Anne Lamott Quotes

“… the three things I cannot change are the past, the truth, and you.”

“We begin to find and become ourselves when we notice how we are already found, already truly, entirely, wildly, messily, marvelously who we were born to be.”

“I do not understand the mystery of grace -- only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.”

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

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

“Love falls to earth, rises from the ground, pools around the afflicted. Love pulls people back to their feet. Bodies and souls are fed. Bones and lives heal. New blades of grass grow from charred soil. The sun rises.”

“He told me about his monster. His sounded just like mine without quite so much mascara. When people shine a little light on their monster, we find out how similar most of our monsters are.”

“You can tell if people are following Jesus, because they are feeding the poor, sharing their wealth, and trying to get everyone medical insurance.”

“I think that is why we stay close to our families, no matter how neurotic the members, how deeply annoying or dull- because when people have seen you at your worst, you don’t have to put on the mask as much.”

“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.”

“Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul.”

“You want to protect your child from pain, and what you get instead is life, and grace; and though theologians insist that grace is freely given, the truth is that sometimes you pay for it through the nose. And you can't pay your child's way.”

“… the reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day. [pp. 65-66]”

“Perfectionism means that you try not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived.”

“One secret of life is that the reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day. Another secret is that laughter is carbonated holiness”

“You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

“Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a better past.”

“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”

“Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison, and then waiting around for the rat to die.”

“A good marriage is where both people feel like they're getting the better end of the deal.”

“I don't remember who said this, but there really are places in the heart you don't even know exist until you love a child.”

“You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town”

“Laughter is carbonated holiness.”

“When God is going to do something wonderful, He or She always starts with a hardship; when God is going to do something amazing, He or She starts with an impossibility.”

“No" is a complete sentence.”

“Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back. You're done. It doesn't necessarily mean that you want to have lunch with the person. If you keep hitting back, you stay trapped in the nightmare…”

“Expectations are resentments under construction.”

“My mind is a neighborhood I try not to go into alone.”

“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.”

“I am all the ages I've ever been.”

“Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back.”

“Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue”

“Because this business of becoming conscious, of being a writer, is ultimately about asking yourself, How alive am I willing to be?”

“The road to enlightenment is long and difficult, and you should try not to forget snacks and magazines.”

“The difference between you and God is that God doesn't think He's you.”

“Try looking at your mind as a wayward puppy that you are trying to paper train. You don't drop-kick a puppy into the neighbor's yard every time it piddles on the floor. You just keep bringing it back to the newspaper.”

“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.”

“You don't always have to chop with the sword of truth. You can point with it too.”

“My heart was broken and my head was just barely inhabitable”

“… because when people have seen you at their worst, you don't have to put on the mask as much.”

“If you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans.”

“I worry that Jesus drinks himself to sleep when he hears me talk like this.”

“If you have a body, you are entitled to the full range of feelings. It comes with the package.”

“I've given guys blow jobs just because I've run out of things to talk about.'
Oh, Rae. Who hasn't”

“We all know we're going to die; what's important is the kind of men and women we are in the face of this.”

“… since you can't heal your own sick mind with your own sick mind, I needed to consult somebody else's sick mind.”

“… most of the time, all you have is the moment, and the imperfect love of the people around you.”

“I liked those ladies! They were helpers, and they danced.' These are the words I want on my gravestone: that I was a helper, and that I danced.”

“Don't look at your feet to see if you are doing it right. Just dance.”

“Perfection is shallow, unreal, and fatally uninteresting.”

“Sometimes grace works like water wings when you feel you are sinking.”

“The depth of the feeling continued to surprise and threaten me, but each time it hit again and I bore it… I would discover that it hadn't washed me away.”

“My gratitude for good writing is unbounded; I’m grateful for it the way I’m grateful for the ocean.”

“It's better to be kind than to be right.”

“Certainty is missing the point entirely.”

“This is one thing they forget to mention in most child-rearing books, that at times you will just lose your mind. Period.”

“The opposite of faith is not doubt, it’s certainty.”

“Never compare your insides to everyone else's outsides.”

“I didn't need to understand the hypostatic unity of the Trinity; I just needed to turn my life over to whoever came up with redwood trees.”

“[S]he believed that the Buddhists were right–that if you want, you will suffer; if you love, you will grieve. (68)”

“Sometimes this human stuff is slimy and pathetic… but better to feel it and talk about it and walk through it than to spend a lifetime being silently poisoned.”

“Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”

“I don't think you have time to waste not writing because you are afraid you won't be good at it.”

“So how on earth can I bring a child into the world, knowing that such sorrow lies ahead, that it is such a large part of what it means to be human?
I'm not sure. That's my answer: I'm not sure.”

“The thing about light is that it really isn’t yours; it’s what you gather and shine back. And it gets more power from reflectiveness; if you sit still and take it in, it fills your cup, and then you can give it off yourself.”

“I'm here to be me, which is taking a great deal longer than I had hoped.”