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
memories self-esteem people
I took notes on the people around me, in my town, in my family, in my memory. I took notes on my own state of mind, my grandiosity, the low self-esteem. I wrote down the funny stuff I overheard. I learned to be like a ship's rat, veined ears trembling, and I learned to scribble it all down.
memories real feet
...[T]here should be a real sense of your imagination and your memories walking and woolgathering, tramping the hills, romping all over the place. Trust them. Don't look at your feet to see if you are doing it right. Just dance.
memories writing worry
I don't know where to start," one [writing student] will wail. Start with your childhood, I tell them. Plug your nose and jump in, and write down all your memories as truthfully as you can. Flannery O' Connor said that anyone who has survived childhood has enough material to write for the rest of his or her life. Maybe your childhood was grim and horrible, but grim and horrible is Okay if it is well done. Don't worry about doing it well yet, though. Just get it down.
song memories writing
You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves in your heart--your stories, visions, memories, songs: your truth, your version of things, in your voice. That is really all you have to offer us, and it's why you were born.
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.
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.
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.
spiritual meditation drug
Drugs took me to places; they were like portals. It's kind of a cliché, but they were like portals to altered states of consciousness into ways of imagining the world, or seeing a world beyond this world, or seeing a world beyond this world that I might not have gotten to unless I discovered meditation and a very deep, intense spiritual path based on contemplation and meditation.