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Truth Quotes by Anne Lamott

41 Truth quotes by Anne Lamott

All Truth quotes Anne Lamott’s page

Anne Lamott reminds us that good writing starts with plain truth. She says writers should aim for the emotional core, even if it feels vulnerable, and that real progress often arrives in tiny, sneaky steps. Her quotes also note the odd mix of truth‑seeking and creative invention.

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“The truth is that your spirits don't rise until you get way down.”

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The truth is that progress is usually small and sneaky.

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

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Good writing is about telling the truth.

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A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way.

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I happen to be a Christian, but I know that there is one God. People worshipping goodness and love and kindness and…

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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…

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Your experiences will be yours alone. But truth and best friendship will rarely if ever disappoint you.

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...after a few days at the desk, telling the truth in an interesting way turns out to be as easy and pleasurable…

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I just can't get over how much babies cry. I really had no idea what I was getting into. To tell you…

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Lies cannot nourish or protect you. Only freedom from fear, freedom from lies, can make us beautiful, and keep us safe.

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You don't always have to chop with the sword of truth. You can point with it too.

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The truth of my experience is that we are all a lot more alike than we are different.

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I don't see myself as a deep philosopher. The things I write about tend to be what we all have to face,…

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“A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way. It's a lie if you make something up.…

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When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about…

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You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves in your heart--your…

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“My mind kept thinking its harsh thinky thoughts, but I would distract myself from them gently and say, 'Those are not the…

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The first holy truth in God 101 is that men and women of true faith have always had to accept the mystery…

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I get to tell my truth. I get to seek meaning and realization. I get to live fully, wildly, imperfectly. That's why…

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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…

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In a library, you can find small miracles and truth, and you might find something that will make you laugh so hard…

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But you can’t get to any of these truths by sitting in a field smiling beatifically, avoiding your anger and damage and…

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“But what if the great secret insider-trading truth is that you don't ever get over the biggest losses in your life? Is…

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We want a sense that an important character, like a narrator, is reliable. We want to believe that a character is not…

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“I try to write the books I would love to come upon, that are honest, concerned with real lives, human hearts, spiritual…

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“When I was a child, I thought grown-ups and teachers knew the truth, because they told me they did. It took years…

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Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious. When you're conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring…

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The very first thing I tell my new students on the first day of a workshop is that good writing is about…

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“My belief is that when you're telling the truth, you're close to God. If you say to God, "I am exhausted and…

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I have been somebody who has not written a great deal about the truth of my family's life.

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When you're conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability…

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The women's movement burst forth when I was fifteen. That was when I began to believe that life might semi-work out after…

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Don’t underestimate this gift of finding a place in the writing world: if you really work at describing creatively on paper the…

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“... writing is about telling the truth. We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice…

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If I were going to begin practicing the presence of God for the first time today, it would help to begin by…

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“We said that we believed that the truth would set us free, and the truth was that the Sunday-school staff was burned…

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This is the most profound spiritual truth I know: that even when we're most sure that love can't conquer all, it seems…

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I realized I was going to get through this disappointing service, and anyway, you have to be somewhere: better here, where I…

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“Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Don’t worry about appearing sentimental. Worry about being unavailable; worry about…

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More by Anne Lamott

What an incredible drug fear is.

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…

It's funny where we look for salvation, and where we actually find it.

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…

Publication is not all that it is cracked up to be. But writing is.

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…

And yet, I do believe there is ultimately meaning in the chaos, and also in the doldrums. What I resist is not the truth…

Raising a child, whether or not it is yours, is like Nautilus of the heart and soul.

“I heard a preacher say recently that hope is a revolutionary patience; let me add that so is being a writer. Hope begins in…

“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…

All criticism hurts me. I'm so in the wrong business.

We are going to die, as is everyone we adore - I hate this! But the question is, how do we live as women…

“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…

“You begin to string words together like beads to tell a story. You are desperate to communicate, to edify or entertain, to preserve moments…

“You lose the known package of your nice organized self almost instantly here. Overeating is one way back, the way it is at funerals…