Anne Lamott is a famous American novelist, non-fiction writer, political activist, speaker and writing teacher from California.
Born on April 10, 1954, she is known for her self-deprecating humor and openness, addressing topics like alcoholism, single-motherhood, depression and Christianity in her works, including “Hard Laughter,” “Operating Instructions,” and “Bird by Bird.”
Referred to as the “People’s Author,” her life was documented in a 1999 documentary.
She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1985 and was inducted into the California Hall of Fame in 2010.
In 2019, she married Neal Allen, a former vice president at McKesson Corporation.
Lamott’s works focus on real lives, human hearts, spiritual transformation and humor.
In this article, I have picked the top quotes by Anne Lamott.
Anne Lamott Quotes
Expectations are resentments under construction. ~ Anne Lamott.
Right foot, left foot, right foot, breathe. ~ Anne Lamott.
Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers. ~ Anne Lamott.
All freedom comes from discipline. ~ Anne Lamott.
It’s better to be kind than to be right. ~