Top Anne Lamott Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Anne Lamott Biography

Anne Lamott (born April 10, 1954) is an American novelist and non-fiction writer.

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Anne Lamott Quotes

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.

Confused, Jackson, Knowing, Let, Writing

You want to give me chocolate and flowers? That would be great. I love them both. I just don't want them out of guilt, and I don't want them if you're not going to give them to all the people who helped mother our children.

Children, Flower, Flowers, Guilt, Mother

Grace arrived, like the big, loopy stitches with which a grandmotherly stranger might baste your hem temporarily.

Baste, Big, Grace, Hem, Stitches, Stranger

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.

Admit, Children, Kids, Same, Talking

Tell the truth as you understand it. If you're a writer, you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act - truth is always subversive.

Moral, Obligation, Revolutionary, Truth, Understand

Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over people and circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are.

Creating, Odd, People, Spend, Trying

There are a lot of us, some published, some not, who think the literary life is the loveliest one possible, this life of reading and writing and corresponding. We think this life is nearly ideal.

Corresponding, Loveliest, Published, Reading, Thinking, Writing

Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.

Faith, Light, Mess, Return, Returns

This is our goal as writers, I think; to help others have this sense of--please forgive me--wonder, of seeing things anew, things that can catch us off guard, that break in on our small, bordered worlds.

Break, Goal, Helping Others, Thinking, Worlds, Writing

We want a sense that an important character, like a narrator, is reliable. We want to believe that a character is not playing ages or being coy or being manipulative, but is telling the truth to the best of his or her ability. . . We do not wish to be crudely manipulated. . . We want to be massaged by a masseur, not whapped by a carpet beater.

Ability, Believe, Character, Manipulated, Playing, Wish

For me, being a writer is not an altered state. It's very ponderous, and very - it's like being a shoemaker.

Altered, Altered States, Ponderous, State, States, Writer

Jealousy always has been my cross, the weakness and woundedness in me that has most often caused me to feel ugly and unlovable, like the Bad Seed. I’ve had many years of recovery and therapy, years filled with intimate and devoted friendships, yet I still struggle. I know that when someone gets a big slice of pie, it doesn’t mean there’s less for me. In fact, I know that there isn’t even a pie, that there’s plenty to go around, enough food and love and air. But I don’t believe it for a second. I secretly believe there’s a pie. I will go to my grave brandishing my fork.

Believe, Brandishing, Recovery, Seed, Struggle, Ugly

If you don't die of thirst, there are blessings in the desert. You can be pulled into limitlessness, which we all yearn for, or you can do the beauty of minutiae, the scrimshaw of tiny and precise. The sky is your ocean, and the crystal silence will uplift you like great gospel music, or Neil Young.

Blessing, Blessings, Crystal, Ocean, Sky, Uplifting

This is who I want to be in the world. This is who I think we are supposed to be, people who help call forth human beings from deep inside hopelessness.

Beings, Deep, Human, People, Thinking, World

Prayer is talking to something or anything with which we seek union, even if we are bitter or insane or broken. (In fact, these are probably the best possible conditions under which to pray. ) Prayer is taking a chance that against all odds and past history, we are loved and chosen, and do not have to get it together before we show up.

History, Odds, Past, Pray, Prayer, Together

Listen to your broccoli and it will tell you how to eat it.

Broccoli, Eat, Listen, Tell

It's a great time to be alive.

Alive, Great Times, Time

If our lives are made up of a string of a thousand moments, at some of those moments we look a lot more spiritually evolved than at others.

Evolved, Looks, Made, Moments, Spiritually

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.

Character, Hate, Love, Reason, Same

The worst part about celebrating another birthday is the shock that you're only as well as you are.

Birthday, Celebrate, Celebrating, Shock, Worst

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