“ For instance, I used to think that paired opposites were a given, that love was the opposite of hate, right the opposite of wrong. But now I think we sometimes buy into these concepts because it is so… Anne Lamott
“ Even if only the people in your writing group read your memoirs or stories or novel, even if you only wrote your story so that one day your children would know what life was like when you were a child… Anne Lamott
“ Do you think that we're wired this way? With the devil inside? Yeah, in the same way we're wired for God. But not to the same extent. Anne Lamott
“ Do it every day for a while, my father kept saying. Do it as you would do scales on the piano. Do it by prearrangement with yourself. Do it as a debt of honor. And make a commitment to finishing thing… Anne Lamott
“ As I’ve said before, I believe that when all is said and done, all you can do is to show up for someone in crisis, which seems so inadequate. But then when you do, it can radically change everything.… Anne Lamott
“ And my fear of failure has been lifelong and deep. If you are what you do- and I think my parents may have accidentally given me this idea- and you do poorly, what then? It’s over; you’re wiped out. A… Anne Lamott
“ And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth. Anne Lamott
“ Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Anne Lamott
“ Additionally, I have spent approximately 1,736 hours of this one precious life waiting for the man to finish and pretending that felt good. And I want a refund. Anne Lamott
“ When a lot of things start going wrong all at once, it is to protect something big and lovely that is trying to get itself born—and that this something needs for you to be distracted so that it can be… Anne Lamott
“ We thought were castles turn out to be prisons, and we desperately want out, but even though we built them, we can’t find the door. Yet maybe if you ask God for help in knowing which direction to face… Anne Lamott
“ Hope, as Chesterton said, is the power of being cheerful in circumstances that we know to be desperate. Writing can be a pretty desperate endeavor, because it is about some of our deepest needs: our n… Anne Lamott
“ Had to learn to be present without paying quite so much attention to my poor old overamped mind, because this was the source of most of my unhappiness. And it still is. The Anne Lamott
“ All of the great writers drank, except for Kafka and Nietzsche, neither of whom you exactly wanted to be when you grew up. Anne Lamott
“ You may have gotten into the habit of doubting that voice that was telling you quite clearly what was really going on. It is essential you get that back. Anne Lamott
“ You get your intuition back when you make space for it, when you stop the chattering of the rational mind. The rational mind doesn't nourish you. You assume that it gives you the truth, because the ra… Anne Lamott
“ You don't want to spend your time around people who make you hold your breath. You can't fill up when you're holding your breath. And writing is about filling up, filling up when you are empty, lettin… Anne Lamott
“ You can't find your true voice and peer behind the door and report honestly and clearly to us if your parents are reading over your shoulder. They are probably the ones who told you not to open that d… Anne Lamott
“ You begin to string words together like beads to tell a story. You are desperate to communicate, to edify or entertain, to preserve moments of grace or joy or transcendence, to make real or imagined e… Anne Lamott
