Anne Lamott Quotes

My father really taught me that you really develop the habit of writing and you sit down at the same time every day, you don't wait for inspiration.

My father was a writer, so I grew up writing and reading and I was really encouraged by him.

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.

‎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.

Bird by bird buddy. Just take it bird by bird.

I want people who write to crash or dive below the surface, where life is so cold and confusing and hard to see.Your anger and damage and grief are the way to the truth.

Writing like this is a little like milking a cow: the milk is so rich and delicious, and the cow is so glad you did it.

When people shine a little light on their monster, we find out how similar most of our monsters are.

She lived in fear of ifonic endings. (91)

Resentments make even the best of us feel superior.

A good marriage is supposed to be one where each spouse secretly thinks he or she got the better deal.

Usually if you pray from the heart, you get an answer—the phone rings or the mail comes, and light gets in through the cracks, so you can see the next right thing to do. That’s all you need.

Only God can put Scripture inside. But reading sacred text can put it on your hearts, and then when your hearts break, the holy words will fall inside.

And I guess when you take away the resentment and disappointment, it's that simple. It is what we do in families: we help, because we were helped.

I tell you, families are definitely the training ground for forgiveness.

There are really places in your heart that you don't know exist until you love a child.

I hate how long it takes to feel radical, militantly maternal self-acceptance.

How alive am I willing to be?

I'll live as well, as deeply, as madly as I can--until I die.

I watched him carefully. He was making art because he has to, and because he's brave enough to try and make contact, right there on the edge of madness, where he dreams.

You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander.

Prayer usually means praise, or surrender, acknowledging that you have run out of bullets.

What if you wake up some day, and you’re 65… and you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life?

First find a path, and a little light to see by. Then push up your sleeves and start helping.

Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.

Grief ends up giving you the two best things: softness and illumination.

A sober friend from Texas said once that the three things I cannot change are the past, the truth, and you. I hate this insight so much.

It gets darker and darker, and then Jesus is born.” That line came back to me, from out of nowhere, and I decided to practice radical hope, hope in the face of not having a clue.

[Jesus is] saying that we could be aware of, filled with, and saved by the presence of holy beauty, rather than worship golden calves.

We can see Spirit made visible when people are kind to one another, especially when it's a really busy person, like you, taking care of a needy, annoying, neurotic person, like you.

You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should've behaved better.

You celebrate what works and you take tender care of what doesn’t, with lotion, polish, and kindness.

There was going to be a spot for me in this joint, the earth, after all. It was never going to be a great match for someone as bright and strange as me, but books were going to make it survivable.

When I asked Father Tom where we find God in this present darkness, he said that God is in creation, and to get outdoors as much as you can.

He is a writer. He makes the rest of them nervous.

I like to think that Henry James said his classic line, "A writer is someone on whom nothing is lost, " while looking for his glasses, and that they were on top of his head.

Grace means suddenly you’re in a different universe from the one where you were stuck, and there was absolutely no way for you to get there on your own.

grace is a small white butterfly, and life is a semi trailer careening up 101.

We stitch together quilts of meaning to keep us warm and safe, with whatever patches of beauty and utility we have on hand.

I know nothing, except what everyone knows--if there when grace dances, I should dance.

God can't clean the house of you when you're still in it.

If you don't know where to start, remember that every single thing that happened to you is yours and you get to tell it.

Now, practically even better news than that of short assignments is the idea of shitty first drafts. All good writers write them.

Almost every single thing you hope publication will do for you is a fantasy, a hologram--it's the eagle on your credit card that only seems to soar.

One of the immutable laws of being human is that the people who show up are the right people.

I am positive of only a few things in life, and one is that if you want to have a decent middle and old age, you have to get exercise almost every day.

So how on earth can I bring a child into the world, knowing that such sorrow lies ahead, that it is such a large part of what it means to be human?I'm not sure. That's my answer: I'm not sure.

Some people have a thick skin and you don't. Your heart is really open and that is going to cause pain, but that is an appropriate response to this world.

One secret of life is that the reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day. Another secret is that laughter is carbonated holiness

My theory is that, as with our children, as with every surface of that geodesic dome inside the 8-Ball, every age we've ever been is who we are.