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Becoming A Writer Is About Becoming Conscious. When You're Conscious And Writing From A Place Of Insight And Simplicity And Real Caring About The Truth, You Have The Ability To Throw The Lights On For Your Reader. He Or She Will Recognize His Or Her Life And Truth In What You Say, In The Pictures You Have Painted, And This Decreases The Terrible Sense Of Isolation That We Have All Had Too Much Of.

-Anne Lamott

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Becoming A Writer Is

Anne Lamott

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Becoming A Writer Is About Becoming Conscious. When You're Conscious And Writing From A Place Of Insight And Simplicity And Real Caring About The Truth, You Have The Ability To Throw The Lights On For Your Reader. He Or She Will Recognize His Or Her Life And Truth In What You Say, In The Pictures You Have Painted, And This Decreases The Terrible Sense Of Isolation That We Have All Had Too Much Of.

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Everyone Is Screwed Up, Broken, Clingy, And Scared, Even The People Who Seem To Have It More Or Less Together. They Are Much More Like You Than You Would Believe. So Try Not To Compare Your Insides To Their Outsides.

Laughter Is A Bubbly, Effervescent Form Of Holiness

My Idea Of Everything Going Smoothly On An Airplane Is (a) That I Not Die In A Slow-motion Fiery Crash Or Get Stabbed To Death By Terrorists And (b) That None Of The Other Passengers Try To Talk To Me. All Conversation Should End At The Moment The Wheels Leave The Ground.

I Don’t Know Why Life Isn’t Constructed To Be Seamless And Safe, Why We Make Such Glaring Mistakes, Things Fall So Short Of Our Expectations, And Our Hearts Get Broken And Out Kids Do Scary Things And Our Parents Get Old And Don’t Always Remember To Put Pants On Before They Go Out For A Stroll. I Don’t Know Why It’s Not More Like It Is In The Movies, Why Things Don’t Come Out Neatly And Lessons Can’t Be Learned When You’re In The Mood For Learning Them, Why Love And Grace Often Come In Such Motley Packaging.

Toddlers Can Make You Feel As If You Have Violated Some Archaic Law In Their Personal Koran And You Should Die, Infidel.

I Woke Up Full Of Hate And Fear The Day Before The Most Recent Peace March In San Francisco. This Was Disappointing: I'd Hoped To Wake Up Feeling Somewhere Between Virginia Woolf And Wavy Gravy.

My Gratitude For Good Writing Is Unbounded; I’m Grateful For It The Way I’m Grateful For The Ocean.

My Heart Was Broken And My Head Was Just Barely Inhabitable

It's A Great Time To Be Alive.

Writing Is How I Communicate My Deepest Beliefs, And What I Hope Are Helpful Observations About Our Dual Citizenship, As Children Of God, As Regular Old Mixed-up, Worried, Flawed, Precious Human Beings.

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.

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.

The Best Thing About Being An Artist, Instead Of A Madman Or Someone Who Writes Letters To The Editor, Is That You Get To Engage In Satisfying Work. Even If You Never Publish A Word, You Have Something Important To Pour Yourself Into.

Life Is Really Pretty Tricky, And There's A Lot Of Loss, And The Longer You Stay Alive, The More People You Lose Whom You Actually Couldn't Live Without.

... One Of The Immutable Laws Of Being Human Is That The People Who Show Up Are The Right People. [p. 65]

Every Time I See The Bumper Sticker That Says “we Think We’re Humans Having Spiritual Experiences, But We’re Really Spirits Having Human Experiences,” I (a) Think It’s True And (b) Want To Ram The Car.

Perfectionism Means That You Try Desperately Not To Leave So Much Mess To Clean Up. But Clutter And Mess Show Us That Life Is Being Lived. Clutter Is Wonderfully Fertile Ground - You Can Still Discover New Treasures Under All Those Piles, Clean Things Up, Edit Things Out, Fix Things, Get A Grip. Tidiness Suggests That Something Is As Good As It's Going To Get. Tidiness Makes Me Think Of Held Breath, Of Suspended Animation, While Writing Needs To Breathe And Move.

Very Few Writers Really Know What They Are Doing Until They Have Done It.

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.

There's A Lovely Hasidic Story Of A Rabbi Who Always Told His People That If They Studied The Torah, It Would Put Scripture On Their Hearts. One Of Them Asked, "why On Our Hearts, And Not In Them?" The Rabbi Answered, "only God Can Put Scripture Inside. But Reading Sacred Text Can Put It On Your Heart, And Then When Your Hearts Break, The Holy Words Will Fall Inside.

