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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.

-Anne Lamott

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I Don’t Know Why

Anne Lamott

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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.

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This Is One Thing They Forget To Mention In Most Child-rearing Books, That At Times You Will Just Lose Your Mind. Period.

A Hundred Years From Now? All New People.

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 Read The Same Amount Of Nonfiction And Fiction.

Fiction And Nonfiction

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.

Most People's Intuitions Are Drowned Out By Folk Sayings. We Have A Moment Of Real Feeling Or Insight, And Then We Come Up With A Folk Saying That Captures The Insight In A Kind Of Wash. The Intuition May Be Real And Ripe, Fresh With Possibilities, But The Folk Saying Is Guaranteed To Be A Cliche, Stale And Self-contained.

I Pray Not To Be Such A Whiny, Self-obsessed Baby, And Give Thanks That I Am Not Quite As Bad As I Used To Be (talk About Miracles). Then Something Comes Up, And I Overreact And Blame And Sulk, And It Feels Like I Haven't Made Any Progress At All. But It Turns Out I'm Less Of A Brat Than Before, And I Hit The Reset Button Much Sooner, Shake It Off, And Get My Sense If Humor Back.

Perfectionism Is The Voice Of The Oppressor, The Enemy Of The People. It Will Keep You Cramped And Insane Your Whole Life, And It Is The Main Obstacle Between You And A Shitty First Draft. I Think Perfectionism Is Based On The Obsessive Belief That If You Run Carefully Enough, Hitting Each Stepping-stone Just Right, You Won't Have To Die. The Truth Is That You Will Die Anyway And That A Lot Of People Who Aren't Even Looking At Their Feet Are Going To Do A Whole Lot Better Than You, And Have A Lot More Fun While They're Doing It.

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.

Evangelical Christians And I Can Sit Down And Talk One On One About How Much We Love Jesus, And Yet I'm Not Carried In Christian Bookstores.

Toni Morrison Said, "the Function Of Freedom Is To Free Someone Else," And If You Are No Longer Wracked Or In Bondage To A Person Or A Way Of Life, Tell Your Story. Risk Freeing Someone Else. Not Everyone Will Be Glad That You Did. Members Of Your Family And Other Critics May Wish You Had Kept Your Secrets. Oh, Well, What Are You Going To Do?

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.

Gratitude Begins In Our Hearts And Then Dovetails Into Behavior. It Almost Always Makes You Willing To Be Of Service, Which Is Where The Joy Resides.

Books Help Us Understand Who We Are And How We Are To Behave. They Show Us What Community And Friendship Mean; They Show Us How To Live And Die.

The Clipping Said Forgiveness Meant That God Is For Giving, And That We Are Here For Giving Too, And That To Withold Love Or Blessings Is To Be Completely Delusional.

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.

Every Woman's Path Is Difficult, And Many Mothers Were As Equipped To Raise Children As Wire Monkey Mothers. I Say That Without Judgment: It Is, Sadly, True. An Unhealthy Mother's Love Is Withering.

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

You Keep Working On Your Piece Over And Over, Trying To Get The Sections And Paragraphs And Sentences And The Whole Just Right, But There's A Point At Which You Can Tell You've Begun Hurting The Work With Your Perfectionism. Then You Have To Release The Work To New Eyes.

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.

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

If You Asked Me, Parents Were Supposed To Affect The Life Of Their Child In Such A Way That The Child Grows Up To Be Responsible, Able To Participate In Life And In Community.

Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers.

If You Want To Know How God Feels About Money, Look At Whom She Gives It To.

I Used To Love To Untangle Chains When I Was A Child. I Had Thin, Busy Fingers, And I Never Gave Up. Perhaps There Was A Psychiatric Component To My Concentration But Like Much Of My Psychic Damage, This Worked To Everyone's Advantage.

In Fact, There's Really Only One Thing That Everything's Made Of; It's Energy.

Rule 1: When All Else Fails, Follow Instructions. And Rule 2: Don't Be An Asshole.

When All Else Fails

But You Don't Always Get What You Want;,you Get What You Get

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.

My Main Problem Is That Over And Over Again, I Try To Get All My Characters To Say Stuff That I Think Is So Witty Or Erudite You Know, So That Everybody Will Go.

