One line of dialogue that rings true reveals character in a way that pages of description can't. — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way. — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
My gratitude for good writing is unbounded; I’m grateful for it the way I’m grateful for the ocean. — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
No one can appropriate God, goodness, the Bible or Jesus. It just seems that way. — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
The whistle is always waiting to be blown, and in some ways, it gets me to do better work. — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
She felt as if the mosaic she had been assembling out of life's little shards got dumped to the ground, and there… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
You have to make mistakes to find out who you aren't. You take the action, and the insight follows: You don't think… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
I don't have any romantic views of parenting. Every step of the way it's really hard. It's a dangerous world, physically and… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
If you're lucky you find your way into a spiritual community and you start to find the great teachers of all the… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
Summer nearly does me in every year. It's too hot and the light is unforgiving and the days go on way too… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
If you asked me, parents were supposed to affect the life of their child in such a way that the child grows… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
Once an old woman at my church said the secret is that God loves us exactly the way we are and that… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
Everything was coming together by coming apart . . . It is the most difficult Zen practice to leave people to their… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
...music is about as physical as it gets: your essential rhythm is your heartbeat; your essential sound, the breath. We're walking temples… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
You can either set brick as a laborer or as an artist. You can make the work a chore, or you can… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
My parents, and librarians along the way, taught me about the space between words; about the margins, where so many juicy moments… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
Sometimes I think God loves the ones who most desperately ache and are most desperately lost - his or her wildest, most… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
Toni Morrison said, "The function of freedom is to free someone else," and if you are no longer wracked or in bondage… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
“A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way. It's a lie if you make something up.… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
But you can’t get to any of these truths by sitting in a field smiling beatifically, avoiding your anger and damage and… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
I know that if I feel any deprivation or fear [about money], the solution is to give. The solution is to go… — 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
And we've read scary books and watched scary movies and TV shows together. He's met monsters, ghouls, and demons on the page… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
I have a terrible time during elections. I am way too politically involved. I absolutely never argue politics with anyone, as it… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
E.L. Doctorow said once said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
It is unearned love--the love that goes before, that greets us on the way. It's the help you receive when you have… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
I wish there were shortcuts to wisdom and self-knowledge: cuter abysses or three-day spa wilderness experiences. Sadly, it doesn't work that way.… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
Grace means you're in a different universe from where you had been stuck, when you had absolutely no way to get there… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
The first holy truth in God 101 is that men and women of true faith have always had to accept the mystery… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
...after a few days at the desk, telling the truth in an interesting way turns out to be as easy and pleasurable… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
I'm not going to change the way people think about me, but I can say you know what? I'm not going to… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
You just have to keep getting out of your own way so that whatever it is that wants to be written can… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
Sam said to me the other day, "I love you like 20 tyrannosauruses on 20 mountaintops," and this is the exact same… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
Prayer means that, in some unique way, we believe we're invited into a relationship with someone who hears us when we speak… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
I do know the sorrow of being ordinary, and that much of our life is spent doing the crazy mental arithmetic of… — 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
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 Image
It's funny where we look for salvation, and where we actually find it. — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
Raising a child, whether or not it is yours, is like Nautilus of the heart and soul. — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image