Anne Lamott Quotes

276 Sourced Quotes

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.

Anne Lamott

I seem to hang on to my hates because they help take my mind off the cracked reflection in the mirror.

Anne Lamott

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.

Anne Lamott

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.

Anne Lamott

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.

Anne Lamott

I was usually filled with a sense of something like shame until I'd remember that wonderful line of Blake's- that we are here to learn to endure the beams of love- and I would take a long deep breath and force these words out of my strangulated throat: "Thank you.

Anne Lamott

I think this is how we are supposed to be in the world-present and in awe.

Anne Lamott

I am learning slowly to bring my crazy pinball-machine mind back to this place...

Anne Lamott

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.

Anne Lamott

In fact, not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.

Anne Lamott

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.

Anne Lamott

I could never, ever have said what I was thinking out loud, because it would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish.

Anne Lamott

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.

Anne Lamott

My understanding is that you get to choose which of your thoughts to go with.

Anne Lamott

I get thirsty people glasses of water, even if that thirsty person is just me.

Anne Lamott

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.

Anne Lamott

I do believe that God is with us even when we're at our craziest and that this goodness guides, provides, and protects.

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.

Anne Lamott

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.

Anne Lamott

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.

Anne Lamott

Some people seem to understand this - that life and change take time - but I am not one of those people.

Anne Lamott

I was raised by my parents to believe that you had a moral obligation to try and help save the world.

Anne Lamott

One line of dialogue that rings true reveals character in a way that pages of description can't.

Anne Lamott

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.

Anne Lamott

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.

Anne Lamott

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.

Anne Lamott

You just have to keep getting out of your own way so that whatever it is that wants to be written can use you to write it.

Anne Lamott

When you pray, you are not starting the conversation from scratch, just remembering to plug back into a conversation that's always in progress.

Anne Lamott

Where do we even start on the daily walk of restoration and awakening? We start where we are.

Anne Lamott

My best teachers were mess, failure, death, mistakes, and the people I hated, including myself.

Anne Lamott