Quote

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

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
Force
Part
Best
Writing
Thing
Caffeine
Actual
Turns

More quotes by Anne Lamott

Image
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
Image
It's funny where we look for salvation, and where we actually find it.
Anne Lamott
Image
A good marriage is where both people feel like they're getting the better end of the deal.
Anne Lamott
Image
You are desperate to communicate, to edify or entertain, to preserve moments of grace or joy or transcendence, to make real or imagined events come alive. But you cannot will this to happen. It is a matter of persistence and faith and hard work. So you might as well just go ahead and get started.
Anne Lamott
Image
When we search for something larger than our own selves to hook into, we can come through whatever life throws at us.
Anne Lamott
Image
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
Image
If you have a body, you are entitled to the full range of feelings. It comes with the package.
Anne Lamott
Image
Dancing almost always turns out to be a good idea.
Anne Lamott
Image
The very first thing I tell my new students on the first day of a workshop is that good writing is about telling the truth. We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason they write so very little. But we do. We have so much we want to say and figure out.
Anne Lamott
Image
Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there.
Anne Lamott
Image
To be great, art has to point somewhere.
Anne Lamott
Image
The world is always going to be dangerous, and people get badly banged up, but how can there be more meaning than helping one another stand up in a wind and stay warm?
Anne Lamott
Image
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
Image
I honestly think that in order to be a writer you have to learn to be reverent. If not, why are you writing? Why are you here?
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
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
Image
Needless to say, there was no one around remotely fitting the description of a normal person: I was at a writing conference.
Anne Lamott
Image
If you fixate on the big picture, the whole shebang, the overview, you miss the stitching.
Anne Lamott
Image
If you are writing the clearest, truest words you can find and doing the best you can to understand and communicate, this will shine on paper like its own little lighthouse. Lighthouses dont go running all over an island looking for boats to save they just stand there shining.
Anne Lamott
Image
Having a baby is like suddenly getting the world's worst roommate.
Anne Lamott