When you pray, you are not starting the conversation from scratch, just remembering to plug back into a conversation that's always in progress. Anne Lamott More Quotes by Anne Lamott More Quotes From Anne Lamott If you fixate on the big picture, the whole shebang, the overview, you miss the stitching. Anne Lamott big-picture bigs missing 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 spiritual wind giving 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 mind patience trying Mostly what happens in the novels never happened in real life. Anne Lamott happened novel real I'm one of those religious people who are afraid of everything. I'm instantly worried about everything that could go wrong. Anne Lamott worried religious people We want a sense that an important character, like a narrator, is reliable. We want to believe that a character is not playing ages or being coy or being manipulative, but is telling the truth to the best of his or her ability...We do not wish to be crudely manipulated...We want to be massaged by a masseur, not whapped by a carpet beater. Anne Lamott wish character believe If you have a body, you are entitled to the full range of feelings. It comes with the package. Anne Lamott range body feelings Being a parent is absolutely exhausting and draining, along with all the joy and love. Anne Lamott and-love parent joy ... everyone has come to understand that unconditional love is a reality, but with as shelf life of about eight to ten seconds. [p. 110] Anne Lamott unconditional-love love-is reality I don't write about the intimate details of my cousins and aunts and uncles, and my mother and my father because it's not right to, for me. Anne Lamott cousin uncles mother Tell the truth as you understand it. If you're a writer, you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act - truth is always subversive. Anne Lamott moral revolutionary truth My idea of everything going smoothly on an airplane is (a) that I not die in a slow-motion fiery crash or get stabbed to death by terrorists and (b) that none of the other passengers try to talk to me. All conversation should end at the moment the wheels leave the ground. Anne Lamott airplane flying ideas I've seen prayers answered. But often, in my experiences, if you get what you pray for, you've really shortchanged yourself. Anne Lamott ifs praying prayer So a moral position is not a message. A moral position is a passionate caring inside you. Anne Lamott passionate caring messages Sometimes grace is a ribbon of mountain air that gets in through the cracks. Anne Lamott mountain grace air These are pictures of the people in my family where we look like the most awkward and desperate folk you ever saw, poster children for the human condition. Anne Lamott awkward children people A man dies and goes to heaven. He is being shown around by an angel. Everything is just so sweet and gentle, the total golden tender presence of God everywhere, a pond over there, a beautiful field there, and some hills for people who like to hike, and this expansiveness in every direction of sky and light and physical beauty. And there is this section separated from the rest; it has beautiful high walls. The man who's just come to heaven says, "What's over there?" The angel says, "That's for the fundamentalists. They don't consider it heaven if anyone else got in. Anne Lamott wall beautiful sweet butterflies were wind energy made visible. Anne Lamott butterfly energy wind There are these people who keep taking you in and feeding you and loving you and making the world a tiny bit safer than it feels. People have community and family, but existentially we are deeply isolated. Anne Lamott loving-you community people There is nothing more touching to me then a family picture where everyone is trying to look his or her best, but you can see what a mess they all really are. Anne Lamott touching trying looks
