Quotes from Anne Lamott

But in surrender you have won.

She quoted the Reverend James Forbes as saying, "Nobody gets into heaven without a letter of reference from the poor.

You can't stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.

Grace means suddenly you're in a different universe from the one where you were stuck, and there was absolutely no way for you to get there on your own.

We think we're humans having spiritual experiences, but we're really spirits having human experiences

What finally helped was an image from a medieval monk, Brother Lawrence, who saw all of us as trees in winter, with little to give, stripped of leaves and color and growth, whom God loves unconditionally anyway. My priest friend Margaret, who works with the aged and who shared this image with me, wanted me to see that even though these old people are no longer useful in any traditional meaning of the word, they are there to be loved unconditionally, like trees in the winter. When

The Amen is only as good as the attitude. If you are trying to finish up quickly so you can check your cell phone messages, you are missing the chance to spend quiet moments with the giver of life and the eternal, which means you may reap continued feelings of life racing along without you. So as Samuel Beckett admonished us to fail again, and fail better, we try to pray again, and pray better, for slightly longer and with slightly more honesty, breathing more, deeper, and with more attention.

Jesus is busy with his own stuff, and is not going to get involved in your little tug-of-war. Plus, don't forget, he has his own mother to deal with. She's all he can handle, as far as mothers go.

Dealing with your rage and grief will give you life. That is both the good news and the bad news: The solution is at hand. Wherever the great dilemma exists is where the great growth is, too. —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.

Everyone was on God's payroll, whether they knew it or not.

Living on earth has always been a dangerous way to spend your time.