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'd Like To Learn To Meditate With More Enthusiasm. I Can Sit Down And Get Quiet For 20 Minutes, But It Just Has Not Been A Part Of My Christianity At All.

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...?

Perfectionism Is The Voice Of The Oppressor, The Enemy Of The People. It Will Keep You Cramped And Insane Your Whole Life Besides, Perfectionism Will Ruin Your Writing, Blocking Inventiveness And Playfulness And Life Force (these Are Words We Are Allowed To Use In California).

...one Of The Worst Things About Being A Parent, For Me, Is The Self-discovery, The Being Face To Face With One's Secret Insanity And Brokenness And Rage.

I Think Drugs Are Part Of The Magical Possibilities Of Youth And I Wouldn't Be Here If I Had Continued With It.

You Have To Be A Warrior And Say, "maybe It's Everyone Else's System, But It's Not Mine." (from Her Recent Interview Here, On Goodreads)

Only Grieving Can Heal Grief; The Passage Of Time Will Lessen The Acuteness, But Time Alone, Without The Direct Experience Of Grief, Will Not Heal It.

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

Forgiveness Is Giving Up All Hope Of Having Had A Better Past.

Churches Are Good For Prayer, But So Are Garages And Cars And Mountains And Showers And Dance Floors.

There Is Nothing More Touching To Me Then A Family Picture Where Everyone Is Trying To Look His Or Her Best, But You Can See What A Mess They All Really Are.

Everybody Thinks Their Opinion Is The Right One. If They Didn't, They Would Get A New One.

I Very Rarely Read The Responses To My Salon Pieces, Because (as You May Have Noticed) The Trolls Can Be So Evil. So Violent In Their Hostility To Me And My Work. Ok, Wait, Wait, Wait. That's A Lie. I Do Read The Responses--and Get Mesmerized, Like Cobra Hypnosis. But I Laugh (mostly) At The Trolls, And Think About What Tiny Little Weenies They Must Have. (they Seem To Be Mostly Men.) And Then All These Smart, Funny People Leap To My Defense, Which Is Medicine, And Fills Me With Love And Thankfulness.

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

I Don't Think Anything Is The Opposite Of Love.

Over And Over I Feel As If My Characters Know Who They Are, And What Happens To Them, And Where They Have Been And Where They Will Go, And What They Are Capable Of Doing, But They Need Me To Write It Down For Them Because Their Handwriting Is So Bad.

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.

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.

To Be Great, Art Has To Point Somewhere.

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.

I Went To Goucher College In Maryland For The Best Possible Reasons - To Learn - But Then I Dropped Out At 19 For The Best Possible Reasons - To Become A Writer.

The Movement Of Grace Toward Gratitude Brings Us From The Package Of Self-obsessed Madness To A Spiritual Awakening.

I Wish I Had Thrown Out The Bathroom Scale At Age 16. Weighing Yourself Every Morning Is Like Waking Up And Asking Dick Cheney To Validate Your Sense Of Inner Worth.

You Know How I Always Say That Laughter Is Carbonated Holiness? Well, Robin Was The Ultimate Proof Of That, And Bubbles Are Spirit Made Visible.

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.

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.

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

Most Humbling Of All Is To Comprehend The Lifesaving Gift That Your Pit Crew Of People Has Been For You, And All The Experiences You Have Shared, The Journeys Together, The Collaborations, Births And Deaths, Divorces, Rehab, And Vacations, The Solidarity You Have Shown One Another. Every So Often You Realize That Without All Of Them, Your Life Would Be Barren And Pathetic. It Would Be Death Of A Salesman, Though With E-mail And Texting.

...after A Few Days At The Desk, Telling The Truth In An Interesting Way Turns Out To Be As Easy And Pleasurable As Bathing A Cat.

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

I Just Can't Get Over How Much Babies Cry. I Really Had No Idea What I Was Getting Into. To Tell You The Truth, I Thought It Would Be More Like Getting A Cat.

We're Out There Somewhere Between The Known And The Unknown, Trying To Reel In Both For A Closer Look.

You Can Either Set Brick As A Laborer Or As An Artist. You Can Make The Work A Chore, Or You Can Have A Good Time. You Can Do It The Way You Used To Clear The Dinner Dishes When You Were Thirteen, Or You Can Do It As A Japanese Person Would Perform A Tea Ceremony, With A Level Of Concentration And Care In Which You Can Lose Yourself, And So In Which You Can Find Yourself.

