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It was not facing what life dealt that made you crazy, but rather trying to set life straight where it was unstraightenable.

Anne Lamott

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Anne Lamott
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: April 10
Novelist
Writer
San Francisco County
California
Straight
Crazy
Rather
Trying
Made
Life
Dealt
Facing

More quotes by Anne Lamott

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Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life Besides, perfectionism will ruin your writing, blocking inventiveness and playfulness and life force (these are words we are allowed to use in California).
Anne Lamott
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It was simple reality - most competitive tennis players in my day were privileged, spoiled, entitled and white. Also, many of them were beautiful, fit, tan and of good stock - great big hair and white teeth and long legs. Then there were the rest of us.
Anne Lamott
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Sam said to me the other day, I love you like 20 tyrannosauruses on 20 mountaintops, and this is the exact same way in which I love him.
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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My idea of absolute happiness is to be in bed on a rainy day, with my blankie, my cat, and my dog.
Anne Lamott
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The first holy truth in God 101 is that men and women of true faith have always had to accept the mystery of God's identity and love and ways. I hate that, but it's the truth.
Anne Lamott
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I've known for years that resentments don't hurt the person we resent, but they do hurt us.
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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The truth of my experience is that we are all a lot more alike than we are different.
Anne Lamott
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I get to tell my truth. I get to seek meaning and realization. I get to live fully, wildly, imperfectly. That's why I'm alive. And all I actually have to offer as a writer is my version of life. Every single thing that has happened to me is mine.
Anne Lamott
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It's incredibly touching when someone who seems so hopeless finds a few inches of light to stand in and makes everything work as well as possible. All of us lurch and fall, sit in the dirt, are helped to our feet, keep moving, feel like idiots, lose our balance, gain it, help others get back on their feet, and keep going.
Anne Lamott
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Now she and I sit together in her room and eat chocolate, and I tell her that in a very long time when we both to go heaven, we should try to get chairs next to each other, close to the dessert table.
Anne Lamott
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The grief and tears didn't wash me away. They gave me my life back! They cleansed me, baptized me, hydrated the earth at my feet.
Anne Lamott
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Dialogue that is written in dialect is very tiring to read. If you can do it brilliantly, fine. If other writers read your work and rave about your use of dialect, go for it. But be positive that you do it well, because otherwise it is a lot of work to read short stories or novels that are written in dialect. It makes our necks feel funny.
Anne Lamott
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Prayer is talking to something or anything with which we seek union, even if we are bitter or insane or broken. (In fact, these are probably the best possible conditions under which to pray.) Prayer is taking a chance that against all odds and past history, we are loved and chosen, and do not have to get it together before we show up.
Anne Lamott
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Your unconscious can't work when you are breathing down its neck.
Anne Lamott
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If our lives are made up of a string of a thousand moments, at some of those moments we look a lot more spiritually evolved than at others.
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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Write as if your parents are dead.
Anne Lamott
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Radical self-care is quantum, and radiates out into the atmosphere, like a little fresh air. It is a huge gift to the world. When people respond by saying, “Well, isn’t she full of herself,” smile obliquely, like Mona Lisa, and make both of you a nice cup of tea.
Anne Lamott