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Human lives are hard, even those of health and privilege, and don't make much sense. This is the message of the Book of Job: Any snappy explanation of suffering you come up with will be horseshit.

Anne Lamott

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Anne Lamott
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: April 10
Novelist
Writer
San Francisco County
California
Even
Lives
Much
Jobs
Snappy
Make
Sense
Explanation
Human
Message
Humans
Privilege
Book
Messages
Come
Health
Hard
Suffering

More quotes by Anne Lamott

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The women's movement burst forth when I was fifteen. That was when I began to believe that life might semi-work out after all. The cavalry had arrived. Women were starting to say that you got to tell the truth now, that you had to tell the truth if you were going to heal and have an authentic life.
Anne Lamott
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I'm not going to change the way people think about me, but I can say you know what? I'm not going to carry that in my backpack.
Anne Lamott
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Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation.
Anne Lamott
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...It really IS easier to experience spiritual connection when your life is in the process of coming apart.
Anne Lamott
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Sometimes grace works like water wings when you feel you are sinking.
Anne Lamott
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...one of the worst things about being a parent, for me, is the self-discovery, the being face to face with one's secret insanity and brokenness and rage.
Anne Lamott
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I get thirsty people glasses of water, even if that thirsty person is just me.
Anne Lamott
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The clipping said forgiveness meant that God is for giving, and that we are here for giving too, and that to withold love or blessings is to be completely delusional.
Anne Lamott
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You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves in your heart--your stories, visions, memories, songs: your truth, your version of things, in your voice. That is really all you have to offer us, and it's why you were born.
Anne Lamott
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I spent my whole life helping my mother carry around her psychic trunks like a bitter bellhop. So a great load was lifted when she died, and my life was much easier.
Anne Lamott
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Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor the enemy of the people. It will keep you insane your whole life.
Anne Lamott
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Some people may have thought that this book was too personal, too confessional. But what these people think about me is none of my business.
Anne Lamott
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I was raised in a family where none of us ever raised a voice, so there was no room to express feelings of rage or even unabashed joy - a little bashed joy, here or there, or being mildly disgruntled.
Anne Lamott
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So Rita and I decided that the most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do was to show up for my life and not be ashamed.
Anne Lamott
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Any plot you impose on your characters will be onomatopoetic: PLOT. I say don't worry about plot. Worry about the characters. Let what they say or do reveal who they are, and be involved in their lives, and keep asking yourself, Now what happens? The development of relationship creates plot.
Anne Lamott
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I'm kind of a gossip hound, but watching the media whip the small fires into giant forest fires so that they can cover the result is infuriating.
Anne Lamott
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If you have a body, you are entitled to the full range of feelings. It comes with the package.
Anne Lamott
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Trying to reason with an addict was like trying to blow out a lightbulb.
Anne Lamott
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Grace means you're in a different universe from where you had been stuck, when you had absolutely no way to get there on your own.
Anne Lamott
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We write to expose the unexposed. If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through, you must. The writer's job is to turn the unspeakable into words - not just into any words, but if we can, into rhythm and blues.
Anne Lamott