Quote

Writing takes a combination of sophistication and innocence it takes conscience, our belief that something is beautiful because it is right.

Anne Lamott

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Anne Lamott
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: April 10
Novelist
Writer
San Francisco County
California
Takes
Belief
Beautiful
Right
Writing
Sophistication
Something
Innocence
Combination
Conscience

More quotes by Anne Lamott

Image
E-books are great for instant gratification - you see a review somewhere of a book that interests you, and you can start reading it five minutes later.
Anne Lamott
Image
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
Image
This is a very violent place to live, the Earth, and we're a very violent species. Cain is still killing Abel. We see that every day.
Anne Lamott
Image
We're out there somewhere between the known and the unknown, trying to reel in both for a closer look.
Anne Lamott
Image
My father was a writer, so I grew up writing and reading and I was really encouraged by him.
Anne Lamott
Image
Mattie sat at the table, obsessing, orbiting around herself. She was sick of her worried, hostile mind. It would have killed her long before, she felt, if it hadn't needed the transportation.
Anne Lamott
Image
[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
Image
Pay attention to the beauty surrounding you.
Anne Lamott
Image
She felt as if the mosaic she had been assembling out of life's little shards got dumped to the ground, and there was no way to put it back together.
Anne Lamott
Image
If we can believe in the Gnostic gospel of Thomas, old Uncle Jesus said, If you bring forth what is inside you, what you bring forth will save you. If you don't bring forth what is inside you, what you bring forth can destroy you.
Anne Lamott
Image
You don't want to spend your time around people who make you hold your breath. You can't fill up when you're holding your breath. And writing is about filling up, filling up when you are empty, letting images and ideas and smells run down like water - just as writing is also about dealing with the emptiness.
Anne Lamott
Image
This is one thing they forget to mention in most child-rearing books, that at times you will just lose your mind. Period.
Anne Lamott
Image
I spend most of my time alone, because I so value and thrive in the quiet. Heaven.
Anne Lamott
Image
You have to make mistakes to find out who you aren’t.
Anne Lamott
Image
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
Image
Being on a book tour is like being on the seesaw when you're a little kid. The excitement is in having someone to play with, and in rising up in the air, but then you're at the mercy of those holding you down, and if it's your older brother, or Paul Wolfowitz, they leap up, so that you crash down and get hurt.
Anne Lamott
Image
Clutter and mess show us that life is being lived.
Anne Lamott
Image
I like to read away as much of the afternoon as possible, until real life rears its ugly head.
Anne Lamott
Image
That thing you had to force yourself to do-the actual act of writing-turns out to be the best part.
Anne Lamott
Image
But it was the singing that pulled me in and split me wide open.
Anne Lamott