Pat > Pat's Quotes

“You can either practice being right or practice being kind.”
― Anne Lamott

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

“Hope is not about proving anything. It's about choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town”
― Anne Lamott, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

“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

“Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue”
― Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

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

“Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding. Find out what you already know and you will see the way to fly.”
― Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull

“When you find yourself in a hole, quit digging.”
― Will Rogers

“Usually with life, you start wherever you are, and you flail around for a while--”
― Anne Lamott, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

“Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.”
― Anne Lamott

“I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish.”
― Anne Lamott

“Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.”
― Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

“Laughter is carbonated holiness.”
― Anne Lamott

“I don't remember who said this, but there really are places in the heart you don't even know exist until you love a child.”
― Anne Lamott, Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year

“Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back.”
― Anne Lamott

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

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

“My heart was broken and my head was just barely inhabitable”
― Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

“I liked those ladies! They were helpers, and they danced.' These are the words I want on my gravestone: that I was a helper, and that I danced.”
― Anne Lamott, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

“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

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

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

“...since you can't heal your own sick mind with your own sick mind, I needed to consult somebody else's sick mind.”
― Anne Lamott

“This is one thing they forget to mention in most child-rearing books, that at times you will just lose your mind. Period. ”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“You can tell if people are following Jesus, because they are feeding the poor, sharing their wealth, and trying to get everyone medical insurance.”
― Anne Lamott

“I'm all over the place, up and down, scattered, withdrawing, trying to find some elusive sense of serenity."
The world can't give that serenity. The world can't give us peace. We can only find it in our hearts."
I hate that."
I know. But the good news is that by the same token, the world can't take it away.”
― Anne Lamott

“You get your intuition back when you make space for it, when you stop the chattering of the rational mind. The rational mind doesn't nourish you. You assume that it gives you the truth, because the rational mind is the golden calf that this culture worships, but this is not true. Rationality squeezes out much that is rich and juicy and fascinating.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“You were loved because God loves, period. God loved you, and everyone, not because you believed in certain things, but because you were a mess, and lonely, and His or Her child. God loved you no matter how crazy you felt on the inside, no matter what a fake you were; always, even in your current condition, even before coffee. God loves you crazily, like I love you...like a slightly overweight auntie, who sees only your marvelousness and need.”
― Anne Lamott

“It's so awful, attacking your child. It's the worse thing I know, to shout loudly at this 50 lb. being with his huge trusting brown eyes. It's like bitch-slapping E.T.”
― Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith