For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.
Anne Lamott
Related I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made ... RALPH WALDO EMERSON It was pivotal in making you but you don't remember it. Or do you? Do we understand the events that ... DOUGLAS COUPLAND O how small a portion of earth will hold us when we are dead, who ambitiously seek after the whole w... PHILIP II Oh, how a small portion of earth will hold us when we are dead, who ambitiously seek after the whole... SHIV KHERA Our parents can show us a lot of things: they can show us how we are to be and what things we ought ... C. JOYBELL C. I think the Republicans have shown us that they're corrupt, more important lately, they've show us h... KAREN THURMAN In periods of rapid personal change, we pass through life as though we are spellcast. We speak in se... DOUGLAS COUPLAND It may well be that the world is denied miracle after miracle and triumph after triumph because we w... WILLIAM BARCLAY We live in a world where bad stories are told, stories that teach us life doesn't mean anything and ... DONALD MILLER These homes tell this story about what we were thinking about life and how we were shaping it. They ... JEANNE LAMBIN Christians are as subject to complacency as anybody else, and we can certainly settle into repetitio... FRANCIS SPUFFORD One of the things that is important to us is how we better understand where our partners are going, ... HELEN ROBINSON The words you can’t find, you borrow. We read to know we’re not alone. We read because w... GABRIELLE ZEVIN The simulations show us where the hot spots are, and they show us how we should prioritize the stren... CHRIS POLAND The World Championships is important for us, ... The players have to understand that that is a huge ... LARRY PLEAU These cases teach us, me and you, how important and how cherished the rights are that we have. After... ANTHONY RICCO What you gotta think about is what they're saying in their locker room. They need to jump on us. On ... SUE BIRD What love is it, then, that has no need of words to call us? In whose image are we made, to take suc... CHRISTIAN BOBIN Oscar always said that books are truly our best friends. He said that they never think poorly of us ... ERICA SEHYUN SONG These events are significant for us as they show the world and especially to China that Tibetans all... LOBSANG CHOEPHAL This is the harsh truth about us: not only do Filipinos ignore books, literature - we do not underst... F. SIONIL JOSE Stories nurture our connection to place and to each other. They show us where we have been and where... SUSAN J. TWEIT Those who are close to us, when they die, divide our world. There is the world of the living, which ... AZAR NAFISI Sir, if you are as powerful as I feel that you are, and as inclined toward us as you seem to be, end... GEORGE SAUNDERS Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can r... ALBERT CAMUS Books give us insight into other people, other cultures. They make us laugh. They make us think. If ... KARIN SLAUGHTER Part of what my work has always been about is to show that the apocalyptic character of the gospel m... STANLEY HAUERWAS That's what heroic stories do for us. They show us the way. They remind us of the good we are ca... SAM RAIMI Behind the complicated details of the world stand the simplicities: God is good, the grown-up man or... GRAHAM GREENE Behind the complicated details of the world stand the simplicities: God is good, the grown-up man or... GRAHAM GREENE They show how important it was to us as Americans that everyone had a home. JEANNE LAMBIN What we wanted to show was that this man, after 30 years, decides he wants to die and he doesn't see... ALEJANDRO AMENABAR None of us are sane; none of us know sanity. We only have the audacity, to think that we are sane. R... ENRIQUE VEGA Freedom is also to understand that what the world thinks of us is less important for our well-being ... LUIGINA SGARRO Everybody has a world, and that world is completely hidden until we begin to inquire. As soon as we ... DAVID GUTERSON Exams are made to examine us and show how far our skills have progressed but grades degrade us and s... NOMAN QAYYUM Show us that sport unites by overcoming national, political, religious and language barriers. You ca... JACQUES ROGGE God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to... JOHN RUSKIN Whether it's a Christian or a non-Christian, there's nothing like suffering to show us how small, ne... TULLIAN TCHIVIDJIAN We are a small group with a big heart trying to make a huge difference in our world the best way we ... DAVE