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Peace Is Joy At Rest. Joy Is Peace On Its Feet. Quoting Her Pastor In Salon, April 25, 2003
-Anne Lamott
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Peace Is Joy At

Anne Lamott
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Peace Is Joy At Rest. Joy Is Peace On Its Feet. Quoting Her Pastor In Salon, April 25, 2003

Understanding the Quote: "peace is joy at rest. joy is peace on its feet. quoting..."

This quote by Anne Lamott reflects deeply on the theme of feet. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Feet, Joy, April, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Anne Lamott interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott is celebrated for insightful thoughts on feet and joy. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Feet
Joy
April
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I Am A Terrible And Lazy Christian. I Do Not Believe That The Bible Is The Literal Word Of God. I Just Skip About A Third Of It. I Love The Parts I Love So Much, But I Find A Lot Of It Just Appalling. When A Right-wing Person Quotes A Passage In Order To Attack And Stigmatize Another Person--or Group Of People--i Just Roll My Eyes.
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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.'
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One Line Of Dialogue That Rings True Reveals Character In A Way That Pages Of Description Can't.
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Voice
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Alive
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Parent
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Waiting
Resentment
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Believe
Terrible
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Forgiveness
Mean
Lunch
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Reading
Voice
...[t]here Should Be A Real Sense Of Your Imagination And Your Memories Walking And Woolgathering, Tramping The Hills, Romping All Over The Place. Trust Them. Don't Look At Your Feet To See If You Are Doing It Right. Just Dance.
Memories
Real
Feet
It's Incredibly Touching When Someone Who Seems So Hopeless Finds A Few Inches Of Light To Stand In And Makes Everything Work As Well As Possible. All Of Us Lurch And Fall, Sit In The Dirt, Are Helped To Our Feet, Keep Moving, Feel Like Idiots, Lose Our Balance, Gain It, Help Others Get Back On Their Feet, And Keep Going.
Moving
Fall
Helping Others
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Children
Flower
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Teenager
People
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Crazy
Trying
Made
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Trying
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.
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Shame
Sand
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Drug
My Family
Alcoholics
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Drug
Youth
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.
Thinking
People
World
I've Known For Years That Resentments Don't Hurt The Person We Resent, But They Do Hurt Us.
Hurt
Years
Resentment
Writing Takes A Combination Of Sophistication And Innocence; It Takes Conscience, Our Belief That Something Is Beautiful Because It Is Right.
Beautiful
Writing
Innocence
We Write To Expose The Unexposed. If There Is One Door In The Castle You Have Been Told Not To Go Through, You Must. The Writer's Job Is To Turn The Unspeakable Into Words - Not Just Into Any Words, But If We Can, Into Rhythm And Blues.
Jobs
Writing
Doors
Once An Old Woman At My Church Said The Secret Is That God Loves Us Exactly The Way We Are And That He Loves Us Too Much To Let Us Stay Like This, And I'm Just Trying To Trust That.
Change
Secret
Church
I Remember Staring At My Son Endlessly When He Was An Infant, Stunned By His Very Existence, Wondering Where On Earth He Had Come From.
Son
Earth
Remember
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.
Mother
Running
Eye
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.
Healing
Dark
Silver Bells
Having A Baby Is Like Suddenly Getting The World's Worst Roommate.
Baby
World
Roommate
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.
Hurt
Brother
Book
My Father Was A Writer, So I Grew Up Writing And Reading And I Was Really Encouraged By Him.
Father
Reading
Writing
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.
Christian
Religious
Self
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.
Music
Heart
Singing
Toddlers Can Make You Feel As If You Have Violated Some Archaic Law In Their Personal Koran And You Should Die, Infidel.
Law
Toddler
Should
Almost Everything Will Work Again If You Unplug It For A Few Minutes, Including You.
Minutes
Including
Ifs
Looking Back On The God My Friend Believed In, He Seems A Little Erratic, Not Entirely Unlike Her Father - God As Borderline Personality.
