Quotes by Anne Lamott

If your wife locks you out of the house, you dont have a problem with your door.

Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.

Rituals are a good signal to your unconscious that it is time to kick in.

I want people who write to crash or dive below the surface, where life is so cold and confusing and hard to see.Your anger and damage and grief are the way to the truth.

But how? my students ask. How do you actually do it? You sit down, I say. You try to sit down at approximately the same time every day. This is how you train your unconscious to kick in for you creatively. So you sit down at, say, nine every morning, or ten every night. You put a piece of paper in the typewriter, or you turn on the computer and bring up the right file, and then you stare at it for an hour or so. You begin rocking, just a little at first, and then like a huge autistic child. You look at the ceiling, and over at the clock, yawn, and stare at the paper again. Then, with your fingers poised on the keyboard, you squint at an image that is forming in your mind -- a scene, a locale, a character, whatever -- and you try to quiet your mind so you can hear what that landscape or character has to say above the other voices in your mind.

I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do---the actual act of writing---turns out to be the best part. Its like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.

I dont know where to start, one [writing student] will wail. Start with your childhood, I tell them. Plug your nose and jump in, and write down all your memories as truthfully as you can. Flannery O Connor said that anyone who has survived childhood has enough material to write for the rest of his or her life. Maybe your childhood was grim and horrible, but grim and horrible is Okay if it is well done. Dont worry about doing it well yet, though. Just get it down.

Perfectionism means that you try not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived.

Writing takes a combination of sophistication and innocence; it takes conscience, our belief that something is beautiful because it is right.

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.

I realized I was going to get through this disappointing service, and anyway, you have to be somewhere: better here, where I have heard truth spoken so often, than, say, at the DMV, or home alone, orbiting my own mind. And its good to be out where others can see you, so you cant be your ghastly spoiled self. It forces you to act slightly more elegantly, and this improves your thoughts, and thereby the world.

I stared at the little white agates in my hand, delicate as moon drops. The mystery of Gods love as I understand it is that God loves the man who was being mean to his dog just as much as he loves babies; God loves Susan Smith, who drowned her two sons, as much as he loves Desmond Tutu. And he loved her just as much when she was releasing the handbrake of her car that sent her boys into the river as he did when she first nursed them. So of course, he loves old ordinary me, even or especially at my most scared and petty and mean and obsessive. Loves me; chooses me.Remembering this helped, but here is what in fact saved me: Sam came over to see what I held in my palm, glared contemptuously at my small white pebbles, and then without missing a beat slapped the bottom of my hand so that the agates scattered. He ran off down the beach, laughing with glee. It surprised me so, this small meanness, that it made me catch my breath. Boy, I thought, is he going to be hard to place.When I was young I would have felt, What’s the point of trying to be good if the people who aren’t even trying get to be equally loved? Now I just picked up my pace and tried to catch up with that rotten Sam, because I don’t know much of anything for sure. Only that I am loved – as is

Writing like this is a little like milking a cow: the milk is so rich and delicious, and the cow is so glad you did it.

When people shine a little light on their monster, we find out how similar most of our monsters are.

For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. 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.

No matter how people mess with you or let you down, or how you let yourself down, a good book means that when you get in bed that night, you have a good hour. I feel like you pay all day for that hour. Thats what books mean to me. I can open this two-dimensional, flat white page with squiggly little black marks on them, and someone has created this world that youre going to enter into ...

Help is a prayer that is always answered. It doesnt matter how you pray--with your head bowed in silence, or crying out in grief, or dancing. Churches are good for prayer, but so are garages and cars and mountains and showers and dance floors. Years ago I wrote an essay that began, Some people think that God is in the details, but I have come to believe that God is in the bathroom.

...It really IS easier to experience spiritual connection when your life is in the process of coming apart.

Nothing can be delicious when you are holding your breath.

And weve read scary books and watched scary movies and TV shows together. Hes met monsters, ghouls, and demons on the page and on the screen. Theres nothing like watching Anaconda with your best friend or lying in bed next to your mother reading Roald Dahl, because that way you get to explore dark stuff safely. You get to laugh with it, to step out on the vampires dance floor and take him for a spin, and then step back into your life. When you make friends with fear, it cant rule you.