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One of the gifts of being a writer is that it gives you an excuse to do things, to go places and explore. Another is that writing motivates you to look closely at life, at life as it lurches by and tramps around.

Anne Lamott

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Anne Lamott
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: April 10
Novelist
Writer
San Francisco County
California
Around
Closely
Look
Explore
Looks
Gifts
Giving
Excuse
Writing
Places
Things
Writer
Life
Gives
Tramps
Another
Motivates

More quotes by Anne Lamott

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Rule 1: When all else fails, follow instructions. And Rule 2: Don't be an asshole.
Anne Lamott
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So how on earth can I bring a child into the world, knowing that such sorrow lies ahead, that it is such a large part of what it means to be human? I'm not sure. That's my answer: I'm not sure.
Anne Lamott
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Her purse was a weight, ballast it tethered her to the earth as her mind floated away.
Anne Lamott
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Do you mind even a little that you are still addicted to people-pleasing, and are still putting everyone else’s needs and laundry and career ahead of your creative, spiritual life? Giving all your life force away, to “help” and impress. Well, your help is not helpful, and falls short.
Anne Lamott
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Life does not seem to present itself to me for my convenience, to box itself up nicely so I can write about it with wisdom and a point to make before putting it on a shelf somewhere.
Anne Lamott
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I didn't write about my mother much in the third year after she died. I was still trying to get my argument straight: When her friends or our relatives wondered why I was still so hard on her, I could really lay out the case for what it had been like to be raised by someone who had loathed herself, her husband, even her own name.
Anne Lamott
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I wish there were shortcuts to wisdom and self-knowledge: cuter abysses or three-day spa wilderness experiences. Sadly, it doesn't work that way. I so resent this.
Anne Lamott
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To love yourself as you are is a miracle, and to seek yourself is to have found yourself for now. And now is all we have, and love is who we are.
Anne Lamott
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Shirley Jackson said that a confused reader is an antagonistic reader, and I live by that. It's okay to start anywhere, and to let yourself write a big sloppy overly-detailed first draft. You just jump in, knowing that the water will be cold at first, but no one is making you swim.
Anne Lamott
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Where do we even start on the daily walk of restoration and awakening? We start where we are.
Anne Lamott
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So a moral position is not a message. A moral position is a passionate caring inside you.
Anne Lamott
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Without using the word, everyone started forgiving each other again. Just like that, from the no of all nothingness: you have a big tense mess and out of it comes some joy. It must be magic.
Anne Lamott
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If we stay where we are, where we're stuck, where we're comfortable and safe, we die there... When nothing new can get in, that's death.
Anne Lamott
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There is nothing you can buy, achieve, own, or rent that can fill up that hunger inside for a sense of fulfillment and wonder.
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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Why couldn't Jesus command us to obsess over everything, to try to control and manipulate people, to try not to breathe at all, or to pay attention, stomp away to brood when people annoy us, and then eat a big bag of Hershey's Kisses in bed?
Anne Lamott
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Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. It's like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can't stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship
Anne Lamott
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One thing I know for sure about raising children is that every single day a kid needs discipline.... But also every single day a kid needs a break.
Anne Lamott
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When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again.
Anne Lamott
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At our most primitive we are storytellers and dancers.
Anne Lamott