Quotes from Anne Lamott

Every sound is by definition a stop, which is how we can hear it.

that getting all of one's addictions under control is a little like putting an octopus to bed.

We all know we're going to die; what's important is the kind of men and women we are in the face of this.

I would give her the same advice God always gives me if I think to ask: Go do some anonymous things for lonely people, give a few bucks to every poor person you see, return phone calls. Get out of yourself and become a person for others, while simultaneously practicing radical self-care: maybe have a bite to eat, check in with the sky twice, buy some cute socks, take a nap.

Make me a channel of Thy peace, that where there is hatred, let me sow love, or at least not fertilize the hate with my dainty bullshit.

So I sit for a moment and then say a small prayer - please help me get out of the way so I can write what wants to be written.

Sin is not just affairs, or porn shops, or drug cartels. It is also the ignorance and brokenness of the world, extreme self-centeredness, hoarding wealth, using others as objects, not caring.

How did we all get so screwed up? Putting aside our damaged parents, poverty, abuse, addiction, disease, and other unpleasantries, life just damages people. There is no way around this.

A writer is someone on whom nothing is lost

It may strike you as a small miracle that you have someone in your life, whose taste you admire, who will tell you the truth and help you stay on the straight and narrow, or find your way back to it if you are lost.

For somebody to be on a search means he or she is involved with these subversive topics, reading and comparing notes with allies, asking questions, daydreaming, brooding. Even though you have homework to do.

Write about your childhoods, I tell them for the umpteenth time. Write about that time in your life when you were so intensely interested in the world, when your powers of observation were at their most acute, when you felt things so deeply. Exploring and understanding your childhood will give you the ability to empathize, and that understanding and empathy will teach you to write with intelligence and insight and compassion.