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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.

-Anne Lamott

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The First Draft Is

Anne Lamott

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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.

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The Women's Movement Burst Forth When I Was Fifteen. That Was When I Began To Believe That Life Might Semi-work Out After All. The Cavalry Had Arrived. Women Were Starting To Say That You Got To Tell The Truth Now, That You Had To Tell The Truth If You Were Going To Heal And Have An Authentic Life.

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

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

Life Is Like A Recycling Center, Where All The Concerns And Dramas Of Humankind Get Recycled Back And Forth Across The Universe. But What You Have To Offer Is Your Own Sensibility, Maybe Your Own Sense Of Humor Or Insider Pathos Or Meaning. All Of Us Can Sing The Same Song, And There Will Still Be Four Billion Different Renditions.

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

Perfection Is Shallow, Unreal, And Fatally Uninteresting.

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

Dangerous World

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.

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.

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.

In Fact, Not Forgiving Is Like Drinking Rat Poison And Then Waiting For The Rat To Die.

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

Obsessive Compulsive

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.

It Is In Many People's Best Interest For You Not To Find Yourself, But It Only Matters That It Is In Yours, And The Whole World's, To Proceed.

Finding Yourself

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

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

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.

I Accidentally Forgot To Graduate From College.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Write As If Your Parents Are Dead.

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.

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.

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.

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

Maybe It's Wishful Thinking, This Snaggly Faith Of Mine, Or Maybe It's Miles Davis Saying, Don't Play What's There, Play What's Not There.

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.

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.

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.

It's Funny: I Always Imagined When I Was A Kid That Adults Had Some Kind Of Inner Toolbox Full Of Shiny Tools: The Saw Of Discernment, The Hammer Of Wisdom, The Sandpaper Of Patience. But Then When I Grew Up I Found That Life Handed You These Rusty Bent Old Tools - Friendships, Prayer, Conscience, Honesty - And Said 'do The Best You Can With These, They Will Have To Do'. And Mostly, Against All Odds, They Do.

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

Making Mistakes

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

All I Ever Wanted Since I Arrived Here On Earth Were The Things That Turned Out To Be Within Reach. 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. You Can Change The World With A Hot Bath, If You Sink Into It From A Place Of Knowing That You Are Worth Profound Care, Even When You're Dirty And Rattled. Who Knew?

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.

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

You Are Not Your Bank Account, Or Your Ambitiousness. You're Not The Cold Clay Lump With A Big Belly You Leave Behind When You Die. You're Not Your Collection Of Walking Personality Disorders. You Are Spirit, You Are Love.

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

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. Writing Has So Much To Give, So Much To Teach, So Many Surprises. That Thing You Had To Force Yourself To Do - The Actual Act Of Writing - Turns Out To Be The Best Part. It's Like Discovering That While You Thought You Needed The Tea Ceremony For The Caffeine, What You Really Needed Was The Tea Ceremony. The Act Of Writing Turns Out To Be Its Own Reward.

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.

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.

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

Laughter Is A Bubbly, Effervescent Form Of Holiness

I Had No Interest In Being A Theologian, Especially Not A Christian, As I Had Been Raised By Progressive Atheists. We Bowed Down Every Morning To The Golden Calf Of The New York Times, Noam Chomsky, Hannah Arendt. I Tried To Get My Parents To Respect And Nourish Me, Let Alone Delight In Me, So Even Though I Secretly Loved And Believed In The Divine Something - Goodness, Good Orderly Direction, Gift Of Desperation, The Cosmic Muffin - I Wasn't Ready Yet To Commit Myself To The Study Of A Higher Power.

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.

You Can Change The World With A Hot Bath, If You Sink Into It From A Place Of Knowing That You Are Worth Profound Care, Even When You're Dirty And Rattled.

We Write To Expose The Unexposed. Most Human Beings Are Dedicated To Keeping That One Door Shut. But The Writer's Job Is To See What's Behind It, To See The Bleak Unspeakable Stuff, And To Turn The Unspeakable Into Words - Not Just Into Any Words But If We Can, Into Rhythm And Blues. You Can't Do This Without Discovering Your Own True Voice, And You Can't Find Your True Voice And Peer Behind The Door And Report Honestly And Clearly To Us If Your Parents Are Reading Over Your Shoulder.

Nothing Can Be Delicious When You Are Holding Your Breath.

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.

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

I Love Memoirs. They Are Probably My Favorite Literary Form, Along With Biographies. The More Confessional, The Better. There Is So, So, So Little Truth In The Popular Culture, And I Am Starved And Grateful For Any I Can Find.

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

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

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?

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.

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?

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.

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

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

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

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.

