Quote

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life Besides, perfectionism will ruin your writing, blocking inventiveness and playfulness and life force (these are words we are allowed to use in California).

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
People
Voice
Ruin
Words
Besides
Cramped
Force
Ruins
Inventiveness
Use
California
Blocking
Keep
Block
Oppressor
Whole
Insane
Playfulness
Writing
Allowed
Perfectionism
Life
Enemy
Oppressors

More quotes by 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
When everything starts going wrong all at once, it is to protect something big and lovely that is trying to get itself born.
Anne Lamott
Image
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
Image
Sometimes it feels like God has reached down and touched me, blessed me a thousand times over, and sometimes it all feels like a mean joke, like God's advisers are Muammar Qaddafi and Phyllis Schlafly.
Anne Lamott
Image
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
Image
There is ecstasy in paying attention. You can get into a kind of Wordsworthian openness to the world, where you see in everything the essence of holiness.
Anne Lamott
Image
The best thing about being an artist, instead of a madman or someone who writes letters to the editor, is that you get to engage in satisfying work. Even if you never publish a word, you have something important to pour yourself into.
Anne Lamott
Image
I think we're all pretty crazy on this bus. I'm not sure I know anyone who's got all the dots on his or her dice.
Anne Lamott
Image
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
Image
You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town
Anne Lamott
Image
Perfection is shallow, unreal, and fatally uninteresting.
Anne Lamott
Image
The stuff I write about is pretty universal, the things my closest friends and I talk about - our anxiety about being here on this scary planet, during these scary times, as vulnerable as kittens, having lost so many people I couldn't live without.
Anne Lamott
Image
Talking to the parents of older kids was helpful for me, since parents of kids the same age as yours won't admit how horrible their children are.
Anne Lamott
Image
There is nothing as sweet as a comeback, when you are down and out, about to lose, and out of time.
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
Bananas are great, as I believe them to be the only known cure for existential dread. Also, Mother Teresa said that in India, a woman dying in the street will share her banana with anyone who needs it, whereas in America, people amass and hoard as many bananas as they can to sell for an exorbitant profit. So half of them go bad, anyway.
Anne Lamott
Image
I have a very dark sense of humor. I swear. I have a very playful relationship with Jesus.
Anne Lamott
Image
I did not raise my son, Sam, to celebrate Mother's Day. I didn't want him to feel some obligation to buy me pricey lunches or flowers, some annual display of gratitude that you have to grit your teeth and endure.
Anne Lamott
Image
I spend most of my time alone, because I so value and thrive in the quiet. Heaven.
Anne Lamott
Image
Your inside person doesn’t age. Your inside person is soul, is heart, in the eternal now, the ageless, the old, the young, all the ages you’ve ever been.
Anne Lamott