Anne Lamott

You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town.
―Anne Lamott, Grace [Eventually]: Thoughts on Faith

Life on Earth is a head-scratcher for anyone who's paying attention.
―Anne Lamott

Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.
―Anne Lamott

For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.
―Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

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.
―Anne Lamott

Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a better past.
―Anne Lamott

I do not understand the mystery of grace -- only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.
―Anne Lamott

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. 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 die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.
―Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Your problem is how you are going to spend this one and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are.
―Anne Lamott

Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They depen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It's like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can't stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.
―Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

It's good to do uncomfortable things. It's weight training for life.
―Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

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. We build this place with the sand of memories; these castles are our memories and inventiveness made tangible. So part of us believes that when the tide starts coming in, we won't really have lost anything, because actually only a symbol of it was there in the sand. Another part of us thinks we'll figure out a way to divert the ocean. This is what separates artists from ordinary people: the belief, deep in our hearts, that if we build our castles well enough, somehow the ocean won't wash them away. I think this is a wonderful kind of person to be.
―Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Laughter is carbonated holiness.
―Anne Lamott

It's funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools - friendships, prayer, conscience, honesty - and said 'do the best you can with these, they will have to do'. And mostly, against all odds, they do.
―Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

Clutter and mess show us that life is being lived...Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation... Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist's true friend. What people somehow forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here.
―Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

My mind is a neighborhood I try not to go into alone.
―Anne Lamott

You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
―Anne Lamott

I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish.
―Anne Lamott

Not forgiving is like drinking cat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.
―Anne Lamott

Joy is the best makeup.
―Anne Lamott, Grace [Eventually]: Thoughts on Faith

I am all the ages I've ever been.
―Anne Lamott