I Do For Myself Exactly What I Would Do For You - Make A Lovely Cup Of Tea, Or A Hot Bath, Or Go Buy Myself A Fabulous Pair Of Socks. I Believe That You Take The Action, And Then The Insight Follows - I Do Loving Things For Me, Stroke My Own Shoulder, Put Myself Down For A Short Nap, And The Insight Follows: That I Am A Wild Precious Woman, A Human Merely Being, As E E Cummings Put It, Deserving Of Respect, Tenderness, Protection, Delight, And Solidarity. And That Is What Home Looks Like For Me Now.

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.

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.

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

One Line Of Dialogue That Rings True Reveals Character In A Way That Pages Of Description Can'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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

To Be Great, Art Has To Point Somewhere.

Good Therapy Helps. Good Friends Help. Pretending That We Are Doing Better Than We Are Doesn't. Shame Doesn't. Being Heard Does.

Almost All Good Writing Begins With Terrible First Efforts. You Need To Start Somewhere. Start By Getting Something-anything-down On Paper. A Friend Of Mine Says That The First Draft Is The Down Draft-you Just Get It Down. The Second Draft Is The Up Draft-you Fix It Up. You Try To Say What You Have To Say More Accurately. And The Third Draft Is The Dental Draft, Where You Check Every Tooth, To See If It's Loose Or Cramped Or Decayed, Or Even, God Help Us, Healthy.

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

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.

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.

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.

If You Have A Problem You Can Solve By Throwing Money At It, You Don't Have A Very Interesting Problem.

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.

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

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

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

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

I Don't Know Where To Start," One [writing Student] Will Wail. Start With Your Childhood, I Tell Them. Plug Your Nose And Jump In, And Write Down All Your Memories As Truthfully As You Can. Flannery O' Connor Said That Anyone Who Has Survived Childhood Has Enough Material To Write For The Rest Of His Or Her Life. Maybe Your Childhood Was Grim And Horrible, But Grim And Horrible Is Okay If It Is Well Done. Don't Worry About Doing It Well Yet, Though. Just Get It Down.

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

Her Purse Was A Weight, Ballast; It Tethered Her To The Earth As Her Mind Floated Away.

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

I 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 - Stature, The Respect Of Colleagues, Maybe Even A Kind Of Low-grade Fame.

What Fills Us Is Real, Sweet, Dopey, Funny Life.

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.

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

My 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.

No One Is More Sentimentalized In America Than Mothers On Mother's Day, But No One Is More Often Blamed For The Culture's Bad People And Behavior.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

I Didn't Need To Understand The Hypostatic Unity Of The Trinity; I Just Needed To Turn My Life Over To Whoever Came Up With Redwood Trees.

Becoming A Writer Is About Becoming Conscious. When You're Conscious And Writing From A Place Of Insight And Simplicity And Real Caring About The Truth, You Have The Ability To Throw The Lights On For Your Reader. He Or She Will Recognize His Or Her Life And Truth In What You Say, In The Pictures You Have Painted, And This Decreases The Terrible Sense Of Isolation That We Have All Had Too Much Of.

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.

I Like To Read Away As Much Of The Afternoon As Possible, Until Real Life Rears Its Ugly Head.

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.

Prayer Is Talking To Something Or Anything With Which We Seek Union, Even If We Are Bitter Or Insane Or Broken. (in Fact, These Are Probably The Best Possible Conditions Under Which To Pray.) Prayer Is Taking A Chance That Against All Odds And Past History, We Are Loved And Chosen, And Do Not Have To Get It Together Before We Show Up.

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

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

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.

Laughter Is The Key That Grace Has Arrived.

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

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

Being A Writer Is Part Of A Noble Tradition, As Is Being A Musician – The Last Egalitarian And Open Associations. No Matter What Happens In Terms Of Fame And Fortune, Dedication To Writing Is A Marching-step Forward From Where You Were Before, When You Didn’t Care About Reaching Out To The World, When You Weren’t Hoping To Contribute, When You Were Just Standing There Doing Some Job Into Which You Had Fallen.

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

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

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

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

It Feels Like I'm Babysitting In The Twilight Zone. I Keep Waiting For The Parents To Show Up Because We Are Out Of Chips And Diet Cokes.

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

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

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.

I Read The Same Amount Of Nonfiction And Fiction.

Fiction And Nonfiction

I Said That I Thought The Secret Of Life Was Obvious: Be Here Now, Love As If Your Whole Life Depended On It, Find Your Life's Work, And Try To Get Hold Of A Giant Panda. If You Had A Giant Panda In Your Back Yard, Anything Could Go Wrong — Someone Could Die, Or Stop Loving You, Or You Could Get Sick — And If You Could Look Outside And See This Adorable, Ridiculous, Boffo Panda, You'd Start To Laugh; You'd Be So Filled With Thankfulness And Amusement That Everything Would Be O.k. Again.

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

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

Hope Begins In The Dark, The Stubborn Hope That If You Just Show Up And Try To Do The Right Thing, The Dawn Will Come. You Wait And Watch And Work: You Don't Give Up.