Finding Yourself

I Am An Aries. Although I Do Not Believe In Astrology, I Think This Is Exactly The Right Sign To Have Been Born Under.

We Must Not Inflict Life On Children Who Will Be Resented; We Must Not Inflict Unwanted Children On Society.

Reproductive Rights

I Don't Write About The Intimate Details Of My Cousins And Aunts And Uncles, And My Mother And My Father Because It's Not Right To, For Me.

My Dad Taught Me That To Be A Writer Is A Decision And A Habit. It's Not Anything Lofty, And It Doesn't Have That Much To Do With Inspiration. You Have To Develop The Habit Of Being A Certain Way With Yourself. You Do It At The Debt Of Honor.

At Some Point I Started Getting Published, And Experienced A Meager Knock-kneed Standing In The Literary World, And I Started To Get Almost Everything That Many Of You Graduates Are Hoping For--except For The Money. I Got A Lot Of Things That Society Had Promised Would Make Me Whole And Fulfilled--all The Things That The Culture Tells You, From Preschool On, Will Quiet The Throbbing Anxiety Inside You. I Got Some Stature, The Respect Of Other Writers, Even A Low-grade Fame. The Culture Says These Things Will Save You, As Long As You Also Manage To Keep Your Weight Down. But The Culture Lies.

Almost Everything Will Work Again If You Unplug It For A Few Minutes, Including You.

When You Pray, You Are Not Starting The Conversation From Scratch, Just Remembering To Plug Back Into A Conversation That's Always In Progress.

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.

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

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

I Am Skittish About Relationships, As Most Of The Marriages I've Seen Up Close Have Been Ruinous For One Or Both Parties.

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

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

We Were Raised To Believe In Books, Music, And Nature.

On The Spiritual Path, All The Dreck And Misery Is Transformed, Maybe Not That Same Day, But Still Transformed Into Spiritual Fuel Or Insight.

Honesty Is Not Necessarily Interesting. I Don't Want To Hear About Your Dreams Or Your Acid Trips, Probably Unless You Make Them Really Interesting.

The Whistle Is Always Waiting To Be Blown, And In Some Ways, It Gets Me To Do Better Work.

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.

One Thing About Having A Baby Is That Each Step Of The Way You Simply Cannot Imagine Loving Him Any More Than You Already Do, Because You Are Bursting With Love, Loving As Much As You Are Humanly Capable Of- And Then You Do, You Love Him Even More.

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

My Father Really Taught Me That You Really Develop The Habit Of Writing And You Sit Down At The Same Time Every Day, You Don't Wait For Inspiration.

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

Get To Know Your Characters As Well As You Can Let There Be Something At Stake, And Then Let The Chips Fall Where They May.

It Was Not Facing What Life Dealt That Made You Crazy, But Rather Trying To Set Life Straight Where It Was Unstraightenable.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

There Is Ecstasy In Paying Attention.

'help' Is A Prayer That Is Always Answered.

Answered Prayers

God Sent Jesus To Join The Human Experience, Which Means To Make A Lot Of Mistakes. Jesus Didn't Arrive Here Knowing How To Walk. He Had Fingers And Toes, Confusion, Sexual Feelings, Crazy Human Internal Processes. He Had The Same Prejudices As The Rest Of His Tribe: He Had To Learn That The Canaanite Woman Was A Person. He Had To Suffer The Hardships And Tedium And Setbacks Of Being A Regular Person. If He Hadn't The Incarnation Would Mean Nothing.

Some People Have A Thick Skin And You Don’t. Your Heart Is Really Open And That Is Going To Cause Pain, But That Is An Appropriate Response To This World. The Cost Is High, But The Blessing Of Being Compassionate Is Beyond Your Wildest Dreams.

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

I Am Not Writing To Try And Convert People To Fundamental Christianity. I Am Just Trying To Share My Experience, Strength And Hope, That Someone Who Is As Messed Up And Neurotic And Scarred And Scared Can Be Fully Accepted By Our Dear Lord, No Questions Asked.

The Road To Enlightenment Is Long And Difficult, And You Should Try Not To Forget Snacks And Magazines.

Right Foot, Left Foot, Right Foot, Breathe.

