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That thing you had to force yourself to do-the actual act of writing-turns out to be the best part.

Anne Lamott

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Anne Lamott
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: April 10
Novelist
Writer
San Francisco County
California
Force
Part
Best
Writing
Thing
Caffeine
Actual
Turns

More quotes by Anne Lamott

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In fact, not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.
Anne Lamott
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If you're lucky you find your way into a spiritual community and you start to find the great teachers of all the ages who said the same thing. There's only love, you're made of love.
Anne Lamott
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We can't understand when we're pregnant, or when our siblings are expecting, how profound it is to have a shared history with a younger generation: blood, genes, humor. It means we were actually here, on Earth, for a time - like the Egyptians with their pyramids, only with children.
Anne Lamott
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Don’t underestimate this gift of finding a place in the writing world: if you really work at describing creatively on paper the truth as you understand it, as you have experienced it, with the people or material who are in you, who are asking that you help them get written, you will come to a secret feeling of honor.
Anne Lamott
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I am a terrible and lazy Christian. I do not believe that the Bible is the literal word of God. I just skip about a third of it. I love the parts I love so much, but I find a lot of it just appalling. When a right-wing person quotes a passage in order to attack and stigmatize another person--or group of people--I just roll my eyes.
Anne Lamott
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Mothers are supposed to listen and, afterward, to respond with some wisdom and perspective, but these things were not my mother's strong suit.
Anne Lamott
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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
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A good marriage is where both people feel like they're getting the better end of the deal.
Anne Lamott
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... one of the immutable laws of being human is that the people who show up are the right people. [p. 65]
Anne Lamott
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What people somehow forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here.
Anne Lamott
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If the present is really all we have, then the present lasts forever.
Anne Lamott
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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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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
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Some people wanted to get rich or famous, but my friends and I wanted to get real. We wanted to get deep. (Also, I suppose, we wanted to get laid.)
Anne Lamott
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Grace is having a commitment to- or at least an acceptance of- being ineffective and foolish. That our bottled charm is the main roadblock to drinking that clear cool glass of love.
Anne Lamott
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Everything takes me forever. It's all lurch, flail. I hope that is good news to you writers.
Anne Lamott
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Publication is not all that it is cracked up to be. But writing is.
Anne Lamott
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Toni Morrison said, The function of freedom is to free someone else, and if you are no longer wracked or in bondage to a person or a way of life, tell your story. Risk freeing someone else. Not everyone will be glad that you did. Members of your family and other critics may wish you had kept your secrets. Oh, well, what are you going to do?
Anne Lamott
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The last song was so deep and raw and pure that I could not escape. It was as if the people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices or something was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kid, and I opened up to that feeling-and it washed over me.
Anne Lamott
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I naturally prefer the company of people who hold grudges, as long as they are not held against me.
Anne Lamott