Quote

I thought the secret of life was obvious: be here now, love as if your whole life depended on it, find your life's work, and try to get hold of a giant panda.

Anne Lamott

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Anne Lamott
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: April 10
Novelist
Writer
San Francisco County
California
Whole
Depended
Trying
Giant
Work
Giants
Love
Obvious
Life
Hold
Secret
Thought
Panda
Find
Pandas

More quotes by 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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I find most famous Christians to be full of themselves and of prejudice and self-loathing, masquerading as devout religious belief. I find all fundamentalism to be terrifying and very destructive.
Anne Lamott
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[Her] work taught me that you could be all the traditional feminine things -- a mother, a lover, a listener, a nurturer -- and you could also be critically astute and radical and have a minority opinion that was profoundly moral.
Anne Lamott
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And that almost everyone was struggling to wake up, to be loved, and not feel so afraid all the time. That's what the cars, degrees, booze, and drugs were about.
Anne Lamott
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I've heard people say that God is the gift of desperation, and there's a lot to be said for having really reached a bottom where you've run out of any more good ideas or plans for everybody else's behavior or how to save and fix and rescue or just get out of a huge mess, possibly of your own creation.
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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Laughter is a bubbly, effervescent form of holiness
Anne Lamott
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There is nothing as sweet as a comeback, when you are down and out, about to lose, and out of time.
Anne Lamott
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I don't think you have time to waste not writing because you are afraid you won't be good at it.
Anne Lamott
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I devoured books like a person taking vitamins, afraid that otherwise I would remain this gelatinous narcissist, with no possibility of ever becoming thoughtful, of ever being taken seriously.
Anne Lamott
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I am the woman I grew to be partly in spite of my mother, and partly because of the extraordinary love of her best friends, and my own best friends' mothers, and from surrogates, many of whom were not women at all but gay men. I have loved them my entire life, even after their passing.
Anne Lamott
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My main problem is that over and over again, I try to get all my characters to say stuff that I think is so witty or erudite you know, so that everybody will go.
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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For too long, and despite what people told me, I had fallen for what the culture said about beauty, youth, features, heights, weights, hair textures, upper arms.
Anne Lamott
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Clutter and mess show us that life is being lived.
Anne Lamott
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I didn't need to understand the hypostatic unity of the Trinity I just needed to turn my life over to whoever came up with redwood trees.
Anne Lamott
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You must not inflict life on someone who will be resented.
Anne Lamott
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What if we gave fifty percent of our discretionary budget to the world’s poor and then counted on the moral power of that action to protect us?
Anne Lamott
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I’ve heard it said that every day you need half an hour of quiet time for yourself, or your Self, unless you’re incredibly busy and stressed, in which case you need an hour. I promise you, it is there. Fight tooth and nail to find time, to make it. It is our true wealth, this moment, this hour, this day.
Anne Lamott
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I do know the sorrow of being ordinary, and that much of our life is spent doing the crazy mental arithmetic of how, at any given moment, we might improve, or at least disguise or present our defects and screw-ups in either more charming or more intimidating ways.
Anne Lamott