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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.

-Anne Lamott

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I Know That If

Anne Lamott

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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.

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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.

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

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

I Wish Grace And Healing Were More Abracadabra Kind Of Things. Also, That Delicate Silver Bells Would Ring To Announce Grace's Arrival. But No, It's Clog And Slog And Scootch, On The Floor, In The Silence, In The Dark.

In A Library, You Can Find Small Miracles And Truth, And You Might Find Something That Will Make You Laugh So Hard That You Will Get Shushed, In The Friendliest Way. I Have Found Sanctuary In Libraries My Whole Life, And There Is Sanctuary There Now, From The War, From The Storms Of Our Families And Our Own Minds. Libraries Are Like Mountains Or Meadows Or Creeks: Sacred Space. So This Afternoon, I'll Walk To The Library.

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.

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.

Expectations Are Resentments Under Construction.

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

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

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

We're Like Magic 8-balls. After You Ask Your Question And Shake The 8-ball, You Read The Answer In The Little Window. If You Ever Broke Open A Magic 8-ball With A Hammer, You Discovered That It Contained A Many-sided Plastic Object, With An Answer On Every Facet, Floating In A Cylinder Of Murky Blue Fluid. The Many-sided Core Held The Answer To Your Question. My Theory Is That, As With Our Children, As With Every Surface Of That Geodesic Dome Inside The 8-ball, Every Age We've Ever Been Is Who We Are.

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.

Everything Takes Me Forever. It's All Lurch, Flail. I Hope That Is Good News To You Writers.

I Don't Know Much, But I Understand How Entirely Doomed I Am Without God.

When We Did Art With The Kids, The Demons Would Lie Down.

A Big Heart Is Both A Clunky And A Delicate Thing; It Doesn't Protect Itself And It Doesn't Hide. It Stands Out, Like A Baby's Fontanel, Where You Can See The Soul Pulse Through.

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

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.

Part Of Me Loves And Respects Men So Desperately, And Part Of Me Thinks They Are So Embarrassingly Incompetent At Life And In Love. You Have To Teach Them The Very Basics Of Emotional Literacy. You Have To Teach Them How To Be There For You, And Part Of Me Feels Tender Toward Them And Gentle, And Part Of Me Is So Afraid Of Them, Afraid Of Any More Violation.

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.

It's Good To Do Uncomfortable Things. It's Weight Training For Life.

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

A Good Marriage Is Where Both People Feel Like They're Getting The Better End Of The Deal.

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.

Left To My Own Devices, Would I Trade This For Firm Thighs, Fewer Wrinkles, A Better Memory? On Some Days. That's Why It's Such A Blessing I'm Not Left To My Own Devices. Because The Truth Is I Have Amazing Friends And A Deep Faith In God, To Whom I Can Turn. I Have A Cool Kid, A Sweet Boyfriend, Darling Pets. I've Learned To Pay Attention To Life, And To Listen. I'd Give Up All This For A Flatter Belly? Are You Crazy?

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.

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

You Get Your Confidence And Intuition Back By Trusting Yourself, By Being Militantly On Your Own Side. ... Don't Look At Your Feet To See If You Are Doing It Right. Just Dance.

Inspirational 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.

Falling In Love

If I Were Going To Begin Practicing The Presence Of God For The First Time Today, It Would Help To Begin By Admitting The Three Most Terrible Truths Of Our Existence: That We Are So Ruined, And So Loved, And In Charge Of So Little.

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.

But You Can’t Get To Any Of These Truths By Sitting In A Field Smiling Beatifically, Avoiding Your Anger And Damage And Grief. Your Anger And Damage And Grief Are The Way To The Truth. We Don’t Have Much Truth To Express Unless We Have Gone Into Those Rooms And Closets And Woods And Abysses That We Were Told Not Go In To. When We Have Gone In And Looked Around For A Long While, Just Breathing And Finally Taking It In – Then We Will Be Able To Speak In Our Own Voice And To Stay In The Present Moment. And That Moment Is Home.

The Problem Is Acceptance, Which Is Something We're Taught Not To Do. We're Taught To Improve Uncomfortable Situations, To Change Things, Alleviate Unpleasant Feelings. But If You Accept The Reality That You Have Been Given- That You Are Not In A Productive Creative Period- You Free Yourself To Begin Filling Up Again.

