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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.

-Anne Lamott

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I'm All Over The

Anne Lamott

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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.

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

Write As If Your Parents Are Dead.

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

She Lived In Fear Of Ifonic Endings.

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.

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

I Worry That Jesus Drinks Himself To Sleep When He Hears Me Talk Like This.

Human Lives Are Hard, Even Those Of Health And Privilege, And Don't Make Much Sense. This Is The Message Of The Book Of Job: Any Snappy Explanation Of Suffering You Come Up With Will Be Horseshit.

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

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.

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

You Just Have To Keep Getting Out Of Your Own Way So That Whatever It Is That Wants To Be Written Can Use You To Write It.

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

Many Mornings I Check Out The News As Soon As I Wake Up, Because If It Turns Out That The World Is Coming To An End That Day, I Am Going To Eat The Frosting Off An Entire Carrot Cake; Just For A Start. Then I Will Move Onto Vats Of Clam Dip, Pots Of Crime Brûlée, Nachos, M & M's Etc. Then I Will Max Out Both My Credit Cards.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Your Experiences Will Be Yours Alone. But Truth And Best Friendship Will Rarely If Ever Disappoint You.

Best Friendship

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.

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

...the Three Things I Cannot Change Are The Past, The Truth, And You.

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.

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

If You Don't Die Of Thirst, There Are Blessings In The Desert. You Can Be Pulled Into Limitlessness, Which We All Yearn For, Or You Can Do The Beauty Of Minutiae, The Scrimshaw Of Tiny And Precise. The Sky Is Your Ocean, And The Crystal Silence Will Uplift You Like Great Gospel Music, Or Neil Young.

...since You Can't Heal Your Own Sick Mind With Your Own Sick Mind, I Needed To Consult Somebody Else's Sick Mind.

All Parents Are An Embarrassment To Their Kids. Often Grandparents Are The Relief. Kids Don't Have To Resist You.

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Age Has Given Me The Gift Of Me; It Just Gave Me What I Was Always Longing For, Which Was To Get To Be The Woman I've Already Dreamt Of Being. Which Is Somebody Who Can Do Rest And Do Hard Work And Be A Really Constant Companion, A Constant, Tender-hearted Wife To Myself.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Some People May Have Thought That This Book Was Too Personal, Too Confessional. But What These People Think About Me Is None Of My Business.

The Mix In Our Rooms Is So Touching: The Clutter And The Cracks In The Wall Belie A Bleakness Or Brokenness In Our Lives; While Photos And A Few Rare Objects Show Our Pride, Our Rare Shining Moments ... These Rooms Are Future Ruins

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

Your Inside Person Doesn’t Age. Your Inside Person Is Soul, Is Heart, In The Eternal Now, The Ageless, The Old, The Young, All The Ages You’ve Ever Been.

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 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 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.

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

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.

You Can Either Practice Being Right Or Practice Being Kind.

I've Known For Years That Resentments Don't Hurt The Person We Resent, But They Do Hurt Us.

These Days Cry Out, As Never Before, For Us To Pay Attention, So We Can Move Through Them And Get Our Joy And Pride Back.

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.

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.

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

If There Is One Door In The Castle You Have Been Told Not To Go Through, You Must. Otherwise, You'll Just Be Rearranging Furniture In Rooms You've Already Been In.

Inspirational Life

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.

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.

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

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.

Listen To Your Broccoli And It Will Tell You How To Eat It.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Where Do We Even Start On The Daily Walk Of Restoration And Awakening? We Start Where We Are.

I Think We're All Pretty Crazy On This Bus. I'm Not Sure I Know Anyone Who's Got All The Dots On His Or Her Dice.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Reproductive Rights

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.

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.

I Have A Terrible Time During Elections. I Am Way Too Politically Involved. I Absolutely Never Argue Politics With Anyone, As It Makes Me Crazy And Full Of Judgment And Hostility. I Have Two Very Conservative Friends, Whom I Cherish And Would Entrust My Life To; We Avoid Politics Like The Plague. So In A Certain Way, It Limits How Completely We Let Ourselves Know Each Other, But This Is Just The Way It Is And It Is The Best We Can Do. And I Am Secretly Convinced That God Is A Progressive Democrat.

At Our Most Primitive We Are Storytellers And Dancers.