PARKER When we can't understand the science behind something in this world, we make up mythological entitie... CHELSIE SHAKESPEARE That's what heroic stories do for us. They show us the way. They remind us of the good we are capabl... SAM RAIMI Call it egotistical or narcissist, but I think that's what we all look for in books - the right ... JOHN COREY WHALEY Mother Earth is cursing this land because we forgot how to love each other. Love is beyond just lovi... NERISSA IRVING Most of us think we're too busy or too important to rest for a day. CRAIG GROESCHEL You often love someone not for what they are, but for what you are when you are with them. JEFFREY FRY Beloved community is formed not by the eradication of difference but by its affirmation, by each of ... BELL HOOKS There are only two worlds - your world, which is the real world, and other worlds, the fantasy. Worl... NEIL GAIMAN We really, truly need very, very sound biblical teaching by some of the best biblical teachers aroun... PAUL CHAMBERLAIN Each of us views life through a different lens. What we think is colored by the baggage we carry, an... LAURIE BUCHANAN, PHD It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of ... J.R.R. TOLKIEN Mistakes don't have to define us. They're how we learn and grow. They show us who and what we don't ... SHERRILYN KENYON Nothing to be done really about animals. Anything you do looks foolish. The answer isn't in us. It's... RUSSELL HOBAN We're tired of being told that who we are is wrong and that's what those of us who were geeks ... th... JOSHUA ESTRIN Perhaps extreme danger strips us of all pretenses, all ambitions, all confusions, focusing us more i... DEAN KOONTZ All over the world, we're finding out that, you know, whether it's Egypt or Syria or Central... SARAH PARCAK We are the people of the book. We love our books. We fill our houses with books. We treasure books w... CORY DOCTOROW We get all ages of people at our show. It's not unusual for little kids and old people to come up to... GREGORY KOZAK Producers on Broadway approached us with an original script after relaunching ourselves as 'A Gr... IAN AXEL But of course, when they ask for a "lead from the church," most people mean they want the clergy to ... C.S. LEWIS The illustrations in picture books are the first paintings most children see, and because of that, t... ANTHONY BROWNE How do you know? How can you prove it’s them and not—” “Us? Because we haven’t ... QUOLEENA SBROCCA Books, purchasable at low cost, permit us to interrogate the past with high accuracy; to tap the wis... CARL SAGAN The biggest challenge is finding models and getting publicity; letting people know who we are, where... DONNA ELLER Our Father, who has set a restlessness in our hearts and made us all seekers after that which we can... ELEANOR ROOSEVELT As an athlete, you figure you work your whole life to have what you have, and to be able to show the... RICKY WILLIAMS We live so little time in this world that it is no matter how wretched and miserable we are, if it p... JUPITER HAMMON Movies are the most influential medium in the entire world. They shape our dreams and our hopes, the... ANDERSON JONES Only the best books are special. Why? Because they open our eyes, touch us, excite us, extend us. MICHAEL MORPURGO There are so many previously unknown sites and structures all over the world. And I think most impor... SARAH PARCAK No matter how close we are to another person, few human relationships are as free from strife, disag... DEAN KOONTZ Advertisers, governments and organizations mount huge campaigns to show us what they want us to see,... IAN BOGOST As children, we looked up to our maids and our nannies, who were playing in some ways the role of ou... KATHRYN STOCKETT What we're making isn't folk music, but savage intellectualism. We speak a language of a new world c... EUGENE HUTZ ...We of the here-and-now are not for a moment satisfied in the world of time, nor are we bound in i... RAINER MARIA RILKE, After all manner of professors have done their best for us, the place we are to get knowledge is in ... ALBERT CAMUS After all manner of professors have done their best for us, the place we are to get knowledge is in ... THOMAS CARLYLE We are not just looking for the cute or the most popular books. Our company has a mission to find bo... MARTHA GAMERMAN We all enter the world little plastic beings, with so much natural force, perhaps, but for the rest ... OLIVE SCHREINER We all enter the world little plastic beings, with so much natural force, perhaps, but for the rest ... OLIVE SCHREINER It's important for the