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I'm Very Sad About Mitch Mcconnell Probably Getting To Be Senate Majority Leader, If Only For Two Years. To Me, He Is Just Everything That Is Wrong With The World, A Bullying Obstructionist Blowhard Liar (not To Put Too Fine A Point On It).

-Anne Lamott

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I'm Very Sad About

Anne Lamott

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I'm Very Sad About Mitch Mcconnell Probably Getting To Be Senate Majority Leader, If Only For Two Years. To Me, He Is Just Everything That Is Wrong With The World, A Bullying Obstructionist Blowhard Liar (not To Put Too Fine A Point On It).

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Majority Leader

More From Anne Lamott

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

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

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

Write Regularly, Whether You Feel Like Writing Or Not, And Whether You Think What You're Writing Is Any Good Or Not.

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.

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.

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.

Writing And Reading Decrease Our Sense Of Isolation. They Deepen And Widen And Expand Our Sense Of Life: They Feed The Soul.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Writing And Reading Decrease Our Sense Of Isolation. It's Like Singing On A Boat During A Terrible Storm At Sea. You Can't Stop The Raging Storm, But Singing Can Change The Hearts And Spirits Of The People Who Are Together On That Ship

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.

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

To Be Great, Art Has To Point Somewhere.

You Have To Make Mistakes To Find Out Who You Aren’t.

Making Mistakes

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Your Problem Is How You Are Going To Spend This One Odd And Precious Life You Have Been Issued. Whether You're Going To Spend It Trying To Look Good And Creating The Illusion That You Have Power Over People And Circumstances, Or Whether You Are Going To Taste It, Enjoy It And Find Out The Truth About Who You Are.

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

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.

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.

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.

She Lived In Fear Of Ifonic Endings.

One Thing I Know For Sure About Raising Children Is That Every Single Day A Kid Needs Discipline.... But Also Every Single Day A Kid Needs A Break.

I Got One Of The Five Golden Tickets To Be A Writer, And I Take That Seriously. I Don't Love My Own Work At All, But I Love My Own Self. I Love That I've Been Given The Chance To Capture The Stories That Come Through Me.

All These People Keep Waxing Sentimental About How Fabulously Well I Am Doing As A Mother, How Competent I Am, But I Feel Inside Like When You're First Learning To Put Nail Polish On Your Right Hand With Your Left. You Can Do It, But It Doesn't Look All That Great Around The Cuticles.

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

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

Reading Poetry And Reading The Great Works Of The Canon That We Were Reading In The '60s And The '70s And '80s Was Mind Altering.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

You Can Tell If People Are Following Jesus, Because They Are Fedding The Poor, Sharing Their Wealth, And Trying To Get Everyone Medical Insurance.

Medical Insurance

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Charles Had Once Remarked That Holding Onto A Resentment Was Like Eating Rat Poison And Waiting For The Rat To Die.

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.

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

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

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

Try Looking At Your Mind As A Wayward Puppy That You Are Trying To Paper Train. You Don't Drop-kick A Puppy Into The Neighbor's Yard Every Time It Piddles On The Floor. You Just Keep Bringing It Back To The Newspaper.

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

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.

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.)

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

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

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.

Quiet, Deep Breath After Any Prayer Is Another Form Of Amen.

My Mind Is A Neighborhood I Try Not To Go Into Alone.

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 Loved Every Second Of Catholic Church. I Loved The Sickly Sweet Rotting-pomegranate Smells Of The Incense. I Loved The Overwrought Altar, The Birdbath Of Holy Water, The Votive Candles; I Loved That There Was A Poor Box, The Stations Of The Cross Rendered In Stained Glass On The Windows.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

If You Are Hoping To Find Your Self-worth And Fulfillment In Other Peoples' Opinion Of Your Writing, You Will Never Find It.

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 Do Not Have Deep Theological Understanding Or Opinion, But I Do Not Read The Bible As The Literal Word Of God.

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

Greasy Food Is So Comforting When You Are Hungover.

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

Laughter Is The Key That Grace Has Arrived.

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.

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.

Sometimes It Takes Failure To Figure Out Who You Aren't.

Certainty Is Missing The Point Entirely.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.'

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.

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

I 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.

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.

You Don't Want To Spend Your Time Around People Who Make You Hold Your Breath. You Can't Fill Up When You're Holding Your Breath. And Writing Is About Filling Up, Filling Up When You Are Empty, Letting Images And Ideas And Smells Run Down Like Water - Just As Writing Is Also About Dealing With The Emptiness.

The World Is Always Going To Be Dangerous, And People Get Badly Banged Up, But How Can There Be More Meaning Than Helping One Another Stand Up In A Wind And Stay Warm?

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.

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

Plot Springs From Character... I've Always Sort Of Believed That These People Inside Me- These Characters- Know Who They Are And What They're About And What Happens, And They Need Me To Help Get It Down On Paper Because They Don't Type.

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.

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

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

The Evidence Is In, And You Are The Verdict.

I Don't Think You Have Time To Waste Not Writing Because You Are Afraid You Won't Be Good At It.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Pay Attention To The Beauty Surrounding You.

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

We Begin To Find And Become Ourselves When We Notice How We Are Already Found, Already Truly, Entirely, Wildly, Messily, Marvelously Who We Were Born To Be.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Having A Baby Is Like Suddenly Getting The World's Worst Roommate, Like Having Janis Joplin With A Bad Hangover And Pms Come To Stay With 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.

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

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?

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

Talking To The Parents Of Older Kids Was Helpful For Me, Since Parents Of Kids The Same Age As Yours Won't Admit How Horrible Their Children Are.

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

When All Else Fails

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

You Can Either Practice Being Right Or Practice Being Kind.

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.

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

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.

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

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

I’m Probably Just As Good A Mother As The Next Repressed, Obsessive-compulsive Paranoiac.

Obsessive Compulsive

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.

...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.

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.

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

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

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

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 Are Desperate To Communicate, To Edify Or Entertain, To Preserve Moments Of Grace Or Joy Or Transcendence, To Make Real Or Imagined Events Come Alive. But You Cannot Will This To Happen. It Is A Matter Of Persistence And Faith And Hard Work. So You Might As Well Just Go Ahead And Get Started.

Little By Little, In Telling Sam All These Details, I Got To See The Bigger Point Of Baseball, That It Can Give Us Back Ourselves. We’re A Crowd Animal, A Highly Gregarious, Communicative Species, But The Culture And The Age And All The Fear That Fills Our Days Have Put Almost Everyone Into Little Boxes, Each Of Us All Alone. But Baseball, If We Love It, Gives Us Back Our Place In The Crowd. It Restores Us.

I'm Very Sad About Mitch Mcconnell Probably Getting To Be Senate Majority Leader, If Only For Two Years. To Me, He Is Just Everything That Is Wrong With The World, A Bullying Obstructionist Blowhard Liar (not To Put Too Fine A Point On It).

Majority Leader

There Is Something So Tender About This To Me, About Being Willing To Have Your Makeup Wash Off, Your Eyes Tear Up, Your Nose Start To Run. Its Tender Partly Because It Harkens Back To Infancy, To Your Mother Washing Your Face With Love And Lots Or Water, Tending To You, Making You Clean All Over Again.

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.

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

Perfectionism Is The Voice Of The Oppressor.

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

All I Ever Wanted Since I Arrived Here On Earth Are The Same Things I Needed As A Baby, To Go From Cold To Warm, Lonely To Held, The Vessel To The Giver, Empty To Full.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Dialogue That Is Written In Dialect Is Very Tiring To Read. If You Can Do It Brilliantly, Fine. If Other Writers Read Your Work And Rave About Your Use Of Dialect, Go For It. But Be Positive That You Do It Well, Because Otherwise It Is A Lot Of Work To Read Short Stories Or Novels That Are Written In Dialect. It Makes Our Necks Feel Funny.

We Are Going To Die, As Is Everyone We Adore - I Hate This! But The Question Is, How Do We Live As Women And Men In The Face Of This? Why Do We Let Ourselves Be So Distracted And Obsessed By Meaningless B.s. In Light Of Having One Short, Precious Life? When Are We Going To Wake Up And Be Fully Alive To Each Other And Nature And Magic And Wonder And Life With A Capital L? When Will We Stop Hitting The Snooze Button? And Then, How Alive Are We Willing To Be?

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

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.

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

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

Doubt And Certainty

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

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)

You Can Safely Assume That You've Created God In Your Own Image When It Turns Out That God Hates All The Same People You Do.

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.

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

Being Enough Was Going To Have To Be An Inside Job.

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

I 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.

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!

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

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

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

Rest And Laughter Are The Most Spiritual And Subversive Acts Of All. Laugh, Rest, Slow Down.

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

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

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.

You Own Everything That Happened To You. Tell Your Stories.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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