Quotes by Anne Lamott

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 youve had in months.

These two things are almost all I want, but unfortunately, neither one is my strong suit. I am very strong on blame, and wish this were one of Gods values, but trust, surrender? Letting go, forgiveness? Maybe just after a period of prayer, but then when the mood passes and real life rears its ugly head again? Not so much. I hate this, the fact that life is usually Chutes and Ladders, with no guaranteed gains.I cannot will myself into having these qualities, so I have to pray for them more often, if I want to be happy. I have to create the habit, just as I had to do with daily writing, and flossing.

...the three things I cannot change are the past, the truth, and you.

A nun I know once told me she kept begging God to take her character defects away from her. After years of this prayer, God finally got back to her: Im not going to take anything away from you, you have to give it to Me.

If we stay where we are, where were stuck, where were comfortable and safe, we die there... When nothing new can get in, thats death.

Human lives are hard, even those of health and privilege, and dont make much sense. This is the message of the Book of Job: Any snappy explanation of suffering you come up with will be horseshit.

Here are the two best prayers I know: Help me, help me, help me and Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Oh my God, what if you wake up some day, and you’re 65, or 75, and you never got your memoir or novel written; or you didn’t go swimming in warm pools and oceans all those years because your thighs were jiggly and you had a nice big comfortable tummy; or you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life, of imagination and radical silliness and staring off into space like when you were a kid? It’s going to break your heart. Don’t let this happen.

What if you wake up some day, and you’re 65… and you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life?

First find a path, and a little light to see by. Then push up your sleeves and start helping.

The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns. Faith also means reaching deeply within, for the sense one was born with, the sense, for example, to go for a walk.

I danced alone for a couple of years, and came to believe that I might not ever have a passionate romantic relationship—might end up alone! I’d always been terrified of this. But I’d rather not ever be in a couple, or ever get laid again, than be in a toxic relationship. I spent a few years celibate. It was lovely, and it was sometimes lonely. I had surrendered; I’d run out of bullets. I learned to be the person I wished I’d meet, at which point I found a kind, artistic, handsome man. When we get out of bed, we hold our lower backs, like Walter Brennan, and we laugh, and bring each other the Advil.

Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.

Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back. Youre done. It doesnt necessarily mean that you want to have lunch with the person. If you keep hitting back, you stay trapped in the nightmare...

Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back.

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.

You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.

Some aching beauty comes with huge loss, although maybe not right away, when it would be helpful. Life is a very powerful force, despite the constant discouragement. So if you are a person with connections to life, a few tendrils eventually break through the sidewalk of loss, and you notice them, maybe space out studying them for a few moments, or maybe they tickle you into movement and response, if only because you have to scratch your nose.

If you havent already, you will lose someone you cant live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and you never completely get over the loss of a deeply beloved person. But this is also good news. The person lives forever, in your broken heart that doesnt seal back up. And you come through, and you learn to dance with the banged-up heart.

The depth of the feeling continued to surprise and threaten me, but each time it hit again and I bore it...I would discover that it hadnt washed me away.