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Tell the truth as you understand it. If you're a writer, you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act - truth is always subversive.

Anne Lamott

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Anne Lamott
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: April 10
Novelist
Writer
San Francisco County
California
Always
Subversive
Revolutionary
Obligation
Writer
Moral
Understand
Tell
Truth

More quotes by Anne Lamott

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I get to tell my truth. I get to seek meaning and realization. I get to live fully, wildly, imperfectly. That's why I'm alive. And all I actually have to offer as a writer is my version of life. Every single thing that has happened to me is mine.
Anne Lamott
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There are moments when I am writing when I think that if other people knew how I felt right now, they’d burn me at the stake for feeling so good, so full, so much intense pleasure.
Anne Lamott
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... everyone has come to understand that unconditional love is a reality, but with as shelf life of about eight to ten seconds. [p. 110]
Anne Lamott
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We want a sense that an important character, like a narrator, is reliable. We want to believe that a character is not playing ages or being coy or being manipulative, but is telling the truth to the best of his or her ability...We do not wish to be crudely manipulated...We want to be massaged by a masseur, not whapped by a carpet beater.
Anne Lamott
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You have to make mistakes to find out who you aren't. You take the action, and the insight follows: You don't think your way into becoming yourself.
Anne Lamott
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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
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I've known for years that resentments don't hurt the person we resent, but they do hurt us.
Anne Lamott
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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
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But it was the singing that pulled me in and split me wide open.
Anne Lamott
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Presents can make up for some of the disappointments that life doles out, such as it makes almost no sense and is coming to an end more quickly than ever.
Anne Lamott
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When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again.
Anne Lamott
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Good writing is about telling the truth.
Anne Lamott
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Teenagers who do not go to church are adored by God, but they don't get to meet some of the people who love God back.
Anne Lamott
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I'm very sad about Mitch McConnell probably getting to be Senate majority leader, if only for two years. To me, he is just everything that is wrong with the world, a bullying obstructionist blowhard liar (not to put too fine a point on it).
Anne Lamott
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On the spiritual path, all the dreck and misery is transformed, maybe not that same day, but still transformed into spiritual fuel or insight.
Anne Lamott
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Sometimes Heaven is just a new pair of glasses.
Anne Lamott
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Every woman's path is difficult, and many mothers were as equipped to raise children as wire monkey mothers. I say that without judgment: It is, sadly, true. An unhealthy mother's love is withering.
Anne Lamott
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Expectations are resentment waiting to happen.
Anne Lamott
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Getting into a new relationship is like pouring Miracle-Gro on your character defects.
Anne Lamott
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It's funny where we look for salvation, and where we actually find it.
Anne Lamott