If You Don't Believe In God, It May Help To Remember This Great Line Of Geneen Roth's: That Awareness Is Learning To Keep Yourself Company. And Then Learn To Be More Compassionate Company, As If You Were Somebody You Are Fond Of And Wish To Encourage. I Doubt That You Would Read A Close Friend's Early Efforts And, In His Or Her Presence, Roll Your Eyes And Snicker. I Doubt That You Would Pantomime Sticking Your Finger Down Your Throat. I Think You Might Say Something Along The Lines Of, 'good For You. We Can Work Out Some Of The Problems Later, But For Now, Full Steam Ahead!

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

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

I Am Going To Try To Pay Attention To The Spring. I Am Going To Look Around At All The Flowers, And Look Up At The Hectic Trees. I Am Going To Close My Eyes And Listen.

Mothering Has Been The Richest Experience Of My Life, But I Am Still Opposed To Mother's Day. It Perpetuates The Dangerous Idea That All Parents Are Somehow Superior To Non-parents.

Dangerous Ideas

'help' Is A Prayer That Is Always Answered.

Answered Prayers

Butterflies Were Wind Energy Made Visible.

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

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

I'm A Terrible Christian And Meditating Is Very Hard For Me, And I Do It. I Do It Badly, Like I Do A Lot Of Things. I Believe In Doing Things Badly.

We All Have The Dark, Ignorant Shadow Inside Us. I Have Worked Endlessly To Reveal It And Heal It In Me, But Of Course There's Some Primitive Weird Stuff In Me. The Tea Party Is About Exhorting White Supremacy, Though, So I've Had A Tiny Bit Of Trouble Experiencing Sympathy.

Life With Most Teenagers Was Like Having A Low-grade Bladder Infection. It Hurts, But You Had To Tough It Out.

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.

The Writer Is A Person Who Is Standing Apart, Like The Cheese In 'the Farmer In The Dell' Standing There Alone But Deciding To Take A Few Notes. You’re Outside, But You Can See Things Up Close Through Your Binoculars. Your Job Is To Present Clearly Your Viewpoint, Your Line Of Vision. Your Job Is To See People As They Really Are, And To Do This, You Have To Know Who You Are In The Most Compassionate Possible Sense. Then You Can Recognize Others.

I Read The Same Amount Of Nonfiction And Fiction.

Fiction And Nonfiction

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.

I Am The Woman I Grew To Be Partly In Spite Of My Mother, And Partly Because Of The Extraordinary Love Of Her Best Friends, And My Own Best Friends' Mothers, And From Surrogates, Many Of Whom Were Not Women At All But Gay Men. I Have Loved Them My Entire Life, Even After Their Passing.

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.

I Kept Asking God For Help, And After A While I Realized Something -- That Josh Was Not Enjoying This Either. He Was Just Trying To Take Care Of Himself, And I Made The Radical Decision To Let Him Off The Hook.

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.

Mine Was A Patchwork God, Sewn Together From Bits Of Rag And Ribbon, Eastern And Western, Pagan And Hebrew, Everything But The Kitchen Sink And Jesus.

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.

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

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.

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.

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. It Means That You Are Willing To Stop Being Such A Jerk. When You Are Aware Of All That Has Been Given To You, In Your Lifetime And The Past Few Days, It Is Hard Not To Be Humbled, And Pleased To Give Back.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

And We've Read Scary Books And Watched Scary Movies And Tv Shows Together. He's Met Monsters, Ghouls, And Demons On The Page And On The Screen. There's Nothing Like Watching Anaconda With Your Best Friend Or Lying In Bed Next To Your Mother Reading Roald Dahl, Because That Way You Get To Explore Dark Stuff Safely. You Get To Laugh With It, To Step Out On The Vampire's Dance Floor And Take Him For A Spin, And Then Step Back Into Your Life. When You Make Friends With Fear, It Can't Rule You.

If We Can Believe In The Gnostic Gospel Of Thomas, Old Uncle Jesus Said, "if You Bring Forth What Is Inside You, What You Bring Forth Will Save You. If You Don't Bring Forth What Is Inside You, What You Bring Forth Can Destroy You.

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.

A Nun I Know Once Told Me She Kept Begging God To Take Her Character Defects Away From Her. After Years Of This Prayer, God Finally Got Back To Her: I'm Not Going To Take Anything Away From You, You Have To Give It To Me.

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

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

I Never Had A Particularly Strong Craving To Procreate, Except For Earlier Fantasies Of Wanting To Be Marmee In Little Women.