community that the department be as professional and operate as efficiently a... GREG HICKS To me, the best zombie movies aren’t the splatter fests of gore and violence with goofy characters... ROBERT KIRKMAN We often compare the experience of writing a book to that of playing God. It is up to us, and only u... TAYLOR JENKINS REID it is our eyes that see for us, our brain to tell us what things are, and our heart that tells us wh... MADISON LOUISE LOVELL We certainly do not forget you as soon as you forget us. It is, perhaps, our fate rather than our me... JANE AUSTEN Music takes us out of the actual and whispers to us dim secrets that startle our wonder as to who we... RALPH WALDO EMERSON Good religion teaches us about a good God and encourages us to be like Him to the people of the worl... HAROLD J. DUARTE-BERNHARDT In the world of the very small, where particle and wave aspects of reality are equally significant, ... JOHN GRIBBIN Emotional security is how we feel about ourself, how good we feel in relationships with other people... DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA People are telling us, 'We live in a high-tech world, everything's on high speed. We want to be in a... LEATRICE EISEMAN There are a lot of singers who cannot sing to save their lives. We have to accept it, but thank God ... SONU NIGAM Our desires reveal us. They show us for who we really are. RICK RIORDAN Let us forget that we are Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Presbyterians, or Free-thinkers, and reme... ROBERT G. INGERSOLL They are going to be hungry - they lost two out of three this (past) weekend. It's definitely a big ... JAMEY SHOUPPE I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doe... FRANZ KAFKA This coherence of the Bible itself, and of the Bible and the Church, is a coherence and a unity set ... E. C. HOSKYNS Don’t you, when strangers and friends come to call, straighten the cushions, kick the books under ... JEANETTE WINTERSON The world at large does not judge us by who we are and what we know; it judges us by what we have. JOYCE BROTHERS The world at large does not judge us by who we are and what we know; it judges us by what we have. DR. JOYCE BROTHERS If they are doing that, we have a great chance to win. You know what, if we do that, we are the worl... A.J. PIERZYNSKI
More Anne Lamott
Bananas are great, as I believe them to be the only known cure for existential dread. Also, Mother T... ANNE LAMOTT I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not le... ANNE LAMOTT I am going to try to pay attention to the spring. I am going to look around at all the flowers, and ... ANNE LAMOTT I am going to notice the lights of the earth, the sun and the moon and the stars, the lights of our ... ANNE LAMOTT For me, Jesus is my cleft in the rock. He is my safest friend, my safe totally loving accepting big ... ANNE LAMOTT The whistle is always waiting to be blown, and in some ways, it gets me to do better work. ANNE LAMOTT Being on a book tour is like being on the seesaw when you're a little kid. The excitement is in ... ANNE LAMOTT No one is more sentimentalized in America than mothers on Mother's Day, but no one is more often... ANNE LAMOTT You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the ... ANNE LAMOTT I don't remember who said this, but there really are places in the heart you don't even know exist u... ANNE LAMOTT Then the singing enveloped me. It was furry and resonant, coming from everyone's very heart. There w... ANNE LAMOTT Teenagers who do not go to church are adored by God, but they don't get to meet some of the people w... ANNE LAMOTT The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith in... ANNE LAMOTT It turned out this man worked for the Dalai Lama. And she said gently-that they believe when a lot o... ANNE LAMOTT When hope is not pinned wriggling onto a shiny image or expectation, it sometimes floats forth and o... ANNE LAMOTT A hundred years from now? All new people. ANNE LAMOTT Seeing yourself in print is such an amazing concept: you can get so much attention without having to... ANNE LAMOTT Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, t... ANNE LAMOTT I've written six novels and four pieces of nonfiction, so I don't really have a genre these days. ANNE LAMOTT You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all... ANNE LAMOTT [Lamott is an unstoppable storyteller, whether writing about church-going with a sullen adolescent o... ANNE LAMOTT We must not inflict life on children who will be resented; we must not inflict unwanted children on ... ANNE LAMOTT