Quotes from Anne Lamott

Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul

If you want to know how God feels about money, look at who she gives it to

When KFKD is playing, we are at cross purposes with the river. So we need to sit there, and breathe, calm ourselves down, push back our sleeves, and begin again.

Tom said either you learn to live with paradox and ambiguity or you'll be 6 years old for the rest of your life.

Sometimes you run into someone, regardless of age or sex, whom you know absolutely to be an independently operating part of the Whole that goes on all the time inside yourself, and the eye-motes go click and you hear the tribal tones of voice resonate, and there it is - you recognize them.

The bakery, on the other hand, was a family's understanding that a kid didn't have to do or achieve or own anything more for the world to care, and even delight in her.

I'm not suggesting that you want to be an author who tells a story in order to teach a moral or deliver a message. If you have a message, as Samuel Goldwyn said, send a telegram.

Of course, there will always be more you could do, but you have to remind yourself that perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor.

Transcendence means you go from judgment, separation from life and yourself, to feeling at one-ish with the universe. We hook into something bigger than we are, truer than the self-serving stories we make up about life and ourselves.

You stop pretending life is such fin 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.

Trappings and charm wear off, I've learned. The book of welcome says, Let people see you. They see that your upper arms are beautiful, soft and clean and warm, and then they will see this about their own, some of the time. It's called having friends, choosing each other, getting found, being fished out of the rubble. It blows you away, how this wonderful event happened—me in your life, you in mine.

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

we thought were castles turn out to be prisons, and we desperately want out, but even though we built them, we can't find the door. Yet maybe if you ask God for help in knowing which direction to face, you'll have a moment of intuition. Maybe you'll see at least one next right step you can take.

Look, if you don't have a bad attitude and lots of things wrong with you, no serious person is going to be interested. If you feel scared, outraged, confused most of the time, come on over. Have a seat.

Love has bridged the high-rises of despair we were about to fall between. Love has been a penlight in the blackest, bleakest nights. Love has been a wild animal, a poultice, a dinghy, a coat. Love is why we have hope.

God loves you crazily, like I love you, Rae said, like a slightly overweight auntie, who sees only your marvelousness and need.

Your anger and damage and grief are the way to the truth. We don't have much truth to express unless we have gone into those rooms and closets and woods and abysses that we were told not to go in to. When we have gone in and looked around for a long while, just breathing and finally taking it in—then we will be able to speak in our own voice and to stay in the present moment. And that moment is home.

Let's not get bogged down on whom or what we pray to. let's just say prayer is a communication from our hearts to the great mystery, or Goodness, or Howard; to the animating energy of love we are sometimes bold enough to believe in; to something unimaginably big, and not us. we could call this force Not Me, and Not Preachers Onstage with a Choir of 800. or for convenience we could just say God.

We can change. People say we can't, but we do when the stakes or the pain is high enough. And when we do, life can change. It offers more of itself when we agree to give up our busyness.

You wouldn't be a writer if reading hadn't enriched your soul more than other pursuits.

Do you think that we're wired this way? With the devil inside? Yeah, in the same way we're wired for God. But not to the same extent.

I have actually come to believe that a person being herself is beautiful - that contentment and acceptance and freedom are beautiful.

Other days, though, my writing is like a person to me—the person who, after all these years, still makes sense to me.

W]hen you're dreaming, you're not the one calling the shots. So it's a reprieve.