God
Father
Personality
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.
Country
War
Winning
I'm Human, You're Human, Let Me Greet Your Humanness. Let's Be People Together For A While.
People
Together
Let Me
This Is The Most Profound Spiritual Truth I Know: That Even When We're Most Sure That Love Can't Conquer All, It Seems To Anyway. It Goes Down Into The Rat Hole With Us, In The Guise Of Our Friends, And There It Swells And Comforts. It Gives Us Second Winds, Third Winds, Hundredth Winds.
Spiritual
Wind
Giving
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.
Baseball
Animal
Giving
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.
Fire
Media
Gossip
It's So Great To Be Able To Make People Laugh, Because This Is So Often How We Get Our Selves Back.
Self
People
Laughing
All Parents Are An Embarrassment To Their Kids. Often Grandparents Are The Relief. Kids Don't Have To Resist You.
Kids
Grandparent
Relief
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.
Cain
Earth
Abel
The Truth Of My Experience Is That We Are All A Lot More Alike Than We Are Different.
Different
My Father Was A Writer, So I Grew Up Writing And Reading And I Was Really Encouraged By Him. I Had Some Sort Of Gift And When It Came Time To Try To Find A Publisher I Had A Little Bit Of An "in" Because I Had His Agent I Could Turn To, To At Least Read My Initial Offerings When I Was About 20. But The Only Problem Was That They Were Just Awful, They Were Just Terrible Stories And My Agent, Who Ended Up Being My Agent, Was Very, Very Sweet About It, But It Took About Four Years Until I Actually Had Something Worth Trying To Sell.
Sweet
Father
Reading
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.
Grief
Feet
Tears
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.
People
Loving You
Community
Bird By Bird, Buddy. Just Take It Bird By Bird.
Writing
Bird
Kitchen Table
I Think This Is How We Are Supposed To Be In The World-present And In Awe.
Thinking
World
Dark Clouds
By Then I'd Figured Out The Gift Of Failure, Which Is That It Breaks Through All That Held Breath And Isometric Tension About Needing To Look Good: It's The Gift Of Feeling Floppier.
Break Through
Feelings
Looks
I Liked Those Ladies! They Were Helpers, And They Danced.' These Are The Words I Want On My Gravestone: That I Was A Helper, And That I Danced.
Want
Gravestone
Helpers
No Matter What Circumstances, It's Hard To Be A Parent And Maintain A Sense Of Self And Identity In The World.
Self
Parent
Identity
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).
Bullying
Liars
Majority Leader
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.
Writing
Sheep
Needs
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.
Struggle
Car
Drug
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.
Baby
Hangover
Pms
You Have To Keep Taking The Next Necessary Stitch, And The Next One, And The Next. Without Stitches, You Just Have Rags. And We Are Not Rags.
Rags
Stitches
Next
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.
Safe
Stuck
Dies
A Writer Paradoxically Seeks The Truth And Tells Lies Every Step Of The Way.
Lying
Way
Steps
If I Have A Huge Audience, I'd Like A Bigger Audience; Maybe Slightly A Slightly More Illustrious Audience.
Bigger
Audience
Huge
Good Writing Is About Telling The Truth.
Writing
Telling The Truth
Good Writing
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.
Heart
Soul
Age
My Writer Friends, And They Are Legion, Do Not Go Around Beaming With Quiet Feelings Of Contentment. Most Of Them Go Around With Haunted, Abused, Surprised Looks On Their Faces, Like Lab Dogs On Whom Very Personal Deodorant Sprays Have Been Tested.
Dog
Feelings
Contentment
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.
Running
Ideas
People
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.
Cake
Needs
World
Dogs Are The Closest We Come To Knowing The Divine Love Of God On This Side Of Eternity.
Dog
Knowing
Sides
Perfection Is Shallow, Unreal, And Fatally Uninteresting.