I Know That If I Feel Any Deprivation Or Fear [about Money], The Solution Is To Give. The Solution Is To Go Find Some Mothers On The Streets Of San Raphael And Give Them Tens And Twenties And Mail Off Another $50 To Doctors Without Borders To Use For The Refugees In Kosovo. Because I Know That Giving Is The Way We Can Feel Abundant. Giving Is The Way That We Fill Ourselves Up.... For Me The Way To Fill Up Is Through Service And Sharing And Getting Myself To Give More Than I Feel Comfortable Giving.

Grace Is Having A Commitment To- Or At Least An Acceptance Of- Being Ineffective And Foolish. That Our Bottled Charm Is The Main Roadblock To Drinking That Clear Cool Glass Of Love.

Never Compare Your Insides To Everyone Else's Outsides.

You Try To Sit Down At Approximately The Same Time Every Day. This Is How You Train Your Unconscious To Kick In For You Creatively. ... You Put A Piece Of Paper In The Typewriter, Or You Turn On Your Computer And Bring Up The Right File. ... You Begin Rocking, Just A Little At First, And Then Like A Huge Autistic Child. ... Then Your Mental Illnesses Arrive At The Desk Like Your Sickest, Most Secretive Relatives. And They Pull Up Chairs In A Semicircle Around The Computer, And They Try To Be Quiet But You Know They Are There With Their Weird Coppery Breath, Leering At You Behind Your Back.

My Mother Might Find A Thin Gold Chain At The Back Of A Drawer, Wadded Into An Impossibly Tight Knot, And Give It To Me To Untangle. It Would Have A Shiny, Sweaty Smell, And Excite Me: Gold Chains Linked You To The Great Fairy Tales And Myths, To Arabia, And India; To The Great Weight Of The World, But Lighter Than A Feather.

I Don't Know Where To Start," One [writing Student] Will Wail. Start With Your Childhood, I Tell Them. Plug Your Nose And Jump In, And Write Down All Your Memories As Truthfully As You Can. Flannery O' Connor Said That Anyone Who Has Survived Childhood Has Enough Material To Write For The Rest Of His Or Her Life. Maybe Your Childhood Was Grim And Horrible, But Grim And Horrible Is Okay If It Is Well Done. Don't Worry About Doing It Well Yet, Though. Just Get It Down.

When We Agree To Being Part Of Something Bigger Than Our Own Wired, Fixated Minds, We Are Saved.

I Get To Tell My Truth. I Get To Seek Meaning And Realization. I Get To Live Fully, Wildly, Imperfectly. That's Why I'm Alive. And All I Actually Have To Offer As A Writer Is My Version Of Life. Every Single Thing That Has Happened To Me Is Mine.

To Be A Good Writer, You Not Only Have To Write A Great Deal But You Have To Care. You Do Not Have To Have A Complicated Moral Philosophy. But A Writer Always Tries, I Think, To Be A Part Of A Solution, To Understand A Little About Life And To Pass This On.

I've Always Understood That Meditation Had To Be Part Of - Or Was Part Of The Natural Path And So I've Always Sort Of Dabbled In It.

I Was Raised With No Religious Training Or Influence. Except The Influence Was To Be A Moral And Ethical Person At The Secular Level. And To Be A Peace Marcher, An Activist For Civil Rights, Peace And Justice.

Summer Nearly Does Me In Every Year. It's Too Hot And The Light Is Unforgiving And The Days Go On Way Too Long.

I Could Become Like That Dyslexic Agnostic In The Old Joke - The One Who Lies In Bed And Tries To Figure Out If His Dog Exists.

Certainty Is Missing The Point Entirely.

I'm All Over The Place, Up And Down, Scattered, Withdrawing, Trying To Find Some Elusive Sense Of Serenity." The World Can't Give That Serenity. The World Can't Give Us Peace. We Can Only Find It In Our Hearts." I Hate That." I Know. But The Good News Is That By The Same Token, The World Can't Take It Away.

It Turned Out This Man Worked For The Dalai Lama. And She Said Gently-that They Believe 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 Born As Perfectly As Possible.

Novels Ought To Have Hope; At Least, American Novels Ought To Have Hope. French Novels Don't Need To. We Mostly Win Wars, They Lose Them. Of Course, They Did Hide More Jews Than Many Other Countries, And This Is A Form Of Winning.

Try To Write In A Directly Emotional Way, Instead Of Being Too Subtle Or Oblique. Don't Be Afraid Of Your Material Or Your Past. Be Afraid Of Wasting Any More Time Obsessing About How You Look And How People See You. Be Afraid Of Not Getting Your Writing Done.