The Reason 'help' Is Such A Great Prayer Is That God Is The Gift Of Desperation. When You're In Despair, You're Teachable.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Remember That You Own What Happened To You. If Your Childhood Was Less Than Ideal, You May Have Been Raised Thinking That If You Told The Truth About What Really Went On In Your Family, A Long Bony White Finger Would Emerge From A Cloud And Point To You, While A Chilling Voice Thundered, "we *told* You Not To Tell." But That Was Then. Just Put Down On Paper Everything You Can Remember Now About Your Parents And Siblings And Relatives And Neighbors, And We Will Deal With Libel Later On.

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.

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 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.

There Is Ecstasy In Paying Attention.

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

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.

When We Search For Something Larger Than Our Own Selves To Hook Into, We Can Come Through Whatever Life Throws At Us.

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.

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.

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.

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

I Am Learning Slowly To Bring My Crazy Pinball-machine Mind Back To This Place.

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

Sometimes This Human Stuff Is Slimy And Pathetic...but Better To Feel It And Talk About It And Walk Through It Than To Spend A Lifetime Being Silently Poisoned.

Nothing Can Be Delicious When You Are Holding Your Breath.

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.

This Business Of Having Been Issued A Body Is Deeply Confusing... Bodies Are So Messy And Disappointing.

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.

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.

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.

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

If We Stay Where We Are, Where We're Stuck, Where We're Comfortable And Safe, We Die There... When Nothing New Can Get In, That's Death.

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.

Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers.

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.

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

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

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

You Get Your Intuition Back When You Make Space For It, When You Stop The Chattering Of The Rational Mind.

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.

I Accidentally Forgot To Graduate From College.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Without Using The Word, Everyone Started Forgiving Each Other Again. Just Like That, From The No Of All Nothingness: You Have A Big Tense Mess And Out Of It Comes Some Joy. It Must Be Magic.

Joy Is The Best Makeup.

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.

Most Of Me Was Glad When My Mother Died. She Was A Handful, But Not In A Cute, Festive Way. More In A Life-threatening Way, That Had Caused Me A Long Time Ago To Give Up All Hope Of Ever Feeling Good About Having Had Her As A Mother.

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

Sam Said To Me The Other Day, "i Love You Like 20 Tyrannosauruses On 20 Mountaintops," And This Is The Exact Same Way In Which I Love Him.

I Understood That The Man I Was Calling For Could Never Ever Come Back. Because I Understood That The Man That I Was Calling For Was Dead.

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.

...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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

The Society To Which We Belong Seems To Be Dying Or Is Already Dead. I Don't Mean To Sound Dramatic, But Clearly The Dark Side Is Rising. Things Could Not Have Been More Odd And Frightening In The Middle Ages. But The Tradition Of Artists Will Continue No Matter What Form The Society Takes. And This Is Another Reason To Write: People Need Us, To Mirror For Them And For Each Other Without Distortion-not To Look Around And Say, 'look At Yourselves, You Idiots!,' But To Say, 'this Is Who We Are.

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 Knew That The World Was A Harsh Place, And My Family Was A Mess, And Even Though I Danced As Fast As I Could, I Did Not Feel Welcome, Did Not Feel The Great Shalom. This World Was Never A Good Match For Me. But My Belief Was That There Was A Loving Magical Energy In The World - Seen In Nature's Beauty And Awesomeness, My Best Girl And Women Friends, Art, Music.

Almost All Good Writing Begins With Terrible First Efforts. You Need To Start Somewhere.

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

Anne Lamott’s Priest Friend Tom, How To Get Through: "left Foot, Right Foot, Left Foot, Breathe," He Said. "right Foot, Left Foot, Right Foot, Breathe." Salon April 25, 2003

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

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

Left To My Own Devices, My First Inclination Is To Mess In Other People's Lives. I Secretly Believe My Whole Family, And Really The Whole World, Is My Responsibility.

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

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.

All I Know Is That After 10 Years Of Being Sober, With Huge Support To Express My Pain And Anger And Shadow, 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. They Brought Me Home, To Me, To The Truth Of Me.

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.

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.

Pay Attention To The Beauty Surrounding You.

You Want To Give Me Chocolate And Flowers? That Would Be Great. I Love Them Both. I Just Don't Want Them Out Of Guilt, And I Don't Want Them If You're Not Going To Give Them To All The People Who Helped Mother Our Children.

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