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
father inspiration writing
My father really taught me that you really develop the habit of writing and you sit down at the same time every day, you don't wait for inspiration.
philosophy father eye
So I was doing well academically, and I was a well-ranked tennis player and was the apple of my handsome father's eye-and then I would bring home a report card with a B-plus on it, and my parents would look at the report card as if I'd flunked. "Uh, honey?" one of them would ask, looking perplexed. "Now, this isn't a criticism but, if you could get a B-plus in philosophy, how much harder would it have been to get an A-minus?"
god father personality
Looking back on the God my friend believed in, he seems a little erratic, not entirely unlike her father - God as borderline personality.
sweet father reading
My father was a writer, so I grew up writing and reading and I was really encouraged by him. I had some sort of gift and when it came time to try to find a publisher I had a little bit of an "in" because I had his agent I could turn to, to at least read my initial offerings when I was about 20. But the only problem was that they were just awful, they were just terrible stories and my agent, who ended up being my agent, was very, very sweet about it, but it took about four years until I actually had something worth trying to sell.
brother father book
Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he'd had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books about birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.
real father light
I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me--that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.
The American way is to not need help, but to help.
created faith god hates image opposite people turns
The opposite of faith is not doubt: It is certainty. It is madness. You can tell you have created God in your own image when it turns out that he or she hates all the same people you do.
capable feeling mental spiritual
I'm much calmer as I get older, but I'm still just as capable of getting that strung-out stressed-out feeling of mental and spiritual unwellness.
chosen difficult huge lie lives mothers superior value women
Mother's Day celebrates a huge lie about the value of women: that mothers are superior beings, that they have done more with their lives and chosen a more difficult path.
carry cross heard ourselves
I've heard that our greatest cross to carry is ourselves - how gravely we fall short.
god goodness happen kindness love people truth
I happen to be a Christian, but I know that there is one God. People worshipping goodness and love and kindness and truth are worshipping the same God.
witty character thinking
My main problem is that over and over again, I try to get all my characters to say stuff that I think is so witty or erudite you know, so that everybody will go.
reading mind great-work
Reading poetry and reading the great works of the canon that we were reading in the '60s and the '70s and '80s was mind altering.