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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.

-Anne Lamott

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You Can Either Set

Anne Lamott

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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.

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Finding Yourself

More From Anne Lamott

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.

Most Humbling Of All Is To Comprehend The Lifesaving Gift That Your Pit Crew Of People Has Been For You, And All The Experiences You Have Shared, The Journeys Together, The Collaborations, Births And Deaths, Divorces, Rehab, And Vacations, The Solidarity You Have Shown One Another. Every So Often You Realize That Without All Of Them, Your Life Would Be Barren And Pathetic. It Would Be Death Of A Salesman, Though With E-mail And Texting.

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

When All Else Fails

Never Compare Your Insides To Everyone Else's Outsides.

What If You Wake Up Some Day, And You're 65... And You Were Just So Strung Out On Perfectionism And People-pleasing That You Forgot To Have A Big Juicy Creative Life?

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

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 Guess He'll Have To Figure Out Someday That He Is Supposed To Have This Dark Side, That It Is Part Of What It Means To Be Human, To Have The Darkness Just As Much As The Light- That In Fact The Dark Parts Make The Light Visible; Without Them, The Light Would Disappear. But I Guess He Has To Figure Other Stuff Out First, Like How To Keep His Neck From Flopping All Over The Place And How To Sit Up.

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.

So Rita And I Decided That The Most Subversive, Revolutionary Thing I Could Do Was To Show Up For My Life And Not Be Ashamed.

I Remember Staring At My Son Endlessly When He Was An Infant, Stunned By His Very Existence, Wondering Where On Earth He Had Come From.

Prayer Means That, In Some Unique Way, We Believe We're Invited Into A Relationship With Someone Who Hears Us When We Speak In Silence.

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.)

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

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.

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.

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.

She Lived In Fear Of Ifonic Endings.

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.

They Always Threw Their Arms Around And Hugged Me While Crying Our Yiddish Endearments. Yet None Of Them Believed In God. They Believed In Social Justice, Good Works, Israel, And Bette Midler. I Was Nearly Thirty Before I Met A Religious Jew.

You Fall So Deeply In Love With Your Grandbaby. It's So So So Much Easier Than Being A Parent, Because You Really Don't Have Much Responsibility. And Just When You Are At The End Of Your Rope With Exhaustion, The Parents Take The Baby Away. So It's The Best Of Both Worlds.

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.

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.

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?

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

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

Best Friendship

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A Big Heart Is Both A Clunky And A Delicate Thing; It Doesn't Protect Itself And It Doesn't Hide. It Stands Out, Like A Baby's Fontanel, Where You Can See The Soul Pulse Through.

[her] Work Taught Me That You Could Be All The Traditional Feminine Things -- A Mother, A Lover, A Listener, A Nurturer -- And You Could Also Be Critically Astute And Radical And Have A Minority Opinion That Was Profoundly Moral.

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.

But You Don't Always Get What You Want;,you Get What You Get

I Cry Intermittently, Like A Summer Rain. I Don't Feel Racked By The Crying; In Fact, It Hydrates Me. Then Rage Wells Up In Me, And I Want To Take A Crowbar To All The Cars In The Neighborhood.

All Freedom Comes From Discipline.

So How On Earth Can I Bring A Child Into The World, Knowing That Such Sorrow Lies Ahead, That It Is Such A Large Part Of What It Means To Be Human? I'm Not Sure. That's My Answer: I'm Not Sure.

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

Teenagers Who Do Not Go To Church Are Adored By God, But They Don't Get To Meet Some Of The People Who Love God Back.

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

So I Was Doing Well Academically, And I Was A Well-ranked Tennis Player And Was The Apple Of My Handsome Father's Eye-and Then I Would Bring Home A Report Card With A B-plus On It, And My Parents Would Look At The Report Card As If I'd Flunked. "uh, Honey?" One Of Them Would Ask, Looking Perplexed. "now, This Isn't A Criticism But, If You Could Get A B-plus In Philosophy, How Much Harder Would It Have Been To Get An A-minus?"

Alice Adams Wrote A Sweet Note To Me After My First Novel Came Out When I Was 26, And I Was So Blown Away That I Sent Her A Bunch Of Stamps By Return Mail. I Have No Idea What I Was Thinking. It Was A Star-struck Impulse.

Write Straight Into The Emotional Center Of Things. Write Toward Vulnerability. Don't Worry About Appearing Sentimental. Worry About Being Unavailable; Worry About Being Absent Or Fraudulent.

