Quote

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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Anne Lamott
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: April 10
Novelist
Writer
San Francisco County
California
First
Knowing
Jackson
Writing
Start
Jump
Water
Swim
Shirley
Bigs
Confused
Antagonistic
Making
Anywhere
Detailed
Write
Okay
Sloppy
Live
Reader
Overly
Firsts
Cold
Draft

More quotes by Anne Lamott

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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.
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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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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
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We all know we're going to die what's important is the kind of men and women we are in the face of this.
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Listen to your broccoli and it will tell you how to eat it.
Anne Lamott
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If you have a body, you are entitled to the full range of feelings. It comes with the package.
Anne Lamott
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It turned out this man worked for the Dalai Lama. And she said gently-that they believe when a lot of things start going wrong all at once, it is to protect something big and lovely that is trying to get itself born-and that this something needs for you to be distracted so that it can be born as perfectly as possible.
Anne Lamott
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When I was a kid, our family used to watch 'Bonanza.' I really liked having a Sunday night TV ritual.
Anne Lamott
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Most marriages are a mess, and the children get caught between two bitter, antagonistic parents. My parents stayed married for 27 unhappy years, till their kids were grown, and this was a catastrophe for us.
Anne Lamott
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If we can believe in the Gnostic gospel of Thomas, old Uncle Jesus said, If you bring forth what is inside you, what you bring forth will save you. If you don't bring forth what is inside you, what you bring forth can destroy you.
Anne Lamott
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Grief is just so scary.... If we finally begin to cry all those suppressed tears, they will surely wash us away like the Mississippi River. That's what our parents told us. We got sent to our rooms for having huge feelings. In my family, if you cried or got angry, you didn't get dinner.
Anne Lamott
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I don't have any romantic views of parenting. Every step of the way it's really hard. It's a dangerous world, physically and psychologically.
Anne Lamott
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You are going to have to give and give and give, or there's no reason for you to be writing. You have to give from the deepest part of yourself, and you are going to have to go on giving, and the giving is going to have to be its own reward. There is no cosmic importance to your getting something published, but there is in learning to be a giver.
Anne Lamott
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Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist's true friend.
Anne Lamott
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Butterflies and birds are like one perfect teaspoon of creation.
Anne Lamott
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Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over people and circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are.
Anne Lamott
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Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean they show us how to live and die.
Anne Lamott
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I just try to love and serve everyone, and bring everyone water, and lend an ear that's what Jesus said to do.
Anne Lamott
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This business of having been issued a body is deeply confusing... Bodies are so messy and disappointing.
Anne Lamott
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The solution is always spiritual, and it almost never has anything to do with the problem ... laughter is carbonated holiness.
Anne Lamott