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

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

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

You Want To Protect Your Child From Pain, And What You Get Instead Is Life, And Grace; And Though Theologians Insist That Grace Is Freely Given, The Truth Is That Sometimes You Pay For It Through The Nose. And You Can't Pay Your Child's Way.

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.

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

If Something Inside Of You Is Real, We Will Probably Find It Interesting, And It Will Probably Be Universal. So You Must Risk Placing Real Emotion At The Center Of Your Work. Write Straight Into The Emotional Center Of Things. Write Toward Vulnerability. Risk Being Unliked. 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.

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

Hope Begins In The Dark.

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.

She Lived In Fear Of Ifonic Endings.

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

He Got Me A Cup Of Tea With Honey, Toast With Honey, Yogurt With Honey, Like I Was John The Baptist With The Flu.

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

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.

Perfectionism Is A Mean, Frozen Form Of Idealism, While Messes Are The Artist's True Friend.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

But Grace Can Be The Experience Of A Second Wind, When Even Though What You Want Is Clarity And Resolution, What You Get Is Stamina And Poignancy And The Strength To Hang On.

I've Always Understood That Meditation Had To Be Part Of - Or Was Part Of The Natural Path And So I've Always Sort Of Dabbled In It.

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

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

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.

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

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.

There Is Nothing You Can Buy, Achieve, Own, Or Rent That Can Fill Up That Hunger Inside For A Sense Of Fulfillment And Wonder.

I Did Not Raise My Son, Sam, To Celebrate Mother's Day. I Didn't Want Him To Feel Some Obligation To Buy Me Pricey Lunches Or Flowers, Some Annual Display Of Gratitude That You Have To Grit Your Teeth And Endure.

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

Writing Is How I Communicate My Deepest Beliefs, And What I Hope Are Helpful Observations About Our Dual Citizenship, As Children Of God, As Regular Old Mixed-up, Worried, Flawed, Precious Human Beings.

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.

A Writer Paradoxically Seeks The Truth And Tells Lies Every Step Of The Way. It's A Lie If You Make Something Up. But You Make It Up In The Name Of Truth, And Then You Give Your Heart To Expressing It Clearly.

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

Expectations Are Resentment Waiting To Happen.

Life Does Not Seem To Present Itself To Me For My Convenience, To Box Itself Up Nicely So I Can Write About It With Wisdom And A Point To Make Before Putting It On A Shelf Somewhere.

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.

I Love Readings And My Readers, But The Din Of Voices Of The Audience Gives Me Stage Fright, And The Din Of Voices Inside Whisper That I Am A Fraud, And That The Jig Is Up. Surely Someone Will Rise Up From The Audience And Say Out Loud That Not Only Am I Not Funny And Helpful, But I'm Annoying, And A Phony.

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.

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.

The Stuff I Write About Is Pretty Universal, The Things My Closest Friends And I Talk About - Our Anxiety About Being Here On This Scary Planet, During These Scary Times, As Vulnerable As Kittens, Having Lost So Many People I Couldn't Live Without.

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.'

There Are A Lot Of Us, Some Published, Some Not, Who Think The Literary Life Is The Loveliest One Possible, This Life Of Reading And Writing And Corresponding. We Think This Life Is Nearly Ideal.

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

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.

I Was Raised In A Family Where None Of Us Ever Raised A Voice, So There Was No Room To Express Feelings Of Rage Or Even Unabashed Joy - A Little Bashed Joy, Here Or There, Or Being Mildly Disgruntled.

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

Best Friendship

The Truth Is That Progress Is Usually Small And Sneaky.

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.

Clutter And Mess Show Us That Life Is Being Lived...tidiness Makes Me Think Of Held Breath, Of Suspended Animation... Perfectionism Is A Mean, Frozen Form Of Idealism, While Messes Are The Artist's True Friend. 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.

When Faced With A Crisis, Do Three Things: Breathe, Pray And Be Kind.

Anything You Say From Your Heart To God Is A Prayer. But "why" Is Rarely A Useful Question. When Job Keeps Asking God Why He Has Had Such Loss And Suffering, God Says, "you Wouldn't Understand." I Always Want To Know Why, And I Almost Never Have A Good Answer.

It Was Simple Reality - Most Competitive Tennis Players In My Day Were Privileged, Spoiled, Entitled And White. Also, Many Of Them Were Beautiful, Fit, Tan And Of Good Stock - Great Big Hair And White Teeth And Long Legs. Then There Were The Rest Of Us.

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

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.

I Go To Church Every Sunday, Which Is Like Going To The Gas Station Once A Week And Really, Really Filling Up.

Pay Attention To The Beauty Surrounding You.

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

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

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

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

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.

No" Is A Complete Sentence.

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

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.

Clutter And Mess Show Us That Life Is Being Lived.

You Can Either Practice Being Right Or Practice Being Kind.

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