Just Don't Pretend You Know More About Your Characters Than They Do, Because You Don't. Stay Open To Them. It's Teatime And All The Dolls Are At The Table. Listen. It's That Simple.

There Is Ecstasy In Paying Attention.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Now, If You Ask Me, What’s Going On Is That We’re All Up To Here In It, And Probably The Most Important Thing Is That We Not Yell At One Another.

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.

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.

...one Of The Worst Things About Being A Parent, For Me, Is The Self-discovery, The Being Face To Face With One's Secret Insanity And Brokenness And Rage.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

I Think Joy And Sweetness And Affection Are A Spiritual Path. We're Here To Know God, To Love And Serve God, And To Be Blown Away By The Beauty And Miracle Of Nature. You Just Have To Get Rid Of So Much Baggage To Be Light Enough To Dance, To Sing, To Play. You Don't Have Time To Carry Grudges; You Don't Have Time To Cling To The Need To Be Right.

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

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

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.

My Coming To Faith Did Not Start With A Leap But Rather A Series Of Staggers From What Seemed Like One Safe Place To Another. Like Lily Pads, Round And Green, These Places Summoned And Then Held Me Up While I Grew. Each Prepared Me For The Next Leaf On Which I Would Land, And In This Way I Moved Across The Swamp Of Doubt And Fear.

Pets Are The World To Me. I Think They Are The Most Obvious Manifestations Of Divine Love That We Are Going To See This Side Of Eternity.

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

I Do Know The Sorrow Of Being Ordinary, And That Much Of Our Life Is Spent Doing The Crazy Mental Arithmetic Of How, At Any Given Moment, We Might Improve, Or At Least Disguise Or Present Our Defects And Screw-ups In Either More Charming Or More Intimidating Ways.

I Know Some Very Great Writers, Writers You Love Who Write Beautifully And Have Made A Great Deal Of Money, And Not One Of Them Sits Down Routinely Feeling Wildly Enthusiastic And Confident. Not One Of Them Writes Elegant First Drafts. All Right, One Of Them Does, But We Do Not Like Her Very Much. We Do Not Think That She Has A Rich Inner Life Or That God Likes Her Or Can Even Stand Her. (although When I Mentioned This To My Priest Friend Tom, He Said That You Can Safely Assume You’ve Created God In Your Own Image When It Turns Out That God Hates All The Same People You Do.)

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.

Let’s Think Of Reverence As Awe, As Presence In And Openness To The World…try Walking Around With A Child Who’s Going, ‘wow, Wow! Look At That Dirty Dog! Look At That Burned-down House! Look At That Red Sky!’ And The Child Points, And You Look, And You See, And You Start Going, ‘wow! Look At That Huge Crazy Hedge! Look At That Teeny Little Baby! Look At The Scary Dark Cloud!’ I Think This Is How We Are Supposed To Be In The World – Present And In Awe.

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.

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

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.

Again And Again I Tell God I Need Help, And God Says, 'well, Isn't That Fabulous? Because I Need Help Too. So You Go Get That Old Woman Over There Some Water, And I'll Figure Out What We're Going To Do About Your Stuff.

Laughter Is The Key That Grace Has Arrived.

Perfectionism Means That You Try Desperately Not To Leave So Much Mess To Clean Up. But Clutter And Mess Show Us That Life Is Being Lived. Clutter Is Wonderfully Fertile Ground - You Can Still Discover New Treasures Under All Those Piles, Clean Things Up, Edit Things Out, Fix Things, Get A Grip. Tidiness Suggests That Something Is As Good As It's Going To Get. Tidiness Makes Me Think Of Held Breath, Of Suspended Animation, While Writing Needs To Breathe And Move.

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

If You Are Writing The Clearest, Truest Words You Can Find And Doing The Best You Can To Understand And Communicate, This Will Shine On Paper Like Its Own Little Lighthouse. Lighthouses Dont Go Running All Over An Island Looking For Boats To Save; They Just Stand There Shining.

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.

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

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

I've Always Thought I Could Use My Brain And My Heart To Jockey Everyone Around To The Good. But Life Is Not Jockeyable. When You Try, You Make People Infinitely Crazier Than They Already Were, Including Or Especially Yourself.

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.

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.

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

I Devoured Books Like A Person Taking Vitamins, Afraid That Otherwise I Would Remain This Gelatinous Narcissist, With No Possibility Of Ever Becoming Thoughtful, Of Ever Being Taken Seriously.