Sometimes It Feels Like God Has Reached Down And Touched Me, Blessed Me A Thousand Times Over, And Sometimes It All Feels Like A Mean Joke, Like God's Advisers Are Muammar Qaddafi And Phyllis Schlafly.

Slowly, After Dozens Of Rejection Slips And Failures And False Starts And Postponed Dreams - What Langston Hughes Called Dreams Deferred - I Stepped Onto The Hallowed Ground Of Being A Published Novelist, And Then 15 Years Later, I Even Started To Make Real Money.

It's Better To Be Kind Than To Be Right.

Prayer Means That, In Some Unique Way, We Believe We're Invited Into A Relationship With Someone Who Hears Us When We Speak In Silence.

No Matter What Circumstances, It's Hard To Be A Parent And Maintain A Sense Of Self And Identity In The World.

The Earth Is Rocky And Full Of Roots; It's Clay, And It Seems Doomed And Polluted, But You Dig Little Holes For The Ugly Shriveled Bulbs, Throw In A Handful Of Poppy Seeds, And Cover It All Over, And You Know You'll Never See It Again - It's Death And Clay And Shrivel, And Your Hands Are Nicked From The Rocks, Your Nails Black With Soil.

There Is A Door We All Want To Walk Through And Writing Can Help You Find It And Open It.

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.

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.

Presents Can Make Up For Some Of The Disappointments That Life Doles Out, Such As It Makes Almost No Sense And Is Coming To An End More Quickly Than Ever.

Coming To An End

I Do Know The Sorrow Of Being Ordinary, And That Much Of Our Life Is Spent Doing The Crazy Mental Arithmetic Of How, At Any Given Moment, We Might Improve, Or At Least Disguise Or Present Our Defects And Screw-ups In Either More Charming Or More Intimidating Ways.

Bird By Bird, Buddy. Just Take It Bird By Bird.

I Spend Most Of My Time Alone, Because I So Value And Thrive In The Quiet. Heaven.

No One Tells You That Your Life Is Effectively Over When You Have A Child: That You're Never Going To Draw Another Complacent Breath Again... Or That Whatever Level Of Hypochondria And Rage You'd Learned To Repress And Live With Is Going To Seem Like The Good Old Days.

I Think Joy And Sweetness And Affection Are A Spiritual Path. We're Here To Know God, To Love And Serve God, And To Be Blown Away By The Beauty And Miracle Of Nature. You Just Have To Get Rid Of So Much Baggage To Be Light Enough To Dance, To Sing, To Play. You Don't Have Time To Carry Grudges; You Don't Have Time To Cling To The Need To Be Right.

For Me, Being A Writer Is Not An Altered State. It's Very Ponderous, And Very - It's Like Being A Shoemaker.

Lighthouses Don’t Go Running All Over An Island Looking For Boats To Save; They Just Stand There Shining.

E.l. Doctorow Said Once Said That 'writing A Novel Is Like Driving A Car At Night. You Can See Only As Far As Your Headlights, But You Can Make The Whole Trip That Way.' You Don't Have To See Where You're Going, You Don't Have To See Your Destination Or Everything You Will Pass Along The Way. You Just Have To See Two Or Three Feet Ahead Of You. This Is Right Up There With The Best Advice On Writing, Or Life, I Have Ever Heard.

You Don't Always Have To Chop With The Sword Of Truth. You Can Point With It Too.

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.

Falling In Love

I Believe In Listening To The - What Calls You From Your Heart And Your Spirit And If You Do It Badly, Like Learning To Dance, You Do It Badly Or You're Going To Kick Yourself When You Grow Old And You Meant To Do It.

For Me And Most Of The Other Writers I Know, Writing Is Not Rapturous. In Fact, The Only Way I Can Get Anything Written At All Is To Write Really, Really Shitty First Drafts.

If Your Wife Locks You Out Of The House, You Don't Have A Problem With Your Door.

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.

The First Holy Truth In God 101 Is That Men And Women Of True Faith Have Always Had To Accept The Mystery Of God's Identity And Love And Ways. I Hate That, But It's The Truth.

Lies Cannot Nourish Or Protect You. Only Freedom From Fear, Freedom From Lies, Can Make Us Beautiful, And Keep Us Safe.

My Writer Friends, And They Are Legion, Do Not Go Around Beaming With Quiet Feelings Of Contentment. Most Of Them Go Around With Haunted, Abused, Surprised Looks On Their Faces, Like Lab Dogs On Whom Very Personal Deodorant Sprays Have Been Tested.

Dancing Almost Always Turns Out To Be A Good Idea.

Sometimes Grace Works Like Water Wings When You Feel You Are Sinking.

