Quotes by Anne Lamott

Only God can put Scripture inside. But reading sacred text can put it on your hearts, and then when your hearts break, the holy words will fall inside.

And I guess when you take away the resentment and disappointment, its that simple. It is what we do in families: we help, because we were helped.

I tell you, families are definitely the training ground for forgiveness.

Mattie sat at the table, obsessing, orbiting around herself. She was sick of her worried, hostile mind. It would have killed her long before, she felt, if it hadnt needed the transportation.

Ive given guys blow jobs just because Ive run out of things to talk about.Oh, Rae. Who hasnt

Gratitude begins in our hearts and then dovetails into behavior. It almost always makes you willing to be of service, which is where the joy resides. It means that you are willing to stop being such a jerk. When you are aware of all that has been given to you, in your lifetime and the past few days, it is hard not to be humbled, and pleased to give back.

Kids are hard -they drive you crazy and break your heart- whereas grandchildren make you feel great about life, and yourself, and your ability to love someone unconditionally, finally, after all these years.

There are really places in your heart that you dont know exist until you love a child.

I hate how long it takes to feel radical, militantly maternal self-acceptance.

How alive am I willing to be?

Ill live as well, as deeply, as madly as I can--until I die.

I watched him carefully. He was making art because he has to, and because hes brave enough to try and make contact, right there on the edge of madness, where he dreams.

His art springs out of bubbling underground necessity, as if hes somehow dipping himself into the river that gave him life; hes making dream material visible.

You get your confidence and intuition back by trusting yourself, by being militantly on your own side. You need to trust yourself, especially on a first draft, where amid the anxiety and self-doubt, there should be a real sense of your imagination and your memories walking and woolgathering, tramping the hills, romping all over the place. Trust them. Dont look at your feet to see if you are doing it right. Just dance.

[S]he believed that the Buddhists were right–that if you want, you will suffer; if you love, you will grieve. (68)

You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander.

And I felt like my heart had been so thoroughly and irreparably broken that there could be no real joy again, that at best there might eventually be a little contentment. Everyone wanted me to get help and rejoin life, pick up the pieces and move on, and I tried to, I wanted to, but I just had to lie in the mud with my arms wrapped around myself, eyes closed, grieving, until I didn’t have to anymore.

Prayer usually means praise, or surrender, acknowledging that you have run out of bullets.

The Amen is only as good as the attitude. If you are trying to finish up quickly so you can check your cell phone messages, you are missing the chance to spend quiet moments with the giver of life and the eternal, which means you may reap continued feelings of life racing along without you. So as Samuel Beckett admonished us to fail again, and fail better, we try to pray again, and pray better, for slightly longer and with slightly more honesty, breathing more, deeper, and with more attention.

My belief is that when youre telling the truth, youre close to God. If you say to God, I am exhausted and depressed beyond words, and I dont like You at all right now, and I recoil from most people who believe in You, that might be the most honest thing youve ever said. If you told me you had said to God, It is all hopeless, and I dont have a clue if You exist, but I could use a hand, it would almost bring tears to my eyes, tears of pride in you, for the courage it takes to get real-really real. It would make me want to sit next to you at the dinner table.So prayer is our sometimes real selves trying to communicate with the Real, with Truth, with the Light. It is us reaching out to be heard, hoping to be found by a light and warmth in the world, instead of darkness and cold. Even mushrooms respond to light - I suppose they blink their mushroomy eyes, like the rest of us.Light reveals us to ourselves, which is not always so great if you find yourself in a big disgusting mess, possibly of your own creation. But like sunflowers we turn toward light. Light warms, and in most cases it draws us to itself. And in this light, we can see beyond our modest receptors, to what is way beyond us, and deep inside.