Uncomfortable Situations

You Must Not Inflict Life On Someone Who Will Be Resented.

If I Have A Huge Audience, I'd Like A Bigger Audience; Maybe Slightly A Slightly More Illustrious Audience.

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

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.

...because When People Have Seen You At Their Worst, You Don't Have To Put On The Mask As Much.

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.

A Hundred Years From Now? All New People.

I Sat Down In The Sand, Breathless With Shame And Failure. God, I Thought, Some Defender Of The Weak. Some Freedom Fighter: Joan Of Arc In Sunscreen.

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.

Seeing Yourself In Print Is Such An Amazing Concept: You Can Get So Much Attention Without Having To Actually Show Up Somewhere... You Don't Have To Dress Up, For Instance, And You Can't Hear Them Boo You Right Away.

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.

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.

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

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.

Whenever The World Throws Rose Petals At You, Which Thrill And Seduce The Ego, Beware.

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 Why They Write So Little.

I've Heard People Say That God Is The Gift Of Desperation, And There's A Lot To Be Said For Having Really Reached A Bottom Where You've Run Out Of Any More Good Ideas Or Plans For Everybody Else's Behavior; Or How To Save And Fix And Rescue; Or Just Get Out Of A Huge Mess, Possibly Of Your Own Creation.

My Experience As A Writer Is That You Really Do Write Seven And Eight Pages To Find The Paragraph You Were After All Along.

But It Was The Singing That Pulled Me In And Split Me Wide Open.

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.

Looking Back On The God My Friend Believed In, He Seems A Little Erratic, Not Entirely Unlike Her Father - God As Borderline Personality.

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.

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.

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

One Line Of Dialogue That Rings True Reveals Character In A Way That Pages Of Description Can't.

And That Almost Everyone Was Struggling To Wake Up, To Be Loved, And Not Feel So Afraid All The Time. That's What The Cars, Degrees, Booze, And Drugs Were About.

What If We Gave Fifty Percent Of Our Discretionary Budget To The World’s Poor And Then Counted On The Moral Power Of That Action To Protect Us?

Think Of A Fine Painter Attempting To Capture An Inner Vision, Beginning With One Corner Of The Canvas, Painting What She Thinks Should Be There, Not Quite Pulling It Off, Covering It Over With White Paint, And Trying Again, Each Time Finding Out What Her Painting Isn't, Until She Finally Finds Out What It Is. And When You Finally Do Find Out What One Corner Of Your Vision Is; You're Off And Running.

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

I've Given Guys Blow Jobs Just Because I've Run Out Of Things To Talk About.' Oh, Rae. Who Hasn't

I Was Reminded Of The Four Immutable Laws Of The Spirit: Whoever Is Present Are The Right People. Whenever It Begins Is The Right Time. Whatever Happens Is The Only Thing That Could Have Happened. And When It's Over, It's Over.

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.

My Deepest Belief Is That To Live As If We're Dying Can Set Us Free. Dying People Teach You To Pay Attention And To Forgive And Not To Sweat The Small Things.

To Love Yourself As You Are Is A Miracle, And To Seek Yourself Is To Have Found Yourself For Now. And Now Is All We Have, And Love Is Who We Are.

Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers.

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

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.

Writing Is About Hypnotizing Yourself Into Believing In Yourself, Getting Some Work Done, Then Unhypnotizing Yourself And Going Over The Material Coldly.

I’ve Heard It Said That Every Day You Need Half An Hour Of Quiet Time For Yourself, Or Your Self, Unless You’re Incredibly Busy And Stressed, In Which Case You Need An Hour. I Promise You, It Is There. Fight Tooth And Nail To Find Time, To Make It. It Is Our True Wealth, This Moment, This Hour, This Day.

The Evidence Is In, And You Are The Verdict.

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.

But Easy's Like, Who Cares? Easy's Like, How Much Is Easy Going To Get You?

Trying To Reason With An Addict Was Like Trying To Blow Out A Lightbulb.

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.

I Didn't Write About My Mother Much In The Third Year After She Died. I Was Still Trying To Get My Argument Straight: When Her Friends Or Our Relatives Wondered Why I Was Still So Hard On Her, I Could Really Lay Out The Case For What It Had Been Like To Be Raised By Someone Who Had Loathed Herself, Her Husband, Even Her Own Name.

