Anne Lamott Quotes

No one can appropriate God, goodness, the Bible or Jesus. It just seems that way.

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

If God was giving me a ham, I'd be crazy not to receive it. Maybe it was the ham of God, who takes away the sins of the world.

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

You are going to love some of your characters because they are you or some facet of you, and you are going to hate some of your characters for the same reason.

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

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

Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers.

I was the angriest daughter on earth, and also, one of the most devoted.

Talking to the parents of older kids was helpful for me, since parents of kids the same age as yours won't admit how horrible their children are.

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.

I devoured books like a person taking vitamins, afraid that otherwise I would remain this gelatinous narcissist, with no possibility of ever becoming thoughtful, of ever being taken seriously.

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

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.

The solution is always spiritual, and it almost never has anything to do with the problem ... laughter is carbonated holiness.

I became a Christian before I got sober. So I was a drunk, bulimic Christian.

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

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

The first draft is the child's draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later.

All criticism hurts me. I'm so in the wrong business.

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

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

Mothering has been the richest experience of my life, but I am still opposed to Mother's Day. It perpetuates the dangerous idea that all parents are somehow superior to non-parents.

Presents can make up for some of the disappointments that life doles out, such as it makes almost no sense and is coming to an end more quickly than ever.

I'd like to learn to meditate with more enthusiasm. I can sit down and get quiet for 20 minutes, but it just has not been a part of my Christianity at all.

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

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.

I woke up full of hate and fear the day before the most recent peace march in San Francisco. This was disappointing: I'd hoped to wake up feeling somewhere between Virginia Woolf and Wavy Gravy.

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

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.

...since you can't heal your own sick mind with your own sick mind, I needed to consult somebody else's sick mind.

Feeding a baby is like filling a hole with putty - you get it in and then you sort of shave off all the excess around the hole and get it back in, like you're spackling.

Get to know your characters as well as you can let there be something at stake, and then let the chips fall where they may.

Very few writers really know what they are doing until they have done it.

I never had a particularly strong craving to procreate, except for earlier fantasies of wanting to be Marmee in Little Women.

Quiet, deep breath after any prayer is another form of Amen.

Everybody thinks their opinion is the right one. If they didn't, they would get a new one.

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?

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.

For twenty years I have ached to go back home, when there was nobody there to whom I could return.

But easy's like, who cares? Easy's like, how much is easy going to get you?

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.

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

I understood that the man I was calling for could never ever come back. Because I understood that the man that I was calling for was dead.

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

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

And you try to quiet your mind so you can hear.

I am learning slowly to bring my crazy pinball-machine mind back to this place.

Grace is having a commitment to- or at least an acceptance of- being ineffective and foolish. That our bottled charm is the main roadblock to drinking that clear cool glass of love.

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.