Shelby > Shelby's Quotes

“What the American public wants in the theater is a tragedy with a happy ending.”
― William Dean Howells

“Never fear quarrels, but seek hazardous adventures.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers

“There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life.
" Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget, that until the day God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words, 'Wait and Hope.”
― Alexandre Dumas

“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

“Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a better past.”
― Anne Lamott

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

“I heard a preacher say recently that hope is a revolutionary patience; let me add that so is being a writer. Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“Your problem is how you are going to spend this one and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are.”
― Anne Lamott

“Certainty is missing the point entirely.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“I never had a particularly strong craving to procreate, except for earlier fantasies of wanting to be Marmee in Little Women.”
― Anne Lamott

“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“I think joy and sweetness and affection are a spiritual path. We're here to know God, to love and serve God, and to be blown away by the beauty and miracle of nature. You just have to get rid of so much baggage to be light enough to dance, to sing, to play. You don't have time to carry grudges; you don't have time to cling to the need to be right.”
― Anne Lamott

“Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious. When you're conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader. He or she will recognize his or her life and truth in what you say, in the pictures you have painted, and this decreases the terrible sense of isolation that we have all had too much of.”
― Anne Lamott

“Laughter is carbonated holiness.”
― Anne Lamott

“I am all the ages I've ever been.”
― Anne Lamott

“God sent Jesus to join the human experience, which means to make a lot of mistakes. Jesus didn't arrive here knowing how to walk. He had fingers and toes, confusion, sexual feelings, crazy human internal processes. He had the same prejudices as the rest of his tribe: he had to learn that the Canaanite woman was a person. He had to suffer the hardships and tedium and setbacks of being a regular person. If he hadn't the incarnation would mean nothing.”
― Anne Lamott, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith