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Toni Morrison Said, "the Function Of Freedom Is To Free Someone Else," And If You Are No Longer Wracked Or In Bondage To A Person Or A Way Of Life, Tell Your Story. Risk Freeing Someone Else. Not Everyone Will Be Glad That You Did. Members Of Your Family And Other Critics May Wish You Had Kept Your Secrets. Oh, Well, What Are You Going To Do?

-Anne Lamott

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Toni Morrison Said, "the

Anne Lamott

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Toni Morrison Said, "the Function Of Freedom Is To Free Someone Else," And If You Are No Longer Wracked Or In Bondage To A Person Or A Way Of Life, Tell Your Story. Risk Freeing Someone Else. Not Everyone Will Be Glad That You Did. Members Of Your Family And Other Critics May Wish You Had Kept Your Secrets. Oh, Well, What Are You Going To Do?

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Life Is Really Pretty Tricky, And There's A Lot Of Loss, And The Longer You Stay Alive, The More People You Lose Whom You Actually Couldn't Live Without.

I Pray Not To Be Such A Whiny, Self-obsessed Baby, And Give Thanks That I Am Not Quite As Bad As I Used To Be (talk About Miracles). Then Something Comes Up, And I Overreact And Blame And Sulk, And It Feels Like I Haven't Made Any Progress At All. But It Turns Out I'm Less Of A Brat Than Before, And I Hit The Reset Button Much Sooner, Shake It Off, And Get My Sense If Humor Back.

That's About 90 Percent Of My Theological Life - Radical Self-care. Put Your Own Oxygen Mask On First. I Watch The Self-talk That Goes Through My Mind, And If I Am Being Critical With Myself, I Shake Myself Out Of It.

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

My Heart Was Broken And My Head Was Just Barely Inhabitable

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

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.

Help" Is A Prayer That Is Always Answered. It Doesn't Matter How You Pray--with Your Head Bowed In Silence, Or Crying Out In Grief, Or Dancing. Churches Are Good For Prayer, But So Are Garages And Cars And Mountains And Showers And Dance Floors. Years Ago I Wrote An Essay That Began, "some People Think That God Is In The Details, But I Have Come To Believe That God Is In The Bathroom.

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

I Am Going To Notice The Lights Of The Earth, The Sun And The Moon And The Stars, The Lights Of Our Candles As We March, The Lights With Which Spring Teases Us, The Light That Is Already Present.

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

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

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.

What If We Never 'get Over' Certain Deaths, Or Our Childhoods? What If The Idea That We Should Have By Now, Or Will, Is A Great Palace Lie? What If We're Not Supposed To? What If It Takes A Life Time...?

Over And Over I Feel As If My Characters Know Who They Are, And What Happens To Them, And Where They Have Been And Where They Will Go, And What They Are Capable Of Doing, But They Need Me To Write It Down For Them Because Their Handwriting Is So Bad.

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.

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

Sometimes I Think God Loves The Ones Who Most Desperately Ache And Are Most Desperately Lost - His Or Her Wildest, Most Messed-up Children - The Way You'd Ache And Love A Screwed-up Rebel Daughter In Juvenile Hall.

I Could Become Like That Dyslexic Agnostic In The Old Joke - The One Who Lies In Bed And Tries To Figure Out If His Dog Exists.

There Is Ecstasy In Paying Attention. You Can Get Into A Kind Of Wordsworthian Openness To The World, Where You See In Everything The Essence Of Holiness.

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.

...most Of The Time, All You Have Is The Moment, And The Imperfect Love Of The People Around You.

We Can't Understand When We're Pregnant, Or When Our Siblings Are Expecting, How Profound It Is To Have A Shared History With A Younger Generation: Blood, Genes, Humor. It Means We Were Actually Here, On Earth, For A Time - Like The Egyptians With Their Pyramids, Only With Children.

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

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.

I'm One Of Those Religious People Who Are Afraid Of Everything. I'm Instantly Worried About Everything That Could Go Wrong.

Expectations Are Resentment Waiting To Happen.

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.

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

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

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

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

Mothers Are Supposed To Listen And, Afterward, To Respond With Some Wisdom And Perspective, But These Things Were Not My Mother's Strong Suit.

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.

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

Gratitude, Not Understanding, Is The Secret To Joy And Equanimity.

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.

It Is A Violation Of Trust To Use Your Kids As Caulking For The Cracks In You.

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.

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

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Writing Can Be A Pretty Desperate Endeavor, Because It Is About Some Of Our Deepest Needs: Our Need To Be Visible, To Be Heard, Our Need To Make Sense Of Our Lives, To Wake Up And Grow And Belong. It Is No Wonder If We Sometimes Tend To Take Ourselves Perhaps A Bit Too Seriously.

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.

