Quotes from Anne Lamott

I am skittish about relationships, as most of the marriages I've seen up close have been ruinous for one or both parties.

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 would seriously rather be in a long line at the DMV than eat with people I don't know.

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.

A whole lot of us believers, of all different religions, are ready to turn back the tide of madness by walking together, in both the dark and the light - in other words, through life - registering voters as we go, and keeping the faith.

When we're dealing with the people in our family - no matter how annoying or gross they may be, no matter how self-inflicted their suffering may appear, no matter how afflicted they are with ignorance, prejudice or nose hairs - we give from the deepest parts of ourselves.

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've written six novels and four pieces of nonfiction, so I don't really have a genre these days.

I don't want something special. I want something beautifully plain.

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.

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.

If you have a problem you can solve by throwing money at it, you don't have a very interesting problem.

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.

I spent my whole life helping my mother carry around her psychic trunks like a bitter bellhop. So a great load was lifted when she died, and my life was much easier.

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.

My mother was a not-too-devoted atheist. She went to Episcopal church on Christmas Eve every year, and that was mostly it.

Mothers are supposed to listen and, afterward, to respond with some wisdom and perspective, but these things were not my mother's strong suit.

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor.

Expectations are resentments under construction.

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.

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor; the enemy of the people. It will keep you insane your whole life.

When God is going to do something wonderful, He or She always starts with a hardship; when God is going to do something amazing, He or She starts with an impossibility.

I don't know much, but I understand how entirely doomed I am without God.

What's the difference between you and God? God never thinks he's you.