The Grief And Tears Didn't Wash Me Away. They Gave Me My Life Back! They Cleansed Me, Baptized Me, Hydrated The Earth At My Feet.

It Was Simple Reality - Most Competitive Tennis Players In My Day Were Privileged, Spoiled, Entitled And White. Also, Many Of Them Were Beautiful, Fit, Tan And Of Good Stock - Great Big Hair And White Teeth And Long Legs. Then There Were The Rest Of Us.

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.

Or You Might Shout At The Top Of Your Lungs Or Whisper Into Your Sleeve, "i Hate You, God." That Is A Prayer Too, Because It Is Real, It Is Truth, And Maybe It Is The First Sincere Thought You've Had In Months.

They Always Threw Their Arms Around And Hugged Me While Crying Our Yiddish Endearments. Yet None Of Them Believed In God. They Believed In Social Justice, Good Works, Israel, And Bette Midler. I Was Nearly Thirty Before I Met A Religious Jew.

I Do Not At All Understand The Mystery Of Grace - Only That It Meets Us Where We Are But Does Not Leave Us Where It Found Us.

I Would Seriously Rather Be In A Long Line At The Dmv Than Eat With People I Don't Know.

The Beauty Of Modesty ... A Virtue The World Doesn't Have Much Truck With: One Ordinary Flower In A Vase, As Opposed To A Bouquet.

The Real Payoff Is The Writing Itself, That A Day When You Have Gotten Your Work Done Is A Good Day, That Total Dedication Is The Point.

I Was The Angriest Daughter On Earth, And Also, One Of The Most Devoted.

At Our Most Primitive We Are Storytellers And Dancers.

Raising A Child, Whether Or Not It Is Yours, Is Like Nautilus Of The Heart And Soul.

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.

E-books Are Great For Instant Gratification - You See A Review Somewhere Of A Book That Interests You, And You Can Start Reading It Five Minutes Later.

If You Want To Make God Laugh, Tell Her Your Plans.

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.

For Twenty Years I Have Ached To Go Back Home, When There Was Nobody There To Whom I Could Return.

I'm Here To Be Me, Which Is Taking A Great Deal Longer Than I Had Hoped.

I Guess He'll Have To Figure Out Someday That He Is Supposed To Have This Dark Side, That It Is Part Of What It Means To Be Human, To Have The Darkness Just As Much As The Light- That In Fact The Dark Parts Make The Light Visible; Without Them, The Light Would Disappear. But I Guess He Has To Figure Other Stuff Out First, Like How To Keep His Neck From Flopping All Over The Place And How To Sit Up.

Hope Begins In The Dark.

We Write To Expose The Unexposed. Most Human Beings Are Dedicated To Keeping That One Door Shut. But The Writer's Job Is To See What's Behind It, To See The Bleak Unspeakable Stuff, And To Turn The Unspeakable Into Words - Not Just Into Any Words But If We Can, Into Rhythm And Blues. You Can't Do This Without Discovering Your Own True Voice, And 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.

Life Does Not Seem To Present Itself To Me For My Convenience, To Box Itself Up Nicely So I Can Write About It With Wisdom And A Point To Make Before Putting It On A Shelf Somewhere.

You Can Either Practice Being Right Or Practice Being Kind.

Help" Is A Prayer That Is Always Answered. It Doesn't Matter How You Pray--with Your Head Bowed In Silence, Or Crying Out In Grief, Or Dancing. Churches Are Good For Prayer, But So Are Garages And Cars And Mountains And Showers And Dance Floors. Years Ago I Wrote An Essay That Began, "some People Think That God Is In The Details, But I Have Come To Believe That God Is In The Bathroom.

By Then I'd Figured Out The Gift Of Failure, Which Is That It Breaks Through All That Held Breath And Isometric Tension About Needing To Look Good: It's The Gift Of Feeling Floppier.

Frederick Buechner Is One Of My Favorite Writers. The Eyes Of The Heart Is Beautiful And Wise, Full Of Insight, Charm, And Tenderness.

You Were Loved Because God Loves, Period. God Loved You, And Everyone, Not Because You Believed In Certain Things, But Because You Were A Mess, And Lonely, And His Or Her Child. God Loved You No Matter How Crazy You Felt On The Inside, No Matter What A Fake You Were; Always, Even In Your Current Condition, Even Before Coffee. God Loves You Crazily, Like I Love You...like A Slightly Overweight Auntie, Who Sees Only Your Marvelousness And Need.

You Will Lose Someone You Can’t Live Without,and Your Heart Will Be Badly Broken, And The Bad News Is That You Never Completely Get Over The Loss Of Your Beloved. But This Is Also The Good News. They Live Forever In Your Broken Heart That Doesn’t Seal Back Up. And You Come Through. It’s Like Having A Broken Leg That Never Heals Perfectly—that Still Hurts When The Weather Gets Cold, But You Learn To Dance With The Limp.

