Claire > Claire's Quotes

“I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her. (Although when I mentioned this to my priest friend Tom, he said that you can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.)”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“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, Bird by Bird

“Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It's like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can't stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander. We build this place with the sand of memories; these castles are our memories and inventiveness made tangible. So part of us believes that when the tide starts coming in, we won't really have lost anything, because actually only a symbol of it was there in the sand. Another part of us thinks we'll figure out a way to divert the ocean. This is what separates artists from ordinary people: the belief, deep in our hearts, that if we build our castles well enough, somehow the ocean won't wash them away. I think this is a wonderful kind of person to be.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper. What I’ve learned to do when I sit down to work on a shitty first draft is to quiet the voices in my head.”
― Anne Lamott

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
― Anne Lamott

“It's good to do uncomfortable things. It's weight training for life.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail by default.”
― J.K. Rowling

“Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn't mean we all have.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

“You are always someones favorite unfolding story”
― Ann Patchett

“I hated high school. I don’t trust anybody who looks back on the years from 14 to 18 with any enjoyment. If you liked being a teenager, there’s something wrong with you.”
― Stephen King

“Sometimes I think high school is one long hazing activity: if you are tough enough to survive this, they'll let you become and adult. I hope it's worth it.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“In all four years of high school, not once did I make the football team. The other part of the story is that I never even tried out. Just raw talent, I guess.”
― Jarod Kintz, This Book is Not for Sale

“High school is closer to the core of the American experience than anything else I can think of.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“I always knew the teachers were out to get me.”
― Amy Joy, The Academie

“Joy is the best makeup.”
― Anne Lamott, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

“If you're trying to find out what's coming next, turn off everything you own that has an OFF switch and listen.”
― Ann Patchett, What Now?

“It’s always better to have too much to read than not enough.

Ann Patchett”
― Ann Patchett

“One must not be shy where language is concerned.”
― Ann Patchett, State of Wonder

“Most of the time we're loved for what we can do rather than for who we are.”
― Ann Patchett

“Nobody is allowed to tell me where the limits of my imagination are.”
― Ann Patchett

“I changed along with it. Anything I thought I couldn’t do turned out to be something I managed fine.”
― Ann Patchett, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage

“You don't always have to chop with the sword of truth. You can point with it too.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“It is a pity that doing one's best does not always answer.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I'll walk where my own nature would be leading. It vexes me to choose another guide.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Everyone knows everything eventually.”
― Ann Patchett, State of Wonder

“Have you ever been homesick for someplace that doesn't
actually exist anymore? Someplace that exists only in your
mind?”
― Jenny Lawson

“As far as I'm concerned, a house should look lived-in, and I consider it clean as long as I don't stick to it and it doesn't give me cholera.”
― Jenny Lawson, Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir