Anne Lamott Quotes - Page 18

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• Bananas are great, as I believe them to be the only known cure for existential dread. Also, Mother Teresa said that in India, a woman dying in the street will share her banana with anyone who needs it, whereas in America, people amass and hoard as many bananas as they can to sell for an exorbitant profit. So half of them go bad, anyway.

  Anne Lamott

  Mother, Believe, America

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• Being on a book tour is like being on the seesaw when you're a little kid. The excitement is in having someone to play with, and in rising up in the air, but then you're at the mercy of those holding you down, and if it's your older brother, or Paul Wolfowitz, they leap up, so that you crash down and get hurt.

  Anne Lamott

  Hurt, Brother, Book

  10 Copy quote

• Sometimes I think God loves the ones who most desperately ache and are most desperately lost - his or her wildest, most messed-up children - the way you'd ache and love a screwed-up rebel daughter in juvenile hall.

  Anne Lamott

  Daughter, Children, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• I used to love to untangle chains when I was a child. I had thin, busy fingers, and I never gave up. Perhaps there was a psychiatric component to my concentration but like much of my psychic damage, this worked to everyone's advantage.

  Anne Lamott

  Children, Psychics, Damage

  Anne Lamott (2006). “Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith”, p.219, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

• I got a lot of things that society had promised would make me whole and fulfilled - all the things that the culture tells you from preschool on will quiet the throbbing anxiety inside you - stature, the respect of colleagues, maybe even a kind of low-grade fame.

  Anne Lamott

  Anxiety, Culture, Quiet

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Anne Lamott

  Hate, Virginia, San Francisco

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• I've heard people say that God is the gift of desperation, and there's a lot to be said for having really reached a bottom where you've run out of any more good ideas or plans for everybody else's behavior; or how to save and fix and rescue; or just get out of a huge mess, possibly of your own creation.

  Anne Lamott

  Running, Ideas, People

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• 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.

  Anne Lamott

  Disappointment, Ends, Coming To An End

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

  Anne Lamott

  Believe, Book, Raised

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• 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.

  Anne Lamott

  Writing, Doe, Boxes

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

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Anne Lamott

  Men, Entrepreneur, Calling

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

  Anne Lamott

  Home, Years, Twenties

  Anne Lamott (2000). “Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith”, p.200, Anchor

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• The clipping said forgiveness meant that God is for giving, and that we are here for giving too, and that to withold love or blessings is to be completely delusional.

  Anne Lamott

  Blessing, Giving, Delusional

  Anne Lamott (2000). “Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith”, p.121, Anchor

  4 Copy quote

• Now she and I sit together in her room and eat chocolate, and I tell her that in a very long time when we both to go heaven, we should try to get chairs next to each other, close to the dessert table.

  Anne Lamott

  Long, Heaven, Chocolate

  Anne Lamott (2000). “Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith”, p.133, Anchor

  4 Copy quote

• You've got to learn to let go and let your children fall, and fail. If you try to protect them from hurt, and always rush to their side with Band-Aids, they won't learn about life, and what is true, what works, what helps, and what are real consequences of certain kinds of behavior. When they do get hurt, which they will, they won't know how to take care of their grown selves. They won't even know where the aspirin is kept.

  Anne Lamott

  Letting Go, Hurt, Children

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Anne Lamott

  Children, Knowing, Shapes

  Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.22, Anchor

  4 Copy quote

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

  Anne Lamott

  God, Money, Giving

  Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.128, Anchor

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Anne Lamott

  God, Dog, Lying

  Anne Lamott (1994). “Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year”, Fawcett

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Anne Lamott

  Hate, Character, Reason

  Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.45, Anchor

  4 Copy quote

• E-books are great for instant gratification - you see a review somewhere of a book that interests you, and you can start reading it five minutes later.

  Anne Lamott

  Book, Reading, Minutes

  7 Copy quote

• If I were going to begin practicing the presence of God for the first time today, it would help to begin by admitting the three most terrible truths of our existence: that we are so ruined, and so loved, and in charge of so little.

  Anne Lamott

  Three, Admitting, Littles

  Anne Lamott (2013). “Help: The First Essential Prayer”, p.12, Hachette UK

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• It's almost like learning to meditate to learn to hear what your kid is actually saying.

  Anne Lamott

  Kids

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• Shirley Jackson said that a confused reader is an antagonistic reader, and I live by that. It's okay to start anywhere, and to let yourself write a big sloppy overly-detailed first draft. You just jump in, knowing that the water will be cold at first, but no one is making you swim.

  Anne Lamott

  Confused, Writing, Knowing

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• Sometimes, no matter how screwed up things seem, I feel like we're all at a wedding. But you can't just come out and say, We're at a wedding! Have some cake! You need to create a world into which we can enter, a world where we can see this.

  Anne Lamott

  Cake, Needs, World

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

  4 Copy quote

• I wish there were shortcuts to wisdom and self-knowledge: cuter abysses or three-day spa wilderness experiences. Sadly, it doesn't work that way. I so resent this.

  Anne Lamott

  Wisdom, Self, Wish

  7 Copy quote

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