Nothing Can Be Delicious When You Are Holding Your Breath.

If You Are Writing The Clearest, Truest Words You Can Find And Doing The Best You Can To Understand And Communicate, This Will Shine On Paper Like Its Own Little Lighthouse. Lighthouses Dont Go Running All Over An Island Looking For Boats To Save; They Just Stand There Shining.

You Know, We're Often Ashamed Of Asking For So Much Help Because It Seems Selfish Or Petty Or Narcissistic, But I Think, If There's A God -- And I Believe There Is -- That God Is There To Help. That's What God's Job Is.

It's Intrusive For Grandparents To Think They're In Charge. It's Manipulative. Also, It's Self-destructive, Since If The Parents Have To Resist You, You Won't Get Your Mitts On The Kid As Often.

Joy Is The Best Makeup.

The Stuff I Write About Is Pretty Universal, The Things My Closest Friends And I Talk About - Our Anxiety About Being Here On This Scary Planet, During These Scary Times, As Vulnerable As Kittens, Having Lost So Many People I Couldn't Live Without.

I Feel Incredibly Successful. I Make A Living As A Writer And Am Able To Help Support A Big Family, My Church, My Bleeding-heart Causes.

I Can Never Tell What I'm Doing When I'm In The Middle Of Publication Because I Have No Confidence. I Have Terrible Self-esteem, Along With Boundless Narcissism.

You Should Not Bring More Items And Hurdles To The Obstacle Course.

If You Have A Problem You Can Solve By Throwing Money At It, You Don't Have A Very Interesting Problem.

Do You Mind Even A Little That You Are Still Addicted To People-pleasing, And Are Still Putting Everyone Else’s Needs And Laundry And Career Ahead Of Your Creative, Spiritual Life? Giving All Your Life Force Away, To “help” And Impress. Well, Your Help Is Not Helpful, And Falls Short.

All Criticism Hurts Me. I'm So In The Wrong Business.

Nothing Heals Us Like Letting People Know Our Scariest Parts: When People Listen To You Cry And Lament, And Look At You With Love, It's Like They Are Holding The Baby Of You.

I'm Very Successful, But There Are 50,000 General Interest Books Published Every Year. If You Don't Want To Read Mine, There Are Others.

[s]he Believed That The Buddhists Were Right–that If You Want, You Will Suffer; If You Love, You Will Grieve. (68)

I Cry Intermittently, Like A Summer Rain. I Don't Feel Racked By The Crying; In Fact, It Hydrates Me. Then Rage Wells Up In Me, And I Want To Take A Crowbar To All The Cars In The Neighborhood.

This Is The Easter Message, That Awakening Is Possible, To The Goodness Of God, The Sacredness Of Human Life, The Sisterhood And Brotherhood Of All.

These Are Pictures Of The People In My Family Where We Look Like The Most Awkward And Desperate Folk You Ever Saw, Poster Children For The Human Condition.

I Went To Church With My Grandparents Sometimes And I Loved It.

Jealousy Has Always Been My Cross, The Weakness And Woundedness In Me That Has Most Often Caused Me To Feel Ugly And Unlovable, Like The Bad Seed.

Grace Arrived, Like The Big, Loopy Stitches With Which A Grandmotherly Stranger Might Baste Your Hem Temporarily.

I Was Raised By My Parents To Believe That You Had A Moral Obligation To Try And Help Save The World.

I Like The Desert For Short Periods Of Time, From Inside A Car, With The Windows Rolled Up, And The Doors Locked. I Prefer Beach Resorts With Room Service.

We Can't Understand When We're Pregnant, Or When Our Siblings Are Expecting, How Profound It Is To Have A Shared History With A Younger Generation: Blood, Genes, Humor. It Means We Were Actually Here, On Earth, For A Time - Like The Egyptians With Their Pyramids, Only With Children.

I Accidentally Forgot To Graduate From College.

And You Try To Quiet Your Mind So You Can Hear.

Don’t Underestimate This Gift Of Finding A Place In The Writing World: If You Really Work At Describing Creatively On Paper The Truth As You Understand It, As You Have Experienced It, With The People Or Material Who Are In You, Who Are Asking That You Help Them Get Written, You Will Come To A Secret Feeling Of Honor.

Everyone Is Flailing Through This Life Without An Owner's Manual, With Whatever Modicum Of Grace And Good Humor We Can Manage.