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

Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers.

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.

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

I 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.

We Want A Sense That An Important Character, Like A Narrator, Is Reliable. We Want To Believe That A Character Is Not Playing Ages Or Being Coy Or Being Manipulative, But Is Telling The Truth To The Best Of His Or Her Ability...we Do Not Wish To Be Crudely Manipulated...we Want To Be Massaged By A Masseur, Not Whapped By A Carpet Beater.

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.

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

I'm All Over The Place, Up And Down, Scattered, Withdrawing, Trying To Find Some Elusive Sense Of Serenity." The World Can't Give That Serenity. The World Can't Give Us Peace. We Can Only Find It In Our Hearts." I Hate That." I Know. But The Good News Is That By The Same Token, The World Can't Take It Away.

I Went To Goucher College In Maryland For The Best Possible Reasons - To Learn - But Then I Dropped Out At 19 For The Best Possible Reasons - To Become A Writer.

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

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

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

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.

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 Wish I Had Thrown Out The Bathroom Scale At Age 16. Weighing Yourself Every Morning Is Like Waking Up And Asking Dick Cheney To Validate Your Sense Of Inner Worth.

A Hundred Years From Now? All New People.

...music Is About As Physical As It Gets: Your Essential Rhythm Is Your Heartbeat; Your Essential Sound, The Breath. We're Walking Temples Of Noise, And When You Add Tender Hearts To This Mix, It Somehow Lets Us Meet In Places We Couldn't Get To Any Other Way.

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.

It Turned Out This Man Worked For The Dalai Lama. And She Said Gently-that They Believe When A Lot Of Things Start Going Wrong All At Once, It Is To Protect Something Big And Lovely That Is Trying To Get Itself Born-and That This Something Needs For You To Be Distracted So That It Can Be Born As Perfectly As Possible.

You Get Your Confidence And Intuition Back By Trusting Yourself, By Being Militantly On Your Own Side. ... Don't Look At Your Feet To See If You Are Doing It Right. Just Dance.

Inspirational Life

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

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 Simply Keep Putting Down One Damn Word After The Other, As You Hear Them, As They Come To You. You Can Either Set Brick As A Laborer Or As An Artist.

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.

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.

It Helps To Resign As The Controller Of Your Fate. All That Energy We Expend To Keep Things Running Right Is Not What's Keeping Things Running Right. We're Bugs Struggling In The River, Brightly Visible To The Trout Below. With That Fact In Mind, People Like Me Make Up All These Rules To Give Us The Illusion That We Are In Charge. I Need To Say To Myself, They're Not Needed, Hon. Just Take In The Buggy Pleasures. Be Kind To The Others, Grab The Fleck Of Riverweed, Notice How Beautifully Your Bug Legs Scull.

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.

There Is Nothing More Touching To Me Then A Family Picture Where Everyone Is Trying To Look His Or Her Best, But You Can See What A Mess They All Really Are.

...after A Few Days At The Desk, Telling The Truth In An Interesting Way Turns Out To Be As Easy And Pleasurable As Bathing A Cat.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Intelligence, Goodness, Humanity, Excitement, Serenity. Over Time, These Are The Things That Change The Musculature Of Your Face, As Do Laughter, And Animation, And Especially Whatever Peace You Can Broker With The Person Inside. It's Furrow, Pinch, And Judgement That Make Us Look Older - Our Mothers Were Right. They Said That If You Made Certain Faces, They Would Stick, And They Do. But Our Mothers Forgot That Faces Of Kindness And Integrity Stick As Well.

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

And My Fear Of Failure Has Been Lifelong And Deep. If You Are What You Do- And I Think My Parents May Have Accidentally Given Me This Idea- And You Do Poorly, What Then? It’s Over; You’re Wiped Out. All Those Prophecies You Heard In The Dark Have Come True, And People Can See The Real You, See What A Schmendrick You Are, What A Fraud.

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.

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

Perfectionism Is The Voice Of The Oppressor.

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.

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.

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

Nothing Can Be Delicious When You Are Holding Your Breath.

The Movement Of Grace Toward Gratitude Brings Us From The Package Of Self-obsessed Madness To A Spiritual Awakening.

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

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.

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

Do You Mind Even A Little That You Are Still Addicted To People-pleasing, And Are Still Putting Everyone Else’s Needs And Laundry And Career Ahead Of Your Creative, Spiritual Life? Giving All Your Life Force Away, To “help” And Impress. Well, Your Help Is Not Helpful, And Falls Short.

