Anne Lamott Quotes

Maybe what you care most passionately about are fasting and high colonics — cappuccino enemas, say. This is fine, but we do not want you to write about them; we will secretly believe that you are simply spiritualizing your hysteria. There are millions of people already doing this at churches and New Age festivals across the land.

It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible
storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing
can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are
together on that ship.

Mattie was in love with Daniel, of course; this was the X within the circle on her map: I love Daniel.

Talking to the parents of older kids was helpful for me, since the parents of kids the same age as yours won't admit how horrible their children are. ... you can either practice being right or practice being kind. Screaming in the car helped. [p. 94]

My lifelong and core belief, right after the conviction that I was defective, mildly annoying, and better than everyone else was that my help was helpful.

... 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.

Help for the sick and hungry,
home for the homeless folk,
peace in the world forever,
this is my prayer, O Lord. Amen.

I went around saying for a long time that I am not one of those Christians who is heavily into forgiveness — that I am one of the other kind. But even though it was funny, and actually true, it started to be too painful to stay this way. They say we are not punished for the sin but by the sin, and I began to feel punished by my unwillingness to forgive.

I prayed for my heart to soften, to forgive her, and love her for what she did give me — life, great values, a lot of tennis lessons, and the best she could do. Unfortunately, the best she could do was terrible, thee the Minister of Silly Walks trying to raise an extremely sensitive young girl, and my heart remained hardened toward her. [p. 46]

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

Holiness has most often been revealed to me in the exquisite pun of the first syllable, in holes- in not enough help, in brokenness, mess. High holy places, with ethereal sounds and stained glass, can massage my illusion of holiness, but in holes and lostness I can pick up the light of small ordinary progress, newly made moments flecked like pepper into the slog and the disruptions.

"These lines of D.H. Lawrence are taped to the wall of my office:

"What is the knocking?
What is the knocking at the door in the night?
It is somebody wants to do us harm.

No, no, it is the three strange angels.
Admit them, admit them."

I under[stand] that failure is surely one of these strange angels."

Mercy means that we no longer constantly judge everybody’s large and tiny failures, foolish hearts, dubious convictions, and inevitable bad behavior. We will never do this perfectly, but how do we do it better?

The pain does grow less acute, but the insidious palace lie that we will get over crushing losses means that our emotional GPS can never find true north, as it is based on maps that no longer mention the most important places we have been to.

He lost the great big outward thing, the good- looking package, and the real parts endured. They shine through like crazy, the brillian mind and humor, the depth of generosity, the intense blue yes, those beautiful hands.