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

When He Sees Little Kids Sitting In The Backseat Of Cars, In Those Little Car Seats That Have Steering Wheels, With Grim Expressions Of Concentration On Their Faces, Clearly Convinced That Their Efforts Are Causing The Car To Do Whatever It Is Doing, He Thinks Of Himself And His Relationship With God: God Who Drives Along Silently, Gently Amused, In The Real Driver's Seat.

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

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

Hope Begins In The Dark.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

I Can Never Tell What I'm Doing When I'm In The Middle Of Publication Because I Have No Confidence. I Have Terrible Self-esteem, Along With Boundless Narcissism.

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.

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

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.

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

At Our Most Primitive We Are Storytellers And Dancers.

If You Always Dreamed Of Writing A Novel Or A Memoir, And You Used To Love To Write, And Were Pretty Good At It, Will It Break Your Heart If It Turns Out You Never Got Around To It? If You Wake Up One Day At Eighty, Will You Feel Nonchalant That Something Always Took Precedence Over A Daily Commitment To Discovering Your Creative Spirit? If Not--if This Very Thought Fills You With Regret--then What Are You Waiting For?

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.

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.

You Get Your Intuition Back When You Make Space For It, When You Stop The Chattering Of The Rational Mind. The Rational Mind Doesn't Nourish You. You Assume That It Gives You The Truth, Because The Rational Mind Is The Golden Calf That This Culture Worships, But This Is Not True. Rationality Squeezes Out Much That Is Rich And Juicy And Fascinating.

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

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.

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

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

You Keep Working On Your Piece Over And Over, Trying To Get The Sections And Paragraphs And Sentences And The Whole Just Right, But There's A Point At Which You Can Tell You've Begun Hurting The Work With Your Perfectionism. Then You Have To Release The Work To New Eyes.

She Felt As If The Mosaic She Had Been Assembling Out Of Life's Little Shards Got Dumped To The Ground, And There Was No Way To Put It Back Together.

Evangelical Christians And I Can Sit Down And Talk One On One About How Much We Love Jesus, And Yet I'm Not Carried In Christian Bookstores.

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

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.

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.

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

You Can Either Set Brick As A Laborer Or As An Artist. You Can Make The Work A Chore, Or You Can Have A Good Time. You Can Do It The Way You Used To Clear The Dinner Dishes When You Were Thirteen, Or You Can Do It As A Japanese Person Would Perform A Tea Ceremony, With A Level Of Concentration And Care In Which You Can Lose Yourself, And So In Which You Can Find Yourself.

Finding Yourself

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.

My Gratitude For Good Writing Is Unbounded; I’m Grateful For It The Way I’m Grateful For The Ocean.

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.

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.

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.

I Used To Tell My Writing Students That They Must Write The Books They Wished They Could Come Upon - Because Then The Books They Hungered And Thirsted For Would Exist.

After A While The Middle-aged Person Who Lives In Her Head Begins To Talk To Her Soul, The Kid.

Nothing Can Be Delicious When You Are Holding Your Breath.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Reproductive Rights

Laughter Is The Key That Grace Has Arrived.

I Love Silence. I Seek And Create It At Every Opportunity. I Need It To Work.

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

Laughter Is Carbonated Holiness.

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

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

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

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

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

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?

Being A Parent Is Absolutely Exhausting And Draining, Along With All The Joy And Love.

Good Writing Is About Telling The Truth.

Telling The Truth

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

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.

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.

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.

Close Friendships Are One Of Life's Miracles - That A Few People Get To Know You Deeply, All Your Messy Or Shadowy Stuff Along With The Beauty And Sweetness, And They Still Love You. Not Only Still Love You, But Love You More And More Deeply. I Would Do Anything For My Closest Friends, And They Would Do Almost Anything For Me, And That Is About As Spiritual A Truth As You Can Get.

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.

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.

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

Making Mistakes

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

There Are Moments When I Am Writing When I Think That If Other People Knew How I Felt Right Now, They’d Burn Me At The Stake For Feeling So Good, So Full, So Much Intense Pleasure.

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

Dancing Almost Always Turns Out To Be A Good Idea.

Don’t Underestimate This Gift Of Finding A Place In The Writing World: If You Really Work At Describing Creatively On Paper The Truth As You Understand It, As You Have Experienced It, With The People Or Material Who Are In You, Who Are Asking That You Help Them Get Written, You Will Come To A Secret Feeling Of Honor.

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.

You've Got To Learn To Let Go And Let Your Children Fall, And Fail. If You Try To Protect Them From Hurt, And Always Rush To Their Side With Band-aids, They Won't Learn About Life, And What Is True, What Works, What Helps, And What Are Real Consequences Of Certain Kinds Of Behavior. When They Do Get Hurt, Which They Will, They Won't Know How To Take Care Of Their Grown Selves. They Won't Even Know Where The Aspirin Is Kept.

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.

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

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

...[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.

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

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.

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.

