Just don't pretend you know more about your characters than they do, because you don't. Stay open to them. It's teatime and all the dolls are at the table. Listen. It's that simple.

Character, Writing, Simple

Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.53, Anchor

Writing can be a pretty desperate endeavor, because it is about some of our deepest needs: our need to be visible, to be heard, our need to make sense of our lives, to wake up and grow and belong. It is no wonder if we sometimes tend to take ourselves perhaps a bit too seriously.

Writing, Needs, Wake Up

Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.19, Anchor

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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