64 Quotes by Anne Lamott about Writing
- Author Anne Lamott
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The problem is acceptance, which is something we're taught not to do. We're taught to improve uncomfortable situations, to change things, alleviate unpleasant feelings. But if you accept the reality that you have been given- that you are not in a productive creative period- you free yourself to begin filling up again.
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- Author Anne Lamott
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The society to which we belong seems to be dying or is already dead. I don't mean to sound dramatic, but clearly the dark side is rising. Things could not have been more odd and frightening in the Middle Ages. But the tradition of artists will continue no matter what form the society takes. And this is another reason to write: people need us, to mirror for them and for each other without distortion-not to look around and say, 'Look at yourselves, you idiots!,' but to say, 'This is who we are.
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- Author Anne Lamott
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The very first thing I tell my new students on the first day of a workshop is that good writing is about telling the truth. We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason they write so very little. But we do. We have so much we want to say and figure out.
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- Author Anne Lamott
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If your wife locks you out of the house, you don't have a problem with your door.
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- Author Anne Lamott
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Rituals are a good signal to your unconscious that it is time to kick in.
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- Author Anne Lamott
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I want people who write to crash or dive below the surface, where life is so cold and confusing and hard to see.Your anger and damage and grief are the way to the truth.
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- Author Anne Lamott
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Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul
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- Author Anne Lamott
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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.
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- Author Anne Lamott
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Perfectionism means that you try not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived.
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