You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly abo... ANNE LAMOTT When we're dealing with the people in our family - no matter how annoying or gross they may be, ... ANNE LAMOTT Sometimes I think God loves the ones who most desperately ache and are most desperately lost - his o... ANNE LAMOTT I accidentally forgot to graduate from college. ANNE LAMOTT I loved every second of Catholic church. I loved the sickly sweet rotting-pomegranate smells of the ... ANNE LAMOTT If you don't die of thirst, there are blessings in the desert. You can be pulled into limitlessn... ANNE LAMOTT Some people won't go the extra mile, and then on their birthday, when no one makes a fuss, they ... ANNE LAMOTT My idea of absolute happiness is to be in bed on a rainy day, with my blankie, my cat, and my dog. ANNE LAMOTT There is nothing as sweet as a comeback, when you are down and out, about to lose, and out of time. ANNE LAMOTT Every woman's path is difficult, and many mothers were as equipped to raise children as wire mon... ANNE LAMOTT Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, t... ANNE LAMOTT Everyone is flailing through this life without an owner's manual, with whatever modicum of grace... ANNE LAMOTT We can't understand when we're pregnant, or when our siblings are expecting, how profound it... ANNE LAMOTT The earth is rocky and full of roots; it's clay, and it seems doomed and polluted, but you dig l... ANNE LAMOTT Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor. ANNE LAMOTT My mother was a not-too-devoted atheist. She went to Episcopal church on Christmas Eve every year, a... ANNE LAMOTT Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report wri... ANNE LAMOTT The women's movement burst forth when I was fifteen. That was when I began to believe that life ... ANNE LAMOTT Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die. ANNE LAMOTT Remember that you own what happened to you. If your childhood was less than ideal, you may have been... ANNE LAMOTT No" is a complete sentence. ANNE LAMOTT I didn't need to understand the hypostatic unity of the Trinity; I just needed to turn my life over ... ANNE LAMOTT I am an Aries. Although I do not believe in astrology, I think this is exactly the right sign to hav... ANNE LAMOTT My mother might find a thin gold chain at the back of a drawer, wadded into an impossibly tight knot... ANNE LAMOTT I was raised in a family where none of us ever raised a voice, so there was no room to express feeli... ANNE LAMOTT It was simple reality - most competitive tennis players in my day were privileged, spoiled, entitled... ANNE LAMOTT The road to enlightenment is long and difficult, and you should try not to forget snacks and magazin... ANNE LAMOTT Most marriages are a mess, and the children get caught between two bitter, antagonistic parents. My ... ANNE LAMOTT The Giants are usually described as rag tag, kind of a great garage sale team, and the Democrats are... ANNE LAMOTT I'm drawn to almost any piece of writing with the words 'divine love' and 'impeachme... ANNE LAMOTT I think Jesus is divine love manifest on Earth, as it comes through the community of Christians. ANNE LAMOTT Age has given me the gift of me; it just gave me what I was always longing for, which was to get to ... ANNE LAMOTT I love readings and my readers, but the din of voices of the audience gives me stage fright, and the... ANNE LAMOTT Your experiences will be yours alone. But truth and best friendship will rarely if ever disappoint y... ANNE LAMOTT I wish I had thrown out the bathroom scale at age 16. Weighing yourself every morning is like waking... ANNE LAMOTT A whole lot of us believers, of all different religions, are ready to turn back the tide of madness ... ANNE LAMOTT Usually if you pray from the heart, you get an answer—the phone rings or the mail comes, and light... ANNE LAMOTT You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news... ANNE LAMOTT I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus wan... ANNE LAMOTT I woke up full of hate and fear the day before the most recent peace march in San Francisco. This wa... ANNE LAMOTT I've heard that our greatest cross to carry is ourselves - how gravely we fall short. ANNE LAMOTT Most of me was glad when my mother died. She was a handful, but not in a cute, festive way. More in ... ANNE LAMOTT I go to church every Sunday, which is like going to the gas station once a week and really, really f... ANNE LAMOTT I don't have very sophisticated taste in music. I listen to a lot of folk music. I like reggae. ANNE LAMOTT I've heard people say that God is the gift of desperation, and there's a lot to be said