I Write Everything As A Wake-up Call To Myself And Others, To Anyone Who May Have Gotten Tired Of Hitting The Snooze Button.

Drugs Took Me To Places; They Were Like Portals. It's Kind Of A Cliché, But They Were Like Portals To Altered States Of Consciousness Into Ways Of Imagining The World, Or Seeing A World Beyond This World, Or Seeing A World Beyond This World That I Might Not Have Gotten To Unless I Discovered Meditation And A Very Deep, Intense Spiritual Path Based On Contemplation And Meditation.

If The Present Is Really All We Have, Then The Present Lasts Forever.

I Realized I Was Going To Get Through This Disappointing Service, And Anyway, You Have To Be Somewhere: Better Here, Where I Have Heard Truth Spoken So Often, Than, Say, At The Dmv, Or Home Alone, Orbiting My Own Mind. And It's Good To Be Out Where Others Can See You, So You Can't Be Your Ghastly Spoiled Self. It Forces You To Act Slightly More Elegantly, And This Improves Your Thoughts, And Thereby The 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.

I Also Learned That You Didn’t Come Onto This Earth As A Perfectionist Or Control Freak. You Weren’t Born A Person Of Cringe And Contraction. You Were Born As Energy, As Life, Made Of The Same Stuff As Stars, Blossoms, Breezes. You Learned Contraction To Survive, But That Was Then. You Have Paid Through The Nose-paid But Good. It Is Now Your Turn To Reap.

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.

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.

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 Do Believe That God Is With Us Even When We're At Our Craziest And That This Goodness Guides, Provides, And Protects.

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?

Learning To Love Back Is The Hardest Part Of Being Alive.

Learning To Love

Everything Was Coming Together By Coming Apart . . . It Is The Most Difficult Zen Practice To Leave People To Their Destiny, Even Though It's Painful - Just Loving Them, And Breathing With Them, And Distracting Them In A Sweet Way, And Laughing With Them . . . If Something Was Not My Problem, I Probably Did Not Have The Solution.

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.

I Don't Have Any Romantic Views Of Parenting. Every Step Of The Way It's Really Hard. It's A Dangerous World, Physically And Psychologically.

Dangerous World

Perfection Is Shallow, Unreal, And Fatally Uninteresting.

Butterflies And Birds Are Like One Perfect Teaspoon Of Creation.

No One Can Appropriate God, Goodness, The Bible Or Jesus. It Just Seems That Way.

I Find Most Famous Christians To Be Full Of Themselves And Of Prejudice And Self-loathing, Masquerading As Devout Religious Belief. I Find All Fundamentalism To Be Terrifying And Very Destructive.

So Rita And I Decided That The Most Subversive, Revolutionary Thing I Could Do Was To Show Up For My Life And Not Be Ashamed.

If You Have A Body, You Are Entitled To The Full Range Of Feelings. It Comes With The Package.

Sometimes Heaven Is Just A New Pair Of Glasses.

The Truth Of My Experience Is That We Are All A Lot More Alike Than We Are Different.

Once An Old Woman At My Church Said The Secret Is That God Loves Us Exactly The Way We Are And That He Loves Us Too Much To Let Us Stay Like This, And I'm Just Trying To Trust That.

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.

Perfectionism Is The Voice Of The Oppressor; The Enemy Of The People. It Will Keep You Insane Your Whole Life.

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

I Have A Lot Of Faith. But I Am Also Afraid A Lot, And Have No Real Certainty About Anything. I Remembered Something Father Tom Had Told Me--that The Opposite Of Faith Is Not Doubt, But Certainty. Certainty Is Missing The Point Entirely. Faith Includes Noticing The Mess, The Emptiness And Discomfort, And Letting It Be There Until Some Light Returns.

A Priest Friend Of Mine Has Cautioned Me Away From The Standard God Of Our Childhoods, Who Loves You And Guides You And Then, If You Are Bad, Roasts You: God As A High School Principal In A Gray Suit Who Never Remembered Your Name But Is Always Leafing Unhappily Through Your Files.

...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.

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.

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.

It Is Hard To Remember That You Are A Cherished Spiritual Being When You're Burping Up Apple Fritters And Cheetos.