I Do Not Know Much About God And Prayer, But I Have Come To Believe Over The Last Twenty-five Years, That There's Something To Be Said About Keeping Prayer Simple. Help, Thanks, Wow.

Creative Expression, Whether That Means Writing, Dancing, Bird-watching, Or Cooking, Can Give A Person Almost Everything That He Or She Has Been Searching For: Enlivenment, Peace, Meaning, And The Incalculable Wealth Of Time Spent Quietly In Beauty.

You Simply Keep Putting Down One Damn Word After The Other, As You Hear Them, As They Come To You. You Can Either Set Brick As A Laborer Or As An Artist.

For Me, Jesus Is My Cleft In The Rock. He Is My Safest Friend, My Safe Totally Loving Accepting Big Brother.

I Love Memoirs. They Are Probably My Favorite Literary Form, Along With Biographies. The More Confessional, The Better. There Is So, So, So Little Truth In The Popular Culture, And I Am Starved And Grateful For Any I Can Find.

The Worst Part About Celebrating Another Birthday Is The Shock That You're Only As Well As You Are.

Almost All Good Writing Begins With Terrible First Efforts. You Need To Start Somewhere. Start By Getting Something—anything—down On Paper. What I’ve Learned To Do When I Sit Down To Work On A Shitty First Draft Is To Quiet The Voices In My Head.

Now, If You Ask Me, What’s Going On Is That We’re All Up To Here In It, And Probably The Most Important Thing Is That We Not Yell At One Another.

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.

I Suspect That He Was A Child Who Thought Differently Than His Peers, Who May Have Had Serious Conversations With Grown-ups, Who As A Young Person, Like Me, Accepted Being Alone Quite A Lot. I Think That This Sort Of Person Often Becomes Either A Writer Or A Career Criminal.

Dogs Are The Closest We Come To Knowing The Divine Love Of God On This Side Of Eternity.

Sometimes Heaven Is Just A New Pair Of Glasses.

Almost All Good Writing Begins With Terrible First Efforts. You Need To Start Somewhere. Start By Getting Something-anything-down On Paper. A Friend Of Mine Says That The First Draft Is The Down Draft-you Just Get It Down. The Second Draft Is The Up Draft-you Fix It Up. You Try To Say What You Have To Say More Accurately. And The Third Draft Is The Dental Draft, Where You Check Every Tooth, To See If It's Loose Or Cramped Or Decayed, Or Even, God Help Us, Healthy.

I'm Human, You're Human, Let Me Greet Your Humanness. Let's Be People Together For A While.

I Still Encourage Anyone Who Feels At All Compelled To Write To Do So. I Just Try To Warn People Who Hope To Get Published That Publication Is Not All It Is Cracked Up To Be. But Writing Is.

How Do You Begin? The Answer Is Simple: You Decide To.

I Devoured Books Like A Person Taking Vitamins, Afraid That Otherwise I Would Remain This Gelatinous Narcissist, With No Possibility Of Ever Becoming Thoughtful, Of Ever Being Taken Seriously.

She Felt As If The Mosaic She Had Been Assembling Out Of Life's Little Shards Got Dumped To The Ground, And There Was No Way To Put It Back Together.

Writing Takes A Combination Of Sophistication And Innocence; It Takes Conscience, Our Belief That Something Is Beautiful Because It Is Right.

I Don't Want Something Special. I Want Something Beautifully Plain.

She Lived In Fear Of Ifonic Endings.

Your Unconscious Can't Work When You Are Breathing Down Its Neck.

This Is A Very Violent Place To Live, The Earth, And We're A Very Violent Species. Cain Is Still Killing Abel. We See That Every Day.

The Miracle Is That We Are Here, That No Matter How Undone We’ve Been The Night Before, We Wake Up Every Morning And Are Still Here. It Is Phenomenal Just To Be.

When Everything Starts Going Wrong All At Once, It Is To Protect Something Big And Lovely That Is Trying To Get Itself Born.

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, Letting Images And Ideas And Smells Run Down Like Water - Just As Writing Is Also About Dealing With The Emptiness.

The Solution Is Always Spiritual, And It Almost Never Has Anything To Do With The Problem ... Laughter Is Carbonated Holiness.

I'd Wanted To Be A Writer My Whole Life. But When I Finally Made It, I Felt Like A Greyhound Catching The Mechanical Rabbit She'd Been Chasing For So Long--discovering It Was Merely Metal, Wrapped In Cloth. It Wasn't Alive; It Had No Spirit. It Was Fake.

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 Much Easier To Embrace Absolutes Than To Suffer Reality. I Don't Think Anything Is The Opposite Of Love. Reality Is Unforgivingly Complex.

