Quote

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.

Anne Lamott

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Anne Lamott
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: April 10
Novelist
Writer
San Francisco County
California
Reality
Begin
Situations
Change
Accepting
Productive
Problem
Taught
Improve
Something
Situation
Uncomfortable
Things
Creative
Acceptance
Free
Period
Alleviate
Given
Periods
Unpleasant
Feelings
Accept
Filling

More quotes by 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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Butterflies and birds are like one perfect teaspoon of creation.
Anne Lamott
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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.
Anne Lamott
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I honestly think that in order to be a writer you have to learn to be reverent. If not, why are you writing? Why are you here?
Anne Lamott
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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.
Anne Lamott
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Try looking at your mind as a wayward puppy that you are trying to paper train. You don't drop-kick a puppy into the neighbor's yard every time it piddles on the floor. You just keep bringing it back to the newspaper.
Anne Lamott
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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.
Anne Lamott
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For me, being a writer is not an altered state. It's very ponderous, and very - it's like being a shoemaker.
Anne Lamott
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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
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It is a violation of trust to use your kids as caulking for the cracks in you.
Anne Lamott
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I don't see myself as a deep philosopher. The things I write about tend to be what we all have to face, or consider, or experience, that I talk about with my friends and brothers. It's universal stuff, told in my own voice, my own details and truth, which is all I have to offer.
Anne Lamott
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I am the woman I grew to be partly in spite of my mother, and partly because of the extraordinary love of her best friends, and my own best friends' mothers, and from surrogates, many of whom were not women at all but gay men. I have loved them my entire life, even after their passing.
Anne Lamott
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...the three things I cannot change are the past, the truth, and you.
Anne Lamott
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...since you can't heal your own sick mind with your own sick mind, I needed to consult somebody else's sick mind.
Anne Lamott
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It is hard to remember that you are a cherished spiritual being when you're burping up apple fritters and Cheetos.
Anne Lamott
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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.
Anne Lamott
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I'm a terrible Christian and meditating is very hard for me, and I do it. I do it badly, like I do a lot of things. I believe in doing things badly.
Anne Lamott
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Certainty is missing the point entirely.
Anne Lamott
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I have a giant ego and terrible self-esteem, so I need to hit the re-set button fairly regularly - to get into presence, and humility, and being right-sized.
Anne Lamott
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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