Quote

The difference between a writer who toughs it out and one who doesn't is that you push through the parts where you know that you've just written seven pages when all you're looking for is one paragraph.

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
Writer
Differences
Written
Paragraph
Looking
Push
Doesn
Parts
Pages
Seven
Difference

More quotes by Anne Lamott

Image
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
Image
Your experiences will be yours alone. But truth and best friendship will rarely if ever disappoint you.
Anne Lamott
Image
To be great, art has to point somewhere.
Anne Lamott
Image
I went to church with my grandparents sometimes and I loved it.
Anne Lamott
Image
I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish.
Anne Lamott
Image
Grief, as I read somewhere once, is a lazy Susan. One day it is heavy and underwater, and the next day it spins and stops at loud and rageful, and the next day at wounded keening, and the next day numbness, silence.
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
The first holy truth in God 101 is that men and women of true faith have always had to accept the mystery of God's identity and love and ways. I hate that, but it's the truth.
Anne Lamott
Image
Gratitude begins in our hearts and then dovetails into behavior. It almost always makes you willing to be of service, which is where the joy resides.
Anne Lamott
Image
My father was a writer, so I grew up writing and reading and I was really encouraged by him.
Anne Lamott
Image
Dialogue that is written in dialect is very tiring to read. If you can do it brilliantly, fine. If other writers read your work and rave about your use of dialect, go for it. But be positive that you do it well, because otherwise it is a lot of work to read short stories or novels that are written in dialect. It makes our necks feel funny.
Anne Lamott
Image
Sam said to me the other day, I love you like 20 tyrannosauruses on 20 mountaintops, and this is the exact same way in which I love him.
Anne Lamott
Image
I'm a terrible Christian and meditating is very hard for me, and I do it. I do it badly, like I do a lot of things. I believe in doing things badly.
Anne Lamott
Image
And as it turns out, if one person is praying for you, buckle up. Things can happen.
Anne Lamott
Image
My experience as a writer is that you really do write seven and eight pages to find the paragraph you were after all along.
Anne Lamott
Image
A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way. It's a lie if you make something up. But you make it up in the name of truth, and then you give your heart to expressing it clearly.
Anne Lamott
Image
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
Image
A hundred years from now? All new people.
Anne Lamott
Image
I don't write about the intimate details of my cousins and aunts and uncles, and my mother and my father because it's not right to, for me.
Anne Lamott
Image
Try to write in a directly emotional way, instead of being too subtle or oblique. Don't be afraid of your material or your past. Be afraid of wasting any more time obsessing about how you look and how people see you. Be afraid of not getting your writing done.
Anne Lamott