One Of The Gifts Of Being A Writer Is That It Gives You An Excuse To Do Things, To Go Places And Explore. Another Is That Writing Motivates You To Look Closely At Life, At Life As It Lurches By And Tramps Around.

Grief, As I Read Somewhere Once, Is A Lazy Susan. One Day It Is Heavy And Underwater, And The Next Day It Spins And Stops At Loud And Rageful, And The Next Day At Wounded Keening, And The Next Day Numbness, Silence.

I Have A Giant Ego And Terrible Self-esteem, So I Need To Hit The Re-set Button Fairly Regularly - To Get Into Presence, And Humility, And Being Right-sized.

Writing Has So Much To Give, So Much To Teach, So Many Surprises.

We Are Not Here To See Through One Another, But To See One Another Through.

Oh, My God. What If You Wake Up Some Day, And You're 65 Or 75, And You Never Got Your Novel Or Memoir Written; Or You Didn't Go Swimming In Warm Pools Or Oceans Because Your Thighs Were Jiggly Or You Had A Nice Big Comfortable Tummy; Or You Were Just So Strung Out On Perfectionism And People-pleasing That You Forgot To Have A Big Juicy Creative Life, Of Imagination And Radical Silliness And Staring Off Into Space Like When You Were A Kid? It's Going To Break Your Heart. Don't Let This Happen.

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.

When We're Dealing With The People In Our Family - No Matter How Annoying Or Gross They May Be, No Matter How Self-inflicted Their Suffering May Appear, No Matter How Afflicted They Are With Ignorance, Prejudice Or Nose Hairs - We Give From The Deepest Parts Of Ourselves.

Grief Is Just So Scary.... If We Finally Begin To Cry All Those Suppressed Tears, They Will Surely Wash Us Away Like The Mississippi River. That's What Our Parents Told Us. We Got Sent To Our Rooms For Having Huge Feelings. In My Family, If You Cried Or Got Angry, You Didn't Get Dinner.

My Understanding Is That You Get To Choose Which Of Your Thoughts To Go With.

All Freedom Comes From Discipline.

What If You Wake Up Some Day, And You're 65... And You Were Just So Strung Out On Perfectionism And People-pleasing That You Forgot To Have A Big Juicy Creative Life?

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 Rational Mind Is The Golden Calf That This Culture Worships, But This Is Not True. Rationality Squeezes Out Much That Is Rich And Juicy And Fascinating.

I Just Try To Love And Serve Everyone, And Bring Everyone Water, And Lend An Ear; That's What Jesus Said To Do.

Joy Is The Best Makeup. But A Little Lipstick Is A Close Runner-up.

There Is Nothing You Can Buy, Achieve, Own, Or Rent That Can Fill Up That Hunger Inside For A Sense Of Fulfillment And Wonder.

You Are Going To Feel Like Hell If You Never Write The Stuff That Is Tugging On The Sleeves In Your Heart--your Stories, Visions, Memories, Songs: Your Truth, Your Version Of Things, In Your Voice. That Is Really All You Have To Offer Us, And It's Why You Were Born.

I Think Jesus Is Divine Love Manifest On Earth, As It Comes Through The Community Of Christians.

You Are Going To Have To Give And Give And Give, Or There's No Reason For You To Be Writing. You Have To Give From The Deepest Part Of Yourself, And You Are Going To Have To Go On Giving, And The Giving Is Going To Have To Be Its Own Reward. There Is No Cosmic Importance To Your Getting Something Published, But There Is In Learning To Be A Giver.

I'm Not Going To Change The Way People Think About Me, But I Can Say You Know What? I'm Not Going To Carry That In My Backpack.

My Idea Of Absolute Happiness Is To Be In Bed On A Rainy Day, With My Blankie, My Cat, And My Dog.

Can You Imagine The Hopelessness Of Trying To Live A Spiritual Life When You’re Secretly Looking Up At The Skies Not For Illumination Or Direction, But To Gauge, Miserably, The Odds Of Rain?

Rationality Squeezes Out Much That Is Rich And Juicy And Fascinating.

Pets Are The World To Me. I Think They Are The Most Obvious Manifestations Of Divine Love That We Are Going To See This Side Of Eternity.

My Best Teachers Were Mess, Failure, Death, Mistakes, And The People I Hated, Including Myself.

A Writer Paradoxically Seeks The Truth And Tells Lies Every Step Of The Way.

What If We Never 'get Over' Certain Deaths, Or Our Childhoods? What If The Idea That We Should Have By Now, Or Will, Is A Great Palace Lie? What If We're Not Supposed To? What If It Takes A Life Time...?