I Think This Is How We Are Supposed To Be In The World-present And In Awe.

I Write Because Writing Is The Gift God Has Given Me To Help People In The World.

Gorgeous, Amazing Things Come Into Our Lives When We Are Paying Attention: Mangoes, Grandnieces, Bach, Ponds. This Happens More Often When We Have As Little Expectation As Possible. If You Say, "well, That's Pretty Much What I Thought I'd See," You Are In Trouble. At That Point You Have To Ask Yourself Why You Are Even Here. [...] Astonishing Material And Revelation Appear In Our Lives All The Time. Let It Be. Unto Us, So Much Is Given. We Just Have To Be Open For Business.

Perfection Is Shallow, Unreal, And Fatally Uninteresting.

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.

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

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.

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

When What We See Catches Us Off Guard, And When We Write It As Realistically And Openly As Possible, It Offers Hope. You Look Around And Say, Wow, There's That Same Mockingbird; There's That Woman In The Red Hat Again. The Woman In The Red Hat Is About Hope Because She's In It Up To Her Neck, Too, Yet Every Day She Puts On That Crazy Red Hat And Walks To Town.

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.

Some People Wanted To Get Rich Or Famous, But My Friends And I Wanted To Get Real. We Wanted To Get Deep. (also, I Suppose, We Wanted To Get Laid.)

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.

Here Are The Two Best Prayers I Know: 'help Me, Help Me, Help Me,' And 'thank You, Thank You, Thank You.' A Woman I Know Says, For Her Morning Prayer, 'whatever,' And Then For The Evening, 'oh, Well,' But Has Conceded That These Prayers Are More Palatable For People Without Children.

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.

The Reason I Never Give Up Hope Is Because Everything Is So Basically Hopeless.

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

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

When You Make Friends With Fear, It Can’t Rule You.

Clutter And Mess Show Us That Life Is Being Lived.

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.

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.

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.

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

I Know Some Very Great Writers, Writers You Love Who Write Beautifully And Have Made A Great Deal Of Money, And Not One Of Them Sits Down Routinely Feeling Wildly Enthusiastic And Confident. Not One Of Them Writes Elegant First Drafts. All Right, One Of Them Does, But We Do Not Like Her Very Much. We Do Not Think That She Has A Rich Inner Life Or That God Likes Her Or Can Even Stand Her. (although When I Mentioned This To My Priest Friend Tom, He Said That 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.)

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.

So I Was Doing Well Academically, And I Was A Well-ranked Tennis Player And Was The Apple Of My Handsome Father's Eye-and Then I Would Bring Home A Report Card With A B-plus On It, And My Parents Would Look At The Report Card As If I'd Flunked. "uh, Honey?" One Of Them Would Ask, Looking Perplexed. "now, This Isn't A Criticism But, If You Could Get A B-plus In Philosophy, How Much Harder Would It Have Been To Get An A-minus?"

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.

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

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

Now She And I Sit Together In Her Room And Eat Chocolate, And I Tell Her That In A Very Long Time When We Both To Go Heaven, We Should Try To Get Chairs Next To Each Other, Close To The Dessert Table.

And She Is Going To Dance, Dance Hungry, Dance Full, Dance Each Cold Astonishing Moment, Now When She Is Young And Again When She Is Old.

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.

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

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

There Is Ecstasy In Paying Attention.

If You're Lucky You Find Your Way Into A Spiritual Community And You Start To Find The Great Teachers Of All The Ages Who Said The Same Thing. There's Only Love, You're Made Of Love.

Sometimes I Think That Jesus Watches My Neurotic Struggles, And Shakes His Head And Grips His Forehead And Starts Tossing Back Mojitos.

I Honestly Think That In Order To Be A Writer You Have To Learn To Be Reverent. If Not, Why Are You Writing? Why Are You Here?

This Is What Separates Artists From Ordinary People: The Belief, Deep In Our Hearts, That If We Build Our Castles Well Enough, Somehow The Ocean Won't Wash Them Away. I Think This Is A Wonderful Kind Of Person To Be.

I Do Not Understand How Deeply People Seem To Like My Work - But I Love That People Feel I Have Helped Them Through Hardships, And Also Have Shared My Experience Of Living A More Spiritual And Present Life. It's So Great To Be Able To Make People Laugh, Because This Is So Often How We Get Our Selves Back.

