Quotes from Anne Lamott

The mix in our rooms is so touching: the clutter and the cracks in the wall belie a bleakness or brokenness in our lives; while photos and a few rare objects show our pride, our rare shining moments ... these rooms are future ruins

It's incredibly touching when someone who seems so hopeless finds a few inches of light to stand in and makes everything work as well as possible. All of us lurch and fall, sit in the dirt, are helped to our feet, keep moving, feel like idiots, lose our balance, gain it, help others get back on their feet, and keep going.

I do not at all understand the mystery of grace—only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.

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.

I love Wendell Berry's lines that "it may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.

He got me a cup of tea with honey, toast with honey, yogurt with honey, like I was John the Baptist with the flu.

But you don't always get what you want;,you get what you get

We aren't a drop in the ocean, but are the ocean, in drops.

I know God enjoys hearing my take on how best we should all proceed, as I'm always full of useful advice. I'm sure God says either, Oh, I so love Annie's selfless and evolved thoughts, or else Jeez. What a head case.

Astonishing material and revelation appear in our lives all the time. Let it be. Unto us, so much is given. We just have to be open for business.

I kept asking God for help, and after a while I realized something -- that Josh was not enjoying this either. He was just trying to take care of himself, and I made the radical decision to let him off the hook.

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