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My best teachers were mess, failure, death, mistakes, and the people I hated, including myself.

Anne Lamott

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Anne Lamott
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: April 10
Novelist
Writer
San Francisco County
California
Teacher
Mistake
Death
Teachers
Best
Hated
People
Mess
Mistakes
Including
Failure

More quotes by Anne Lamott

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There is nothing more touching to me then a family picture where everyone is trying to look his or her best, but you can see what a mess they all really are.
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I've known for years that resentments don't hurt the person we resent, but they do hurt us.
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Good writing is about telling the truth.
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My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe place to another. Like lily pads, round and green, these places summoned and then held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land, and in this way I moved across the swamp of doubt and fear.
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You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
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Laughter is the key that grace has arrived.
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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.
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Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.
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The clipping said forgiveness meant that God is for giving, and that we are here for giving too, and that to withold love or blessings is to be completely delusional.
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Jealousy has always been my cross, the weakness and woundedness in me that has most often caused me to feel ugly and unlovable, like the Bad Seed.
Anne Lamott
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Or you might shout at the top of your lungs or whisper into your sleeve, I hate you, God. That is a prayer too, because it is real, it is truth, and maybe it is the first sincere thought you've had in months.
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Writing can be a pretty desperate endeavor, because it is about some of our deepest needs: our need to be visible, to be heard, our need to make sense of our lives, to wake up and grow and belong. It is no wonder if we sometimes tend to take ourselves perhaps a bit too seriously.
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Learning to love back is the hardest part of being alive.
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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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No matter what circumstances, it's hard to be a parent and maintain a sense of self and identity in the world.
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The real payoff is the writing itself, that a day when you have gotten your work done is a good day, that total dedication is the point.
Anne Lamott
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When God is going to do something wonderful, He or She always starts with a hardship when God is going to do something amazing, He or She starts with an impossibility.
Anne Lamott
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A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way.
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...[T]here should be a real sense of your imagination and your memories walking and woolgathering, tramping the hills, romping all over the place. Trust them. Don't look at your feet to see if you are doing it right. Just dance.
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There is ecstasy in paying attention.
Anne Lamott