Perfection
Shallow
Unreal
Most Marriages Are A Mess, And The Children Get Caught Between Two Bitter, Antagonistic Parents. My Parents Stayed Married For 27 Unhappy Years, Till Their Kids Were Grown, And This Was A Catastrophe For Us.
Children
Kids
Years
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.
Men
Entrepreneur
Calling
Radical Self-care Is Quantum, And Radiates Out Into The Atmosphere, Like A Little Fresh Air. It Is A Huge Gift To The World. When People Respond By Saying, “well, Isn’t She Full Of Herself,” Smile Obliquely, Like Mona Lisa, And Make Both Of You A Nice Cup Of Tea.
Nice
Air
Self
Frequently, As So Many Poets And Psalmists And Songwriters Have Said, The Invisible Shift Happens Through The Broken Places.
Broken
Invisible
Poet
You Have To Make Mistakes To Find Out Who You Aren't. You Take The Action, And The Insight Follows: You Don't Think Your Way Into Becoming Yourself.
Badass
Mistake
Women
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
Reading
Writing
Heart
I Am Learning Slowly To Bring My Crazy Pinball-machine Mind Back To This Place.
Crazy
Mind
Machines
Listen To Your Broccoli And It Will Tell You How To Eat It.
Broccoli
Rule 1: When All Else Fails, Follow Instructions. And Rule 2: Don't Be An Asshole.
Failing
Instruction
When All Else Fails
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.
Mother
Husband
Writing
I Get Thirsty People Glasses Of Water, Even If That Thirsty Person Is Just Me.
Glasses
People
Water
I’m Probably Just As Good A Mother As The Next Repressed, Obsessive-compulsive Paranoiac.
Mother
Obsessive Compulsive
Next
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.
Rocks
Hands
Roots
Butterflies And Birds Are Like One Perfect Teaspoon Of Creation.
Butterfly
Perfect
Bird
Love Is So Much Bigger Than Our Ignorance.
Ignorance
Love Is
Bigger
I Was Raised By My Parents To Believe That You Had A Moral Obligation To Try And Save The World. You Sent Money To The Red Cross, You Registered People To Vote, You Marched In Rallies, Stood In Vigils, Picked Up Litter.
Believe
People
Parent
The Problem With God - Or At Any Rate, One Of The Top Five Most Annoying Things About God - Is That He Or She Rarely Answers Right Away.
Answers
Problem
Annoying
You Own Everything That Happened To You. Tell Your Stories.
Stories
Happened
I Just Try To Love And Serve Everyone, And Bring Everyone Water, And Lend An Ear; That's What Jesus Said To Do.
Jesus
Water
Trying
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.
Dark
Light
Together
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.
Dresses
Attention
Print
Writing Is About Hypnotizing Yourself Into Believing In Yourself, Getting Some Work Done, Then Unhypnotizing Yourself And Going Over The Material Coldly.
Believe
Writing
Done
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.
Smart
Lying
Men
When Writers Make Us Shake Our Heads With The Exactness Of Their Prose And Their Truths, And Even Make Us Laugh About Ourselves Or Life, Our Buoyancy Is Restored. We Are Given A Shot At Dancing With, Or At Least Clapping Along With, The Absurdity Of Life, Instead Of Being Squashed By It Over And Over Again.
Absurdity Of Life
Dancing
Laughing
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.
Believe
Struggle
Recovery
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.
Children
Knowing
Shapes
For Me, Jesus Is My Cleft In The Rock. He Is My Safest Friend, My Safe Totally Loving Accepting Big Brother.
Jesus
Brother
Rocks
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.
Teeth
Tape
Pouring
But Easy's Like, Who Cares? Easy's Like, How Much Is Easy Going To Get You?
Who Cares
Care
Easy
My Parents, And Librarians Along The Way, Taught Me About The Space Between Words; About The Margins, Where So Many Juicy Moments Of Life And Spirit And Friendship Could Be Found. In A Library, You Could Find Miracles And Truth And You Might Find Something That Would Make You Laugh So Hard That You Get Shushed, In The Friendliest Way.
Space
Laughing
Parent
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