I 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.

You Should Not Bring More Items And Hurdles To The Obstacle Course.

Jealousy Has Always Been My Cross, The Weakness And Woundedness In Me That Has Most Often Caused Me To Feel Ugly And Unlovable, Like The Bad Seed.

I'd Like To Learn To Meditate With More Enthusiasm. I Can Sit Down And Get Quiet For 20 Minutes, But It Just Has Not Been A Part Of My Christianity At All.

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.

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.

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.

Love Is So Much Bigger Than Our Ignorance.

For Too Long, And Despite What People Told Me, I Had Fallen For What The Culture Said About Beauty, Youth, Features, Heights, Weights, Hair Textures, Upper Arms.

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.

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

You Are Going To Have To Give And Give And Give, Or There's No Reason For You To Be Writing. You Have To Give From The Deepest Part Of Yourself, And You Are Going To Have To Go On Giving, And The Giving Is Going To Have To Be Its Own Reward. There Is No Cosmic Importance To Your Getting Something Published, But There Is In Learning To Be A Giver.

Greasy Food Is So Comforting When You Are Hungover.

Mostly What Happens In The Novels Never Happened In Real Life.

Frederick Buechner Is One Of My Favorite Writers. The Eyes Of The Heart Is Beautiful And Wise, Full Of Insight, Charm, And Tenderness.

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

They Believe That If They Do Get Published, A Wonderful New Life Is In Store. It Will Turn Out That Deep Down They Are Really Valuable People And Will Have Lots Of Money From Now On And Really Cool People Like Ethan Hawke Will Be Dropping By All The Time. But It's A Lie. Being A Published Writer Will Make Them Long To Be Only As Mentally Ill As They Are Now. Their Current Level Of Obsession And Doubt And Self-loathing Will Look Like The Good Old Days. Honest.

Good Writing Is About Telling The Truth.

Telling The Truth

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.

The Clipping Said Forgiveness Meant That God Is For Giving, And That We Are Here For Giving Too, And That To Withold Love Or Blessings Is To Be Completely Delusional.

I've Written Six Novels And Four Pieces Of Nonfiction, So I Don't Really Have A Genre These Days.

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

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

Expectations Are Resentments Under Construction.

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

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.

The Real Payoff Is The Writing Itself, That A Day When You Have Gotten Your Work Done Is A Good Day, That Total Dedication Is The Point.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I Accidentally Forgot To Graduate From College.

Most People's Intuitions Are Drowned Out By Folk Sayings. We Have A Moment Of Real Feeling Or Insight, And Then We Come Up With A Folk Saying That Captures The Insight In A Kind Of Wash. The Intuition May Be Real And Ripe, Fresh With Possibilities, But The Folk Saying Is Guaranteed To Be A Cliche, Stale And Self-contained.

I Do Not At All Understand The Mystery Of Grace - Only That It Meets Us Where We Are But Does Not Leave Us Where It Found Us.

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.

And She Is Going To Dance, Dance Hungry, Dance Full, Dance Each Cold Astonishing Moment, Now When She Is Young And Again When She Is Old.

Astonishing Material And Revelation Appear In Our Lives All The Time. Let It Be. Unto Us, So Much Is Given. We Just Have To Be Open For Business.

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

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

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.

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

Certainty Is Missing The Point Entirely.

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

All Those Years I Fell For The Great Palace Lie That Grief Should Be Gotten Over As Quickly As Possible And As Privately. But, What I've Discovered Is That The Lifelong Fear Of Grief Keeps Us In A Barren, Isolated Place, And That Only Grieving Can Heal Grief. The Passage Of Time Will Lessen The Acuteness, But Time Alone, Without The Direct Experience Of Grief, Will Not Heal It.

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

I Was Reminded Of The Four Immutable Laws Of The Spirit: Whoever Is Present Are The Right People. Whenever It Begins Is The Right Time. Whatever Happens Is The Only Thing That Could Have Happened. And When It's Over, It's Over.

Writing Is About Hypnotizing Yourself Into Believing In Yourself, Getting Some Work Done, Then Unhypnotizing Yourself And Going Over The Material Coldly.

I Sat Down In The Sand, Breathless With Shame And Failure. God, I Thought, Some Defender Of The Weak. Some Freedom Fighter: Joan Of Arc In Sunscreen.

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.

Expectations Are Resentment Waiting To Happen.

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