Anne Lamott Quotes

You want to avoid at all costs drawing your characters on those that already exist in other works of fiction. You must learn about people from people, not from what you read. Your reading should confirm what you’ve observed in the world.

"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."

It's good to do uncomfortable things. It's weight training for life.

I recognize the divinity in you, but actually more like, I recognize our each-otherness, instantly

These two things are almost all I want, but unfortunately, neither one is my strong suit. I am very strong on blame, and wish this were one of God's values, but trust, surrender? Letting go, forgiveness? Maybe just after a period of prayer, but then when the mood passes and real life rears its ugly head again? Not so much. I hate this, the fact that life is usually Chutes and Ladders, with no guaranteed gains.

I cannot will myself into having these qualities, so I have to pray for them more often, if I want to be happy. I have to create the habit, just as I had to do with daily writing, and flossing.

Usually with life, you start wherever you are, and you flail around for a while —

With THC in your system, you don't dream. And you need to. Otherwise it is like losing one of your senses. Dreams are part of your wholeness. ... when you're dreaming, you're not the one calling the shots. So it's a reprieve. ... the dream world had rules in it. You couldn't read a clock in your dreams. It would not give you the time. If the lights were on in a room, you could not turn them off in a dream. ... in indigenous tribes all over the world, the dream world was like church. [p. 247]

What seems true is that something in life, on the highways or in our hearts, is always being installed, or being repaired, or being torn down for the next installation.

"Here are the two best prayers I know: "Help me help me, help me," and "Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Teenagers who do not go to church are adored by God, but they don't get to meet some of the people who love God back.

The very first thing I tell my new students on the first day of a workshop is that good writing is about telling the truth. We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason they write so very little. But we do. We have so much we want to say and figure out.

If you don't believe in God, it may help to remember this great line of Geneen Roth's: that awareness is learning to keep yourself company. And then learn to be more compassionate company, as if you were somebody you are fond of and wish to encourage. I doubt that you would read a close friend's early efforts and, in his or her presence, roll your eyes and snicker. I doubt that you would pantomime sticking your finger down your throat. I think you might say something along the lines of, 'Good for you. We can work out some of the problems later, but for now, full steam ahead!

The writer's job is to turn the unspeakable into words - not just any words, but, if you can, into rhythm and blues.

Life is like a recycling center, where all the concerns and dramas of humankind get recycled back and forth across the universe. But what you have to offer is your own sensibility, maybe your own sense of humor or insider pathos or meaning. All of us can sing the same song, and there will still be four billion different renditions.

Writing takes a combination of sophistication and innocence; it takes conscience, our belief that something is beautiful because it is right.