Thirty Years Ago My Older Brother, Who Was Ten Years Old At The Time, Was Trying To Get A Report Written On Birds That He'd Had Three Months To Write, Which Was Due The Next Day. We Were Out At Our Family Cabin In Bolinas, And He Was At The Kitchen Table Close To Tears, Surrounded By Binder Paper And Pencils And Unopened Books About Birds, Immobilized By The Hugeness Of The Task Ahead. Then My Father Sat Down Beside Him Put His Arm Around My Brother's Shoulder, And Said, "bird By Bird, Buddy. Just Take It Bird By Bird.

My Family Tends To Be Pretty Alcoholic And Drug-addicted.

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.

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.

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.

Sometimes Grace Is A Ribbon Of Mountain Air That Gets In Through The Cracks.

The Difference Between A Writer Who Toughs It Out And One Who Doesn't Is That You Push Through The Parts Where You Know That You've Just Written Seven Pages When All You're Looking For Is One Paragraph.

I Used To Tell My Writing Students That They Must Write The Books They Wished They Could Come Upon - Because Then The Books They Hungered And Thirsted For Would Exist.

Feeding A Baby Is Like Filling A Hole With Putty - You Get It In And Then You Sort Of Shave Off All The Excess Around The Hole And Get It Back In, Like You're Spackling.

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 Freedom Comes From Discipline.

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.

There Are Moments When I Am Writing When I Think That If Other People Knew How I Felt Right Now, They’d Burn Me At The Stake For Feeling So Good, So Full, So Much Intense Pleasure.

Radical Self-care Is Quantum, And Radiates Out Into The Atmosphere, Like A Little Fresh Air.

There Is Nothing As Sweet As A Comeback, When You Are Down And Out, About To Lose, And Out Of Time.

It's Funny Where We Look For Salvation, And Where We Actually Find It.

And As It Turns Out, If One Person Is Praying For You, Buckle Up. Things Can Happen.

My Mother Was A Not-too-devoted Atheist. She Went To Episcopal Church On Christmas Eve Every Year, And That Was Mostly It.

My Mother's Eyes Were Large And Brown, Like My Son's, But Unlike Sam's, They Were Always Frantic, Like A Hummingbird Who Can't Quite Find The Flower But Keeps Jabbing Around.

For Some Of Us, Good Books And Beautiful Writing Are Our Ultimate Solace, Even More Comforting Than Exquisite Food.

When I Was Young, I Used To Be So Jealous Of Other Girls That It Crippled Me.

Some People Won't Go The Extra Mile, And Then On Their Birthday, When No One Makes A Fuss, They Feel Neglected And Bitter.

Going The Extra Mile

I Try To Write The Books I Would Love To Come Upon That Are Honest, Concerned With Real Lives, Human Hearts, Spiritual Transformation, Families, Secrets, Wonder, Craziness - And That Can Make Me Laugh.

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.

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

I Was Usually Filled With A Sense Of Something Like Shame Until I'd Remember That Wonderful Line Of Blake's- That We Are Here To Learn To Endure The Beams Of Love- And I Would Take A Long Deep Breath And Force These Words Out Of My Strangulated Throat: "thank You.

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.

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.

My Coming To Faith Did Not Start With A Leap But Rather A Series Of Staggers From What Seemed Like One Safe Place To Another. Like Lily Pads, Round And Green, These Places Summoned And Then Held Me Up While I Grew. Each Prepared Me For The Next Leaf On Which I Would Land, And In This Way I Moved Across The Swamp Of Doubt And Fear.

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.

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.

What People Somehow Forgot To Mention When We Were Children Was That We Need To Make Messes In Order To Find Out Who We Are And Why We Are Here.

It's A Great Time To Be Alive.

All Those Years I Fell For The Great Palace Lie That Grief Should Be Gotten Over As Quickly As Possible And As Privately. But, What I've Discovered Is That The Lifelong Fear Of Grief Keeps Us In A Barren, Isolated Place, And That Only Grieving Can Heal Grief. The Passage Of Time Will Lessen The Acuteness, But Time Alone, Without The Direct Experience Of Grief, Will Not Heal It.

Write Straight Into The Emotional Center Of Things. Write Toward Vulnerability. Don't Worry About Appearing Sentimental. Worry About Being Unavailable; Worry About Being Absent Or Fraudulent.