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

You Own Everything That Happened To You. Tell Your Stories. If People Wanted You To Write Warmly About Them, They Should Have Behaved Better.

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

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

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

Now. Maybe You Think It Is Arrogant Or Self Centered, Or Ridiculous For Me To Believe That God Bothered To Wiggle A Cheap Bolt Out Of My New Used Car Because He Or She Needed To Keep Me Away For A Few Days Until Just The Moment When My Old Friend Most Needed Me To Help Her Mother Move Into Whatever Comes Next. Maybe Nothing Conscious Helped To Stall Me So That I Would Be There When I Could Be Most Useful. Or Maybe It Did. I’ll Never Know For Sure. And Anyway, It Doesn’t Really Matter.

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

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

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

Forgiveness Means It Finally Becomes Unimportant That You Hit Back.

The Miracle Is That We Are Here, That No Matter How Undone We’ve Been The Night Before, We Wake Up Every Morning And Are Still Here. It Is Phenomenal Just To Be.

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

No" Is A Complete Sentence.

Getting Into A New Relationship Is Like Pouring Miracle-gro On Your Character Defects.

New Relationship

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.

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

I Believe In Listening To The - What Calls You From Your Heart And Your Spirit And If You Do It Badly, Like Learning To Dance, You Do It Badly Or You're Going To Kick Yourself When You Grow Old And You Meant To Do It.

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.

I Would Seriously Rather Be In A Long Line At The Dmv Than Eat With People I Don't Know.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

I Get To Tell My Truth. I Get To Seek Meaning And Realization. I Get To Live Fully, Wildly, Imperfectly. That's Why I'm Alive. And All I Actually Have To Offer As A Writer Is My Version Of Life. Every Single Thing That Has Happened To Me Is Mine.

All Freedom Comes From Discipline.

Clutter And Mess Show Us That Life Is Being Lived.

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.

Slowly, After Dozens Of Rejection Slips And Failures And False Starts And Postponed Dreams - What Langston Hughes Called Dreams Deferred - I Stepped Onto The Hallowed Ground Of Being A Published Novelist, And Then 15 Years Later, I Even Started To Make Real Money.

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.

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.

Toni Morrison Said, "the Function Of Freedom Is To Free Someone Else," And If You Are No Longer Wracked Or In Bondage To A Person Or A Way Of Life, Tell Your Story. Risk Freeing Someone Else. Not Everyone Will Be Glad That You Did. Members Of Your Family And Other Critics May Wish You Had Kept Your Secrets. Oh, Well, What Are You Going To Do?

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.

... Everyone Has Come To Understand That Unconditional Love Is A Reality, But With As Shelf Life Of About Eight To Ten Seconds. [p. 110]

Unconditional Love

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.

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

Best Friendship

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.

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

I Thought Such Awful Thoughts That I Cannot Even Say Them Out Loud Because They Would Make Jesus Want To Drink Gin Straight Out Of The Cat Dish.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Perfectionism Is The Voice Of The Oppressor, The Enemy Of The People. It Will Keep You Cramped And Insane Your Whole Life Besides, Perfectionism Will Ruin Your Writing, Blocking Inventiveness And Playfulness And Life Force (these Are Words We Are Allowed To Use In California).

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.

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

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

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

I 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.

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.

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.

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

Almost All Good Writing Begins With Terrible First Efforts. You Need To Start Somewhere. Start By Getting Something—anything—down On Paper. What I’ve Learned To Do When I Sit Down To Work On A Shitty First Draft Is To Quiet The Voices In My Head.

Some People Have A Thick Skin And You Don’t. Your Heart Is Really Open And That Is Going To Cause Pain, But That Is An Appropriate Response To This World. The Cost Is High, But The Blessing Of Being Compassionate Is Beyond Your Wildest Dreams.

So What Are We Supposed To Do Again, When We Hate Everything? You Stop Pretending Life Is Such Fun Or Makes Sense. It's Often Messy And Cruel And Dull, And We Do The Best We Can. It's Unfair, And Jerks Seem To Win. But You Fall In Love With A Few People. Like I Love You, Elizabeth. You're The Angel God Sent Me.

Falling In Love

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

I Became A Christian Before I Got Sober. So I Was A Drunk, Bulimic Christian.

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

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.

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

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

I Am Skittish About Relationships, As Most Of The Marriages I've Seen Up Close Have Been Ruinous For One Or Both Parties.

Becoming A Writer Is About Becoming Conscious.

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

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.

There Is Ecstasy In Paying Attention.

Perfectionism Means That You Try Not To Leave So Much Mess To Clean Up. But Clutter And Mess Show Us That Life Is Being Lived.

Why Couldn't Jesus Command Us To Obsess Over Everything, To Try To Control And Manipulate People, To Try Not To Breathe At All, Or To Pay Attention, Stomp Away To Brood When People Annoy Us, And Then Eat A Big Bag Of Hershey's Kisses In Bed?

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