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I can never tell what I'm doing when I'm in the middle of publication because I have no confidence. I have terrible self-esteem, along with boundless narcissism.

Anne Lamott

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Anne Lamott
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: April 10
Novelist
Writer
San Francisco County
California
Esteem
Confidence
Along
Terrible
Middle
Tell
Narcissism
Self
Publication
Never
Boundless

More quotes by Anne Lamott

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I get thirsty people glasses of water, even if that thirsty person is just me.
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Novels ought to have hope at least, American novels ought to have hope. French novels don't need to. We mostly win wars, they lose them. Of course, they did hide more Jews than many other countries, and this is a form of winning.
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My theology is based on what I tell my Sunday-school kids - that they are loved and chosen, AS IS, now, today. That the moment is holy, sacred, and all there is - and that we are only as sick as our secrets. So TELL IT.
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I was raised by my parents to believe that you had a moral obligation to try and help save the world.
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So how on earth can I bring a child into the world, knowing that such sorrow lies ahead, that it is such a large part of what it means to be human? I'm not sure. That's my answer: I'm not sure.
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Nothing heals us like letting people know our scariest parts: When people listen to you cry and lament, and look at you with love, it's like they are holding the baby of you.
Anne Lamott
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Perfection is shallow, unreal, and fatally uninteresting.
Anne Lamott
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I think joy and sweetness and affection are a spiritual path. We're here to know God, to love and serve God, and to be blown away by the beauty and miracle of nature. You just have to get rid of so much baggage to be light enough to dance, to sing, to play. You don't have time to carry grudges you don't have time to cling to the need to be right.
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Once an old woman at my church said the secret is that God loves us exactly the way we are and that he loves us too much to let us stay like this, and I'm just trying to trust that.
Anne Lamott
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I was reminded of the Four Immutable Laws of the Spirit: Whoever is present are the right people. Whenever it begins is the right time. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened. And when it's over, it's over.
Anne Lamott
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Life does not seem to present itself to me for my convenience, to box itself up nicely so I can write about it with wisdom and a point to make before putting it on a shelf somewhere.
Anne Lamott
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This is our goal as writers, I think to help others have this sense of--please forgive me--wonder, of seeing things anew, things that can catch us off guard, that break in on our small, bordered worlds.
Anne Lamott
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I just can't get over how much babies cry. I really had no idea what I was getting into. To tell you the truth, I thought it would be more like getting a cat.
Anne Lamott
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Your unconscious can't work when you are breathing down its neck.
Anne Lamott
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Don’t underestimate this gift of finding a place in the writing world: if you really work at describing creatively on paper the truth as you understand it, as you have experienced it, with the people or material who are in you, who are asking that you help them get written, you will come to a secret feeling of honor.
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.
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I think drugs are part of the magical possibilities of youth and I wouldn't be here if I had continued with it.
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Quiet, deep breath after any prayer is another form of Amen.
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There is something so tender about this to me, about being willing to have your makeup wash off, your eyes tear up, your nose start to run. Its tender partly because it harkens back to infancy, to your mother washing your face with love and lots or water, tending to you, making you clean all over again.
Anne Lamott
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I got one of the five golden tickets to be a writer, and I take that seriously. I don't love my own work at all, but I love my own self. I love that I've been given the chance to capture the stories that come through me.
Anne Lamott