for ... ANNE LAMOTT No one tells you that your life is effectively over when you have a child: that you're never goi... ANNE LAMOTT My mother's eyes were large and brown, like my son's, but unlike Sam's, they were always... ANNE LAMOTT I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I reme... ANNE LAMOTT My parents, and librarians along the way, taught me about the space between words; about the margins... ANNE LAMOTT My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like o... ANNE LAMOTT There's a lovely Hasidic story of a rabbi who always told his people that if they studied the Torah,... ANNE LAMOTT We all know we're going to die; what's important is the kind of men and women we are in the face of ... ANNE LAMOTT All the older people who are thriving have stayed physically active — there are exceptions, and ev... ANNE LAMOTT I would seriously rather be in a long line at the DMV than eat with people I don't know. ANNE LAMOTT Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a better past. ANNE LAMOTT A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way. ANNE LAMOTT I wish grace and healing were more abracadabra kind of things. Also, that delicate silver bells woul... ANNE LAMOTT But you can’t get to any of these truths by sitting in a field smiling beatifically, avoiding your... ANNE LAMOTT Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of l... ANNE LAMOTT And I felt like my heart had been so thoroughly and irreparably broken that there could be no real j... ANNE LAMOTT If you are a writer, or want to be a writer, this is how you spend your days--listening, observing, ... ANNE LAMOTT Toni Morrison said, "The function of freedom is to free someone else," and if you are no longer wrac... ANNE LAMOTT My gratitude for good writing is unbounded; I’m grateful for it the way I’m grateful for the oce... ANNE LAMOTT [S]he believed that the Buddhists were right–that if you want, you will suffer; if you love, you w... ANNE LAMOTT If something inside of you is real, we will probably find it interesting, and it will probably be un... ANNE LAMOTT I think joy and sweetness and affection are a spiritual path. We're here to know God, to love and se... ANNE LAMOTT Why couldn't Jesus command us to obsess over everything, to try to control and manipulate people, to... ANNE LAMOTT I've given guys blow jobs just because I've run out of things to talk about.' Oh, Rae. Who hasn... ANNE LAMOTT Joy is the best makeup. ANNE LAMOTT I am all the ages I've ever been. ANNE LAMOTT Laughter is carbonated holiness. ANNE LAMOTT It's good to do uncomfortable things. It's weight training for life. ANNE LAMOTT Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there s... ANNE LAMOTT The depth of the feeling continued to surprise and threaten me, but each time it hit again and I bor... ANNE LAMOTT It's funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox full of sh... ANNE LAMOTT Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious. When you're conscious and writing from a place of ins... ANNE LAMOTT I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of... ANNE LAMOTT Nothing heals us like letting people know our scariest parts: When people listen to you cry and lame... ANNE LAMOTT All the older people who are thriving have stayed physically active there are exceptions, and eve... ANNE LAMOTT I'm kind of a gossip hound, but watching the media whip the small fires into giant forest fires ... ANNE LAMOTT One secret of life is that the reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts o... ANNE LAMOTT ... the reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day. [pp. 65... ANNE LAMOTT This is the most profound spiritual truth I know: that even when we're most sure that love can't con... ANNE LAMOTT I was raised by my parents to believe that you had a moral obligation to try and help save the world... ANNE LAMOTT I was terrified of death by the time I was three or four, actively if not lucidly. I had frequent ni... ANNE LAMOTT And as it turns out, if one person is praying for you, buckle up. Things can happen. ANNE LAMOTT I am not writing to try and convert people to fundamental Christianity. I am just trying to share my... ANNE LAMOTT We cheated, you and me, and someone noticed. I noticed you; someone else noticed me. It hurts us. Th... ANNE LAMOTT We're often ashamed of asking for so much help because it seems selfish or petty or narcissistic... ANNE LAMOTT If you don't believe in God, it may help to remember this great line of Geneen Roth's: that awarenes... ANNE LAMOTT You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing ... ANNE LAMOTT