And I Felt Like My Heart Had Been So Thoroughly And Irreparably Broken That There Could Be No Real Joy Again, That At Best There Might Eventually Be A Little Contentment. Everyone Wanted Me To Get Help And Rejoin Life, Pick Up The Pieces And Move On, And I Tried To, I Wanted To, But I Just Had To Lie In The Mud With My Arms Wrapped Around Myself, Eyes Closed, Grieving, Until I Didn’t Have To Anymore.

Sometimes, No Matter How Screwed Up Things Seem, I Feel Like We're All At A Wedding. But You Can't Just Come Out And Say, We're At A Wedding! Have Some Cake! You Need To Create A World Into Which We Can Enter, A World Where We Can See This.

The Opposite Of Faith Is Not Doubt, It’s Certainty.

Doubt And Certainty

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.

Because This Business Of Becoming Conscious, Of Being A Writer, Is Ultimately About Asking Yourself, How Alive Am I Willing To Be?

The Evidence Is In, And You Are The Verdict.

That's About 90 Percent Of My Theological Life - Radical Self-care. Put Your Own Oxygen Mask On First. I Watch The Self-talk That Goes Through My Mind, And If I Am Being Critical With Myself, I Shake Myself Out Of It.

I Have Been Somebody Who Has Not Written A Great Deal About The Truth Of My Family's Life.

The First Draft Is The Child's Draft, Where You Let It All Pour Out And Then Let It Romp All Over The Place, Knowing That No One Is Going To See It And That You Can Shape It Later.

...[t]here Should Be A Real Sense Of Your Imagination And Your Memories Walking And Woolgathering, Tramping The Hills, Romping All Over The Place. Trust Them. Don't Look At Your Feet To See If You Are Doing It Right. Just Dance.

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

Why Couldn't Jesus Command Us To Obsess Over Everything, To Try To Control And Manipulate People, To Try Not To Breathe At All, Or To Pay Attention, Stomp Away To Brood When People Annoy Us, And Then Eat A Big Bag Of Hershey's Kisses In Bed?

Rituals Are A Good Signal To Your Unconscious That It Is Time To Kick In.

I Am Drawn To People That Are Not Going To Shy Away From The Very Dark, Scary Stuff Of The Human Condition And In A Lot Of Cases People Need Alcohol Or Drugs To Create Poetry And Poetic Pose That Can Take You So Far Out There Where You Are Still Able To Recognize Yourself And Then To Bring You Back Home Where You're Not The Same Person You Were When You Left.

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

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

It Is Unearned Love--the Love That Goes Before, That Greets Us On The Way. It's The Help You Receive When You Have No Bright Ideas Left, When You Are Empty And Desperate And Have Discovered That Your Best Thinking And Most Charming Charm Have Failed You. Grace Is The Light Or Electricity Or Juice Or Breeze That Takes You From That Isolated Place And Puts You With Others Who Are As Startled And Embarrassed And Eventually Grateful As You Are To Be There.

After A While The Middle-aged Person Who Lives In Her Head Begins To Talk To Her Soul, The Kid.

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.

That Thing You Had To Force Yourself To Do-the Actual Act Of Writing-turns Out To Be The Best Part.

I Believe That Discipline And Self-love Are The Total Secrets To Freedom.

The Problem With God - Or At Any Rate, One Of The Top Five Most Annoying Things About God - Is That He Or She Rarely Answers Right Away.

Having A Baby Is Like Suddenly Getting The World's Worst Roommate.

Intelligence, Goodness, Humanity, Excitement, Serenity. Over Time, These Are The Things That Change The Musculature Of Your Face, As Do Laughter, And Animation, And Especially Whatever Peace You Can Broker With The Person Inside. It's Furrow, Pinch, And Judgement That Make Us Look Older - Our Mothers Were Right. They Said That If You Made Certain Faces, They Would Stick, And They Do. But Our Mothers Forgot That Faces Of Kindness And Integrity Stick As Well.

I've Written Six Novels And Four Pieces Of Nonfiction, So I Don't Really Have A Genre These Days.

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

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.

To Be Engrossed By Something Outside Ourselves Is A Powerful Antidote For The Rational Mind, The Mind That So Frequently Has Its Head Up Its Own Ass.

It Is A Violation Of Trust To Use Your Kids As Caulking For The Cracks In You.

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.

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Alan K. Simpson

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