If You Fixate On The Big Picture, The Whole Shebang, The Overview, You Miss The Stitching.

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

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.

Just Don't Pretend You Know More About Your Characters Than They Do, Because You Don't. Stay Open To Them. It's Teatime And All The Dolls Are At The Table. Listen. It's That Simple.

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.

When Hope Is Not Pinned Wriggling Onto A Shiny Image Or Expectation, It Sometimes Floats Forth And Opens Like One Of Those Fluted Japanese Blossoms, Flimsy And Spastic, Bright And Warm. This Almost Always Seems To Happen In Community.

A Whole Lot Of Us Believers, Of All Different Religions, Are Ready To Turn Back The Tide Of Madness By Walking Together, In Both The Dark And The Light - In Other Words, Through Life - Registering Voters As We Go, And Keeping The Faith.

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

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.

If God Was Giving Me A Ham, I'd Be Crazy Not To Receive It. Maybe It Was The Ham Of God, Who Takes Away The Sins Of The World.

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

What An Incredible Drug Fear Is.

What’s The Difference Between You And God? God Never Thinks He’s You.

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

It's So Great To Be Able To Make People Laugh, Because This Is So Often How We Get Our Selves Back.

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

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?

I've Seen Prayers Answered. But Often, In My Experiences, If You Get What You Pray For, You've Really Shortchanged Yourself.

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.

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

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.

...it Really Is Easier To Experience Spiritual Connection When Your Life Is In The Process Of Coming Apart.

All Freedom Comes From Discipline.

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.

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

I Don't See Myself As A Deep Philosopher. The Things I Write About Tend To Be What We All Have To Face, Or Consider, Or Experience, That I Talk About With My Friends And Brothers. It's Universal Stuff, Told In My Own Voice, My Own Details And Truth, Which Is All I Have To Offer.

I Accidentally Forgot To Graduate From College.

I Naturally Prefer The Company Of People Who Hold Grudges, As Long As They Are Not Held Against Me.

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.

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.

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.

The Last Song Was So Deep And Raw And Pure That I Could Not Escape. It Was As If The People Were Singing In Between The Notes, Weeping And Joyful At The Same Time, And I Felt Like Their Voices Or Something Was Rocking Me In Its Bosom, Holding Me Like A Scared Kid, And I Opened Up To That Feeling-and It Washed Over Me.

The Worst Time In Any Writer's Life Is The Two Months Before Publication. All Writers Become Mental And Pathetic, Even Those Of Devout Faith, Who Have Some Psychological Healing To Lean Up Against, And Gorgeous Lives. All Writers Think That This Time, The Jig Is Up, And They Will Be Exposed As Frauds.

Being On A Book Tour Is Like Being On The Seesaw When You're A Little Kid. The Excitement Is In Having Someone To Play With, And In Rising Up In The Air, But Then You're At The Mercy Of Those Holding You Down, And If It's Your Older Brother, Or Paul Wolfowitz, They Leap Up, So That You Crash Down And Get Hurt.

I Read The Same Amount Of Nonfiction And Fiction.

Fiction And Nonfiction

I Said That 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. If You Had A Giant Panda In Your Back Yard, Anything Could Go Wrong — Someone Could Die, Or Stop Loving You, Or You Could Get Sick — And If You Could Look Outside And See This Adorable, Ridiculous, Boffo Panda, You'd Start To Laugh; You'd Be So Filled With Thankfulness And Amusement That Everything Would Be O.k. Again.

Bananas Are Great, As I Believe Them To Be The Only Known Cure For Existential Dread. Also, Mother Teresa Said That In India, A Woman Dying In The Street Will Share Her Banana With Anyone Who Needs It, Whereas In America, People Amass And Hoard As Many Bananas As They Can To Sell For An Exorbitant Profit. So Half Of Them Go Bad, Anyway.

There Are These People Who Keep Taking You In And Feeding You And Loving You And Making The World A Tiny Bit Safer Than It Feels. People Have Community And Family, But Existentially We Are Deeply Isolated.

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.

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 Kind Of A Gossip Hound, But Watching The Media Whip The Small Fires Into Giant Forest Fires So That They Can Cover The Result Is Infuriating.