A Man Dies And Goes To Heaven. He Is Being Shown Around By An Angel. Everything Is Just So Sweet And Gentle, The Total Golden Tender Presence Of God Everywhere, A Pond Over There, A Beautiful Field There, And Some Hills For People Who Like To Hike, And This Expansiveness In Every Direction Of Sky And Light And Physical Beauty. And There Is This Section Separated From The Rest; It Has Beautiful High Walls. The Man Who's Just Come To Heaven Says, "what's Over There?" The Angel Says, "that's For The Fundamentalists. They Don't Consider It Heaven If Anyone Else Got In.

Sometimes I Think God Loves The Ones Who Most Desperately Ache And Are Most Desperately Lost - His Or Her Wildest, Most Messed-up Children - The Way You'd Ache And Love A Screwed-up Rebel Daughter In Juvenile Hall.

Living On Earth Has Always Been A Dangerous Way To Spend Your Time.

But Grace Can Be The Experience Of A Second Wind, When Even Though What You Want Is Clarity And Resolution, What You Get Is Stamina And Poignancy And The Strength To Hang On.

Write As If Your Parents Are Dead.

Having A Child As A Single Mother Was A Crucible - Maybe This Is True For All Parents. I Got Rid Of So Much Stuff That Didn't Really Matter In The Scheme Of Things-like Throwing Stuff Out Of An Airplane That Kept Me Flying Too Low. What Was Left Was Essential, I.e. Not A Lot Of Extraneous Stuff That Had Kept Me Busy And People-pleasing. I Just Didn't Have The Luxury Of Wasting My Life Force On So Much Stupidity And Distraction. That Made Me Strong.

Writing Can Be A Pretty Desperate Endeavor, Because It Is About Some Of Our Deepest Needs: Our Need To Be Visible, To Be Heard, Our Need To Make Sense Of Our Lives, To Wake Up And Grow And Belong. It Is No Wonder If We Sometimes Tend To Take Ourselves Perhaps A Bit Too Seriously.

I Thought The Secret Of Life Was Obvious: Be Here Now, Love As If Your Whole Life Depended On It, Find Your Life's Work, And Try To Get Hold Of A Giant Panda.

I Can Tell You That What You're Looking For Is Already Inside You.

It Is In Many People's Best Interest For You Not To Find Yourself, But It Only Matters That It Is In Yours, And The Whole World's, To Proceed.

Finding Yourself

As A Christian And A Feminist, The Most Important Message I Can Carry And Fight For Is The Sacredness Of Each Human Life, And Reproductive Rights For All Women Are A Crucial Part Of That. It Is A Moral Necessity That We Not Be Forced To Bring Children Into The World For Whom We Cannot Be Responsible And Adoring And Present. We Must Not Inflict Life On Children Who Will Be Resented; We Must Not Inflict Unwanted Children On Society.

Becoming A Writer Is About Becoming Conscious.

I Was Raised In A Family Where None Of Us Ever Raised A Voice, So There Was No Room To Express Feelings Of Rage Or Even Unabashed Joy - A Little Bashed Joy, Here Or There, Or Being Mildly Disgruntled.

The Giants Are Usually Described As Rag Tag, Kind Of A Great Garage Sale Team, And The Democrats Are Described As The Mommies To The Republican Daddies; And Everyone Hates The Mommies, But Wait, Wait - I Didn't Intend To Get Into The Pathos And Thrill Of Being A Democratic Giants Fan.

Alice Adams Wrote A Sweet Note To Me After My First Novel Came Out When I Was 26, And I Was So Blown Away That I Sent Her A Bunch Of Stamps By Return Mail. I Have No Idea What I Was Thinking. It Was A Star-struck Impulse.

I'm Drawn To Almost Any Piece Of Writing With The Words 'divine Love' And 'impeachment' In The First Sentence. But I Know The Word 'divine' Makes Many Progressive People Run Screaming For Their Cute Little Lives, And So One Hesitates To Use It.

I Don't Have Very Sophisticated Taste In Music. I Listen To A Lot Of Folk Music. I Like Reggae.

Here Are The Two Best Prayers I Know: 'help Me, Help Me, Help Me' And 'thank You, Thank You, Thank You.

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.

For Too Long, And Despite What People Told Me, I Had Fallen For What The Culture Said About Beauty, Youth, Features, Heights, Weights, Hair Textures, Upper Arms.

...music Is About As Physical As It Gets: Your Essential Rhythm Is Your Heartbeat; Your Essential Sound, The Breath. We're Walking Temples Of Noise, And When You Add Tender Hearts To This Mix, It Somehow Lets Us Meet In Places We Couldn't Get To Any Other Way.

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Jerry B. Jenkins

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