Quote

Just don't pretend you know more about your characters than they do, because you don't. Stay open to them. It's teatime and all the dolls are at the table. Listen. It's that simple.

Anne Lamott

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Anne Lamott
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: April 10
Novelist
Writer
San Francisco County
California
Characters
Listen
Stay
Open
Simple
Dolls
Character
Pretend
Writing
Table
Tables

More quotes by 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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It feels like I'm babysitting in the Twilight Zone. I keep waiting for the parents to show up because we are out of chips and diet cokes.
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I like to read away as much of the afternoon as possible, until real life rears its ugly head.
Anne Lamott
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Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean they show us how to live and die.
Anne Lamott
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Good writing is about telling the truth.
Anne Lamott
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I thought the secret of life was obvious: be here now, love as if your whole life depended on it, find your life's work, and try to get hold of a giant panda.
Anne Lamott
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I suspect that he was a child who thought differently than his peers, who may have had serious conversations with grown-ups, who as a young person, like me, accepted being alone quite a lot. I think that this sort of person often becomes either a writer or a career criminal.
Anne Lamott
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My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe place to another. Like lily pads, round and green, these places summoned and then held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land, and in this way I moved across the swamp of doubt and fear.
Anne Lamott
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I was raised by my parents to believe that you had a moral obligation to try and help save the world.
Anne Lamott
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I am skittish about relationships, as most of the marriages I've seen up close have been ruinous for one or both parties.
Anne Lamott
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Maybe it's wishful thinking, this snaggly faith of mine, or maybe it's Miles Davis saying, Don't play what's there, play what's not there.
Anne Lamott
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One line of dialogue that rings true reveals character in a way that pages of description can't.
Anne Lamott
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[S]he believed that the Buddhists were right–that if you want, you will suffer if you love, you will grieve. (68)
Anne Lamott
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For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.
Anne Lamott
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I go to church every Sunday, which is like going to the gas station once a week and really, really filling up.
Anne Lamott
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I don't think you have time to waste not writing because you are afraid you won't be good at it.
Anne Lamott
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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
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Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation.
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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Rituals are a good signal to your unconscious that it is time to kick in.
Anne Lamott