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.

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.

Jealousy Is Such A Direct Attack On Whatever Measure Of Confidence You’ve Been Able To Muster. But If You Continue To Write, You Are Probably Going To Have To Deal With It, Because Some Wonderful, Dazzling Successes Are Going To Happen For Some Of The Most Awful, Angry, Undeserving Writers You Know-people Who Are, In Other Words, Not You.

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

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.

... The Reason Life Works At All Is That Not Everyone In Your Tribe Is Nuts On The Same Day. [pp. 65-66]

We All Often Feel Like We Are Pulling Teeth, Even Those Writers Whose Prose Ends Up Being The Most Natural And Fluid. The Right Words And Sentences Just Do Not Come Pouring Out Like Ticker Tape Most Of The Time.

Age Has Given Me What I Was Looking For My Entire Life - It Gave Me Me. It Provided The Time And Experience And Failures And Triumphs And Friends Who Helped Me Step Into The Shape That Had Been Waiting For Me All My Life...i Not Only Get Along With Me Most Of The Time Now, I Am Militantly And Maternally On My Own Side.

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.

It's Almost Like Learning To Meditate To Learn To Hear What Your Kid Is Actually Saying.

When Hope Is Not Pinned Wriggling Onto A Shiny Image Or Expectation, It Sometimes Floats Forth And Opens.

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.

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.

When I Was A Kid, Our Family Used To Watch 'bonanza.' I Really Liked Having A Sunday Night Tv Ritual.

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

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

Tidiness Makes Me Think Of Held Breath, Of Suspended Animation.

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.

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.

I've Always Thought I Could Use My Brain And My Heart To Jockey Everyone Around To The Good. But Life Is Not Jockeyable. When You Try, You Make People Infinitely Crazier Than They Already Were, Including Or Especially Yourself.

Then The Singing Enveloped Me. It Was Furry And Resonant, Coming From Everyone's Very Heart. There Was No Sense Of Performance Or Judgment, Only That The Music Was Breath And Food.

You Can Get The Monkey Off Your Back, But The Circus Never Leaves Town

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

And Yet, I Do Believe There Is Ultimately Meaning In The Chaos, And Also In The Doldrums. What I Resist Is Not The Truth But When People Put A Pretty Bow On Scary Things Instead Of Saying, 'this Is A Nightmare. I Hate Everything. I’m Going To Go Hide In The Garage.'

Don't Look At Your Feet To See If You Are Doing It Right. Just Dance.

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.

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.

Faith Includes Noticing The Mess, The Emptiness And Discomfort, And Letting It Be There Until Some Light Returns.

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

Again And Again I Tell God I Need Help, And God Says, 'well, Isn't That Fabulous? Because I Need Help Too. So You Go Get That Old Woman Over There Some Water, And I'll Figure Out What We're Going To Do About Your Stuff.

My Father Was A Writer, So I Grew Up Writing And Reading And I Was Really Encouraged By Him.

Mattie Sat At The Table, Obsessing, Orbiting Around Herself. She Was Sick Of Her Worried, Hostile Mind. It Would Have Killed Her Long Before, She Felt, If It Hadn't Needed The Transportation.

My Friend Terry Says That When You Need To Make A Decision, In Your Work Or Otherwise, And You Don’t Know What To Do, Just Do One Thing Or The Other, Because The Worst That Can Happen Is That You Will Have Made A Terrible Mistake.

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

For Some Of Us, Books Are As Important As Almost Anything Else On Earth. What A Miracle It Is That Out Of These Small, Flat, Rigid Squares Of Paper Unfolds World After World After World, Worlds That Sing To You, Comfort And Quiet Or Excite You. 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.

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.

To Be Great, Art Has To Point Somewhere.

We Cheated, You And Me, And Someone Noticed. I Noticed You; Someone Else Noticed Me. It Hurts Us. That's Not So Bad. So Many People Cheat. Everywhere On Every Level. Everyone's Cheated. I'm Just Saying That You Don't Need To See Yourself As A Cheater. Because That's Not Who You Are. You're Someone Who Cheated. There's A Difference, And You Should Try To Get That Difference, Or That's Who You'll Grow Up To Be.

Hope Begins In The Dark.

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.

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Desiderius Erasmus

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