Anne Lamott
Anne Lamott
Anne Lamottis an American novelist and non-fiction writer...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNon-Fiction Author
Date of Birth10 April 1954
CitySan Francisco, CA
CountryUnited States of America
grief grieving alone-time
only grieving can heal grief; the passage of time will lessen the acuteness, but time alone, without the direct experience of grief, will not heal it.
children blue magic
We're like Magic 8-Balls. After you ask your question and shake the 8-Ball, you read the answer in the little window. If you ever broke open a Magic 8-Ball with a hammer, you discovered that it contained a many-sided plastic object, with an answer on every facet, floating in a cylinder of murky blue fluid. The many-sided core held the answer to your question. My theory is that, as with our children, as with every surface of that geodesic dome inside the 8-Ball, every age we've ever been is who we are.
beautiful sweet wall
A man dies and goes to heaven. He is being shown around by an angel. Everything is just so sweet and gentle, the total golden tender presence of God everywhere, a pond over there, a beautiful field there, and some hills for people who like to hike, and this expansiveness in every direction of sky and light and physical beauty. And there is this section separated from the rest; it has beautiful high walls. The man who's just come to heaven says, "What's over there?" The angel says, "That's for the fundamentalists. They don't consider it heaven if anyone else got in.
smart lying men
I very rarely read the responses to my Salon pieces, because (as you may have noticed) the trolls can be SO evil. So violent in their hostility to me and my work. OK, wait, wait, wait. That's a lie. I do read the responses--and get mesmerized, like cobra hypnosis. But I laugh (mostly) at the trolls, and think about what tiny little weenies they must have. (They seem to be mostly men.) And then ALL these smart, funny people leap to my defense, which is medicine, and fills me with love and thankfulness.
party dark white
We all have the dark, ignorant shadow inside us. I have worked endlessly to reveal it and heal it in me, but of course there's some primitive weird stuff in me. The Tea Party is about exhorting white supremacy, though, so I've had a tiny bit of trouble experiencing sympathy.
simple ideas habit
My natural tendency is to complicate everything--and then to spray words and ideas onto everything afterwards. I've had to develop the habit of keeping things simple.
tape pouring teeth
We all often feel like we are pulling teeth, even those writers whose prose ends up being the most natural and fluid. The right words and sentences just do not come pouring out like ticker tape most of the time.
hurt criticism hurt-me
All criticism hurts me. I'm so in the wrong business.
kids
It's almost like learning to meditate to learn to hear what your kid is actually saying.
life earth way
Living on Earth has always been a dangerous way to spend your time.
real writing caring
When you're conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader.
religious israel justice
They always threw their arms around and hugged me while crying our Yiddish endearments. Yet none of them believed in God. They believed in social justice, good works, Israel, and Bette Midler. I was nearly thirty before I met a religious Jew.
god money giving
if you want to know how God feels about money, look at whom she gives it to.
god dog lying
I could become like that dyslexic agnostic in the old joke - the one who lies in bed and tries to figure out if his dog exists.