Nancy > Nancy's Quotes

“The road to enlightenment is long and difficult, and you should try not to forget snacks and magazines.”
― Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

“Try looking at your mind as a wayward puppy that you are trying to paper train. You don't drop-kick a puppy into the neighbor's yard every time it piddles on the floor. You just keep bringing it back to the newspaper.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“Sometimes grace works like water wings when you feel you are sinking.”
― Anne Lamott, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

“It's better to be kind than to be right.”
― Anne Lamott

“...the three things I cannot change are the past, the truth, and you.”
― Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers

“I was reminded of the Four Immutable Laws of the Spirit: Whoever is present are the right people. Whenever it begins is the right time. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened. And when it's over, it's over.”
― Anne Lamott, Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son's First Son

“Here are the two best prayers I know: 'Help me, help me, help me' and 'Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
― Anne Lamott

“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should've behaved better.”
― 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.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“Peace is joy at rest. Joy is peace on its feet.”
― Anne Lamott

“Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there.”
― Anne Lamott

“Rest and laughter are the most spiritual and subversive acts of all. Laugh, rest, slow down.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“Rule 1: When all else fails, follow instructions. And Rule 2: Don't be an asshole.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“If your wife locks you out of the house, you don't have a problem with your door.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“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 or her dice.”
― Anne Lamott, Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year

“Everybody thinks their opinion is the right one. If they didn't, they would get a new one. ”
― Anne Lamott

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”
― Anne Lamott

“Gratitude, not understanding, is the secret to joy and equanimity.”
― Anne Lamott

“If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through, you must. Otherwise, you'll just be rearranging furniture in rooms you've already been in.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“One thing I know for sure about raising children is that every single day a kid needs discipline.... But also every single day a kid needs a break.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“... the reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day. [pp. 65-66]”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“And as it turns out, if one person is praying for you, buckle up. Things can happen.”
― Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers

“This is the most profound spiritual truth I know: that even when we're most sure that love can't conquer all, it seems to anyway. It goes down into the rat hole with us, in the guise of our friends, and there it swells and comforts. It gives us second winds, third winds, hundredth winds.”
― Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

“But you are not your bank account, or your ambition. You're not the cold clay lump you leave behind when you die. You're not your collection of walking personality disorders. You are Spirit, you are love, and even though it is hard to believe sometimes, you are free. You're here to love, and be loved, freely. If you find out next week that you are terminally ill - and we're all terminally ill on this bus - what will matter are memories of beauty, that people loved you, and that you loved them.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“Now she and I sit together in her room and eat chocolate, and I tell her that in a very long time when we both to go heaven, we should try to get chairs next to each other, close to the dessert table.”
― Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

“He told me about his monster. His sounded just like mine without quite so much mascara. When people shine a little light on their monster, we find out how similar most of our monsters are.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“You can either set brick as a laborer or as an artist. You can make the work a chore, or you can have a good time. You can do it the way you used to clear the dinner dishes when you were thirteen, or you can do it as a Japanese person would perform a tea ceremony, with a level of concentration and care in which you can lose yourself, and so in which you can find yourself.”
― Anne Lamott

“For too long, and despite what people told me, I had fallen for what the culture said about beauty, youth, features, heights, weights, hair textures, upper arms.”
― Anne Lamott

“In a library, you can find small miracles and truth, and you might find something that will make you laugh so hard that you will get shushed, in the friendliest way. I have found sanctuary in libraries my whole life, and there is sanctuary there now, from the war, from the storms of our families and our own minds. Libraries are like mountains or meadows or creeks: sacred space. So this afternoon, I'll walk to the library.”
― Anne Lamott

“Let’s think of reverence as awe, as presence in and openness to the world…Try walking around with a child who’s going, ‘Wow, wow! Look at that dirty dog! Look at that burned-down house! Look at that red sky!’ And the child points, and you look, and you see, and you start going, ‘Wow! Look at that huge crazy hedge! Look at that teeny little baby! Look at the scary dark cloud!’ I think this is how we are supposed to be in the world – present and in awe.”
― Anne Lamott