Sometimes this human stuff is slimy and pathetic...but better to feel it and talk about it and walk ... ANNE LAMOTT The opposite of faith is not doubt, it’s certainty. ANNE LAMOTT I liked those ladies! They were helpers, and they danced.' These are the words I want on my gravesto... ANNE LAMOTT Your problem is how you are going to spend this one and precious life you have been issued. Whether ... ANNE LAMOTT So how on earth can I bring a child into the world, knowing that such sorrow lies ahead, that it is ... ANNE LAMOTT he gets this glinty Donald Trump look in his eyes, like in the old cartoons where someone gets a gre... ANNE LAMOTT They ask that we pray for their families, and for kinder leaders, and for the homeless, and people w... ANNE LAMOTT He said that when he sees little kids sitting in the backseat of cars, in those car seats that have ... ANNE LAMOTT When Sam’s having a hard time and being a total baby about the whole thing, I feel so much frustra... ANNE LAMOTT I heard an old man speak once, someone who had been sober for fifty years, a very prominent doctor. ... ANNE LAMOTT Peg came over with dinner tonight and told me about this dumb schmaltzy poem she heard someone read ... ANNE LAMOTT All these people keep waxing sentimental about how fabulously well I am doing as a mother, how compe... ANNE LAMOTT Oh, but my stomach, she is like a waterbed covered in flannel. When I lie on my side in bed, my stom... ANNE LAMOTT I have these secret pangs of shame about being single, like I wasn't good enough to get a husband. R... ANNE LAMOTT So Rita and I decided that the most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do was to show up for my... ANNE LAMOTT I cry intermittently, like a summer rain. I don't feel racked by the crying; in fact, it hydrates me... ANNE LAMOTT I guess he'll have to figure out someday that he is supposed to have this dark side, that it is part... ANNE LAMOTT ...one of the worst things about being a parent, for me, is the self-discovery, the being face to fa... ANNE LAMOTT I think we're all pretty crazy on this bus. I'm not sure I know anyone who's got all the dots on his... ANNE LAMOTT I’m probably just as good a mother as the next repressed, obsessive-compulsive paranoiac. ANNE LAMOTT one thing about having a baby is that each step of the way you simply cannot imagine loving him any ... ANNE LAMOTT So how on earth can I bring a child into the world, knowing that such sorrow lies ahead, that it is ... ANNE LAMOTT Part of me loves and respects men so desperately, and part of me thinks they are so embarrassingly i... ANNE LAMOTT It is a violation of trust to use your kids as caulking for the cracks in you. ANNE LAMOTT One thing I know for sure about raising children is that every single day a kid needs discipline....... ANNE LAMOTT I realized I was going to get through this disappointing service, and anyway, you have to be somewhe... ANNE LAMOTT For twenty years I have ached to go back home, when there was nobody there to whom I could return. ANNE LAMOTT Courage is fear that has said its prayers. ANNE LAMOTT I know that sometimes these friends feel that they have been expelled from the ordinary world they l... ANNE LAMOTT Without using the word, everyone started forgiving each other again. Just like that, from the no of ... ANNE LAMOTT This is the most profound spiritual truth I know: that even when we're most sure that love can't con... ANNE LAMOTT And my fear of failure has been lifelong and deep. If you are what you do- and I think my parents ma... ANNE LAMOTT Now she and I sit together in her room and eat chocolate, and I tell her that in a very long time wh... ANNE LAMOTT When you make friends with fear, it can’t rule you. ANNE LAMOTT There is nothing more touching to me then a family picture where everyone is trying to look his or h... ANNE LAMOTT I think that is why we stay close to our families, no matter how neurotic the members, how deeply an... ANNE LAMOTT I smiled back at her. I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because the... ANNE LAMOTT Grief, as I read somewhere once, is a lazy Susan. One day it is heavy and underwater, and the next d... ANNE LAMOTT I don’t know why life isn’t constructed to be seamless and safe, why we make such glaring mistak... ANNE LAMOTT Who was it who said that forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a different past? ANNE LAMOTT Mine was a patchwork God, sewn together from bits of rag and ribbon, Eastern and Western, pagan and ... ANNE LAMOTT [Her] work taught me that you could be all the traditional feminine things -- a mother, a lover, a l... ANNE LAMOTT It's so awful, attacking your child. It's the worse thing I know, to shout loudly at this 50 lb. bei... ANNE LAMOTT The thing about light is that it really isn’t yours; it’s what you gather and shine back. And it... ANNE LAMOTT ...music is about as physical as it gets: your essential rhythm is your heartbeat; your essential so... ANNE LAMOTT ...most of the time, all you have is the moment, and the imperfect love of the people around you. ANNE LAMOTT It is unearned love--the love that goes before, that greets us on the way. It's the help you receive... ANNE LAMOTT My heart was broken and my head was just barely inhabitable ANNE LAMOTT ...because when people have seen you at their worst, you don't have to put on the mask as much. ANNE LAMOTT Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue ANNE LAMOTT During Advent, we have to sit in our own anxiety and funkiness long enough to know what a Promised L... ANNE LAMOTT We can see Spirit made visible when people are kind to one another, especially when it's a really bu... ANNE LAMOTT Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some l... ANNE LAMOTT Her purse was a weight, ballast; it tethered her to the earth as her mind floated away. ANNE LAMOTT ... one of the immutable laws of being human is that the people who show up are the right people. [p... ANNE LAMOTT But you don't always get what you want;,you get what you get ANNE LAMOTT What you're looking for is already inside you. You've heard this before, but the holy thing inside y... ANNE LAMOTT If you haven't already, you will lose someone you can't live without, and your heart will be badly b... ANNE LAMOTT ... everyone has come to understand that unconditional love is a reality, but with as shelf life of ... ANNE LAMOTT When we did art with the kids, the demons would lie down. ANNE LAMOTT Age has given me what I was looking for my entire life - it has given me me . It has provide... ANNE LAMOTT You want to protect your child from pain, and what you get instead is life, and grace; and though th... ANNE LAMOTT Rule 1: When all else fails, follow instructions. And Rule 2: Don't be an asshole. ANNE LAMOTT Rest and laughter are the most spiritual and subversive acts of all. Laugh, rest, slow down. ANNE LAMOTT I'm here to be me, which is taking a great deal longer than I had hoped. ANNE LAMOTT This is one thing they forget to mention in most child-rearing books, that at times you will just lo... ANNE LAMOTT Certainty is missing the point entirely. ANNE LAMOTT Help" is a prayer that is always answered. It doesn't matter how you pray--with your head bowed in s... ANNE LAMOTT Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back. You're done. It doesn't necessar... ANNE LAMOTT Hope is not about proving anything. It's about choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigg... ANNE LAMOTT A good marriage is where both people feel like they're getting the better end of the deal. ANNE LAMOTT Underneath all things means that beneath the floorboards, in the depths, in the spaces between the p... ANNE LAMOTT These are the words I want on my gravestone: that I was a helper, and that I danced." ANNE LAMOTT I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who... ANNE LAMOTT But how?" my students ask. "How do you actually do it?" You sit down, I say. You try to sit do... ANNE LAMOTT I do not understand the mystery of grace -- only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us... ANNE LAMOTT Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued. Whet... ANNE LAMOTT I got a lot of things that society had promised would make me whole and fulfilled - all the things t... ANNE LAMOTT رفض ما دون الكمال ، ينطوي على كثير من الظلم والعداء للإ�... ANNE LAMOTT I didn't write about my mother much in the third year after she died. I was still trying to get ... ANNE LAMOTT I like the desert for short periods of time, from inside a car, with the windows rolled up, and the ... ANNE LAMOTT When I was a kid, our family used to watch 'Bonanza.' I really liked having a Sunday night T... ANNE LAMOTT I used to love to untangle chains when I was a child. I had thin, busy fingers, and I never gave up.... ANNE LAMOTT A good marriage is supposed to be one where each spouse secretly thinks he or she got the better dea... ANNE LAMOTT See how the fearful chandelier Trembles above you Each time you open your mouth To sing. Sing. —DO... ANNE LAMOTT After a while the middle-aged person who lives in her head begins to talk to her soul, the kid. ANNE LAMOTT Perfectionism means that you try not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us... ANNE LAMOTT