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There is ecstasy in paying attention.

Anne Lamott

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Anne Lamott
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: April 10
Novelist
Writer
San Francisco County
California
Ecstasy
Paying
Attention

More quotes by Anne Lamott

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I don't remember who said this, but there really are places in the heart you don't even know exist until you love a child.
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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one thing about having a baby is that each step of the way you simply cannot imagine loving him any more than you already do, because you are bursting with love, loving as much as you are humanly capable of- and then you do, you love him even more.
Anne Lamott
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The beauty of modesty ... a virtue the world doesn't have much truck with: one ordinary flower in a vase, as opposed to a bouquet.
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
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I can never tell what I'm doing when I'm in the middle of publication because I have no confidence. I have terrible self-esteem, along with boundless narcissism.
Anne Lamott
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The reason I never give up hope is because everything is so basically hopeless.
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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[Her] work taught me that you could be all the traditional feminine things -- a mother, a lover, a listener, a nurturer -- and you could also be critically astute and radical and have a minority opinion that was profoundly moral.
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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Over and over I feel as if my characters know who they are, and what happens to them, and where they have been and where they will go, and what they are capable of doing, but they need me to write it down for them because their handwriting is so bad.
Anne Lamott
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Some people have a thick skin and you don’t. Your heart is really open and that is going to cause pain, but that is an appropriate response to this world. The cost is high, but the blessing of being compassionate is beyond your wildest dreams.
Anne Lamott
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Plot springs from character... I've always sort of believed that these people inside me- these characters- know who they are and what they're about and what happens, and they need me to help get it down on paper because they don't type.
Anne Lamott
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If you fixate on the big picture, the whole shebang, the overview, you miss the stitching.
Anne Lamott
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My mother was a not-too-devoted atheist. She went to Episcopal church on Christmas Eve every year, and that was mostly it.
Anne Lamott
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Most marriages are a mess, and the children get caught between two bitter, antagonistic parents. My parents stayed married for 27 unhappy years, till their kids were grown, and this was a catastrophe for us.
Anne Lamott
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I've always thought I could use my brain and my heart to jockey everyone around to the good. But life is not jockeyable. When you try, you make people infinitely crazier than they already were, including or especially yourself.
Anne Lamott
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To be a good writer, you not only have to write a great deal but you have to care. You do not have to have a complicated moral philosophy. But a writer always tries, I think, to be a part of a solution, to understand a little about life and to pass this on.
Anne Lamott
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I was the angriest daughter on earth, and also, one of the most devoted.
Anne Lamott
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Don't look at your feet to see if you are doing it right. Just dance.
Anne Lamott