That thing you had to force yourself to do-the actual act of writing-turns out to be the best part. — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
For me, being a writer is not an altered state. It's very ponderous, and very - it's like being a shoemaker. — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
“But you can't teach writing, people tell me. And I say, 'Who the hell are you, God's dean of admissions?” — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
“when people don’t have free access to books, then communities are like radios without batteries.” — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
“Being a writer guarantees that you will spend too much time alone -- and that as a result, your mind will begin… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
The stuff I write about is pretty universal, the things my closest friends and I talk about - our anxiety about being… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
E-books are great for instant gratification - you see a review somewhere of a book that interests you, and you can start… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
I got one of the five golden tickets to be a writer, and I take that seriously. I don't love my own… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
“You must risk placing real emotion at the center of your work. Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
“This is our goal as writers, I think: to help others have this sense of wonder, of seeing things anew, things that… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
“Writing can give you what having a baby can give you: it can get you to start paying attention, can help you… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
My dad taught me that to be a writer is a decision and a habit. It's not anything lofty, and it doesn't… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves in your heart--your… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
If you are writing the clearest, truest words you can find and doing the best you can to understand and communicate, this… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
“Writing: shitty first drafts. Butt in chair. Just do it. You own everything that happened to you. You are going to feel… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
“I tell my students that the odds of their getting published and of it bringing them financial security, peace of mind, and… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
Being a writer is part of a noble tradition, as is being a musician – the last egalitarian and open associations. No… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
Slowly, after dozens of rejection slips and failures and false starts and postponed dreams - what Langston Hughes called dreams deferred -… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
If you are a writer, or want to be a writer, this is how you spend your days--listening, observing, storing things away,… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
In a library, you can find small miracles and truth, and you might find something that will make you laugh so hard… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
“Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul.… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
“In this dark and wounded society, writing can give you the pleasures of the woodpecker, of hollowing out a hole in a… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
“I honestly think in order to be a writer, you have to learn to be reverent. If not, why are you writing?… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
“You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
I honestly think that in order to be a writer you have to learn to be reverent. If not, why are you… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way. — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
I write because writing is the gift God has given me to help people in the world. — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
“I want people who write to crash or dive below the surface, where life is so cold and confusing and hard to… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
Because this business of becoming conscious, of being a writer, is ultimately about asking yourself, How alive am I willing to be? — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
We write to expose the unexposed. If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through,… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
“One writer I know tells me that he sits down every morning and says to himself nicely, "It's not like you don't… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
Writing takes a combination of sophistication and innocence; it takes conscience, our belief that something is beautiful because it is right. — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
We all often feel like we are pulling teeth, even those writers whose prose ends up being the most natural and fluid.… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
I guess he'll have to figure out someday that he is supposed to have this dark side, that it is part of what it… — Anne Lamott Copy Share
Why couldn't Jesus command us to obsess over everything, to try to control and manipulate people, to try not to breathe at all, or… — Anne Lamott Copy Share
Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend… — Anne Lamott Copy Share
And yet, I do believe there is ultimately meaning in the chaos, and also in the doldrums. What I resist is not the truth… — Anne Lamott Copy Share
Raising a child, whether or not it is yours, is like Nautilus of the heart and soul. — Anne Lamott Copy Share
“I heard a preacher say recently that hope is a revolutionary patience; let me add that so is being a writer. Hope begins in… — Anne Lamott Copy Share
“I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to… — Anne Lamott Copy Share
We are going to die, as is everyone we adore - I hate this! But the question is, how do we live as women… — Anne Lamott Copy Share
“You will go through your life thinking there was a day in second grade that you must have missed, when the grown-ups came in… — Anne Lamott Copy Share
“You begin to string words together like beads to tell a story. You are desperate to communicate, to edify or entertain, to preserve moments… — Anne Lamott Copy Share
“You lose the known package of your nice organized self almost instantly here. Overeating is one way back, the way it is at funerals… — Anne Lamott Copy Share
