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Anne Lamott -
Bird by Bird (1994)
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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.
Anne Lamott
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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.
Anne Lamott
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Don't look at your feet to see if you are doing it right. Just dance.
Anne Lamott
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I used to think that paired opposites were a given, that love was the opposite of hate, right the opposite of wrong. But now I think we sometimes buy into these concepts because it is so much easier to embrace absolutes than to suffer reality. I don't think anything is the opposite of love. Reality is unforgivingly complex.
Anne Lamott
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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.)
Anne Lamott
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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.
Anne Lamott
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For some of us, good books and beautiful writing are our ultimate solace, even more comforting than exquisite food.
Anne Lamott
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We're out there somewhere between the known and the unknown, trying to reel in both for a closer look.
Anne Lamott
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Writing takes a combination of sophistication and innocence; it takes conscience, our belief that something is beautiful because it is right.
Anne Lamott
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Lighthouses don't go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.
Anne Lamott
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Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. The thing you had to force you 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.
Anne Lamott
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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
Anne Lamott
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My gratitude for good writing is unbounded; I'm grateful for it the way I'm grateful for the ocean.
Anne Lamott
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You are desperate to communicate, to edify or entertain, to preserve moments of grace or joy or transcendence, to make real or imagined events come alive. But you cannot will this to happen. It is a matter of persistence and faith and hard work. So you might as well just go ahead and get started.
Anne Lamott
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Any plot you impose on your characters will be onomatopoetic: PLOT. I say don't worry about plot. Worry about the characters. Let what they say or do reveal who they are, and be involved in their lives, and keep asking yourself, Now what happens? The development of relationship creates plot.
Anne Lamott
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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.
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He told me about his monster. His sounded just like mine without quite so much mascara. When people shine a little light on their monster, we find out how similar most of our monsters are.
Anne Lamott
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We all know we're going to die; what's important is the kind of men and women we are in the face of this.
Anne Lamott
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If your wife locks you out of the house, you don't have a problem with your door.
Anne Lamott
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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.
Anne Lamott
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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.
Anne Lamott
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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.
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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.
Anne Lamott
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Good writing is about telling the truth. We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason they write so very little. But we do.
Anne Lamott
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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.
Anne Lamott
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Quote of the day
Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds.
George Santayana
Anne Lamott
Born:
April 10, 1954
(age 70)
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