Quotes by Writing I don't think you have time to waste not writing because you are afraid you won't be good at it. Anne Lamott wastewritingthinking Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something-anything-down on paper. A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft-you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft-you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it's loose or cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy. Anne Lamott efforthealthywriting If you are hoping to find your self-worth and fulfillment in other peoples' opinion of your writing, you will never find it. Anne Lamott opinionself-worthwriting There is a door we all want to walk through and writing can help you find it and open it. Anne Lamott wantwritingdoors Over and over I feel as if my characters know who they are, and what happens to them, and where they have been and where they will go, and what they are capable of doing, but they need me to write it down for them because their handwriting is so bad. Anne Lamott writingcharacterneeds The best thing about being an artist, instead of a madman or someone who writes letters to the editor, is that you get to engage in satisfying work. Even if you never publish a word, you have something important to pour yourself into. Anne Lamott editorsartistwriting Writing can be a pretty desperate endeavor, because it is about some of our deepest needs: our need to be visible, to be heard, our need to make sense of our lives, to wake up and grow and belong. It is no wonder if we sometimes tend to take ourselves perhaps a bit too seriously. Anne Lamott wake-upwritingneeds Dialogue that is written in dialect is very tiring to read. If you can do it brilliantly, fine. If other writers read your work and rave about your use of dialect, go for it. But be positive that you do it well, because otherwise it is a lot of work to read short stories or novels that are written in dialect. It makes our necks feel funny. Anne Lamott dialectbeing-positivewriting I write because writing is the gift God has given me to help people in the world. Anne Lamott writingpeopleworld This is our goal as writers, I think; to help others have this sense of--please forgive me--wonder, of seeing things anew, things that can catch us off guard, that break in on our small, bordered worlds. Anne Lamott helping-otherswritingthinking Being a writer is part of a noble tradition, as is being a musician – the last egalitarian and open associations. No matter what happens in terms of fame and fortune, dedication to writing is a marching-step forward from where you were before, when you didn’t care about reaching out to the world, when you weren’t hoping to contribute, when you were just standing there doing some job into which you had fallen. Anne Lamott dedicationwritingjobs Don’t underestimate this gift of finding a place in the writing world: if you really work at describing creatively on paper the truth as you understand it, as you have experienced it, with the people or material who are in you, who are asking that you help them get written, you will come to a secret feeling of honor. Anne Lamott feelingswritingpeople 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. Anne Lamott caringrealwriting 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 hatewritingthinking The stuff I write about is pretty universal, the things my closest friends and I talk about - our anxiety about being here on this scary planet, during these scary times, as vulnerable as kittens, having lost so many people I couldn't live without. Anne Lamott anxietywritingpeople I don't see myself as a deep philosopher. The things I write about tend to be what we all have to face, or consider, or experience, that I talk about with my friends and brothers. It's universal stuff, told in my own voice, my own details and truth, which is all I have to offer. Anne Lamott voicebrotherwriting My experience as a writer is that you really do write seven and eight pages to find the paragraph you were after all along. Anne Lamott eightpageswriting My father really taught me that you really develop the habit of writing and you sit down at the same time every day, you don't wait for inspiration. Anne Lamott inspirationwritingfather My father was a writer, so I grew up writing and reading and I was really encouraged by him. Anne Lamott readingwritingfather My dad was an editor and a writer, and that's really where I would have liked to have gone. But the genetic link was not intact there, so I wound up going into business. But I love to write, still. I'm not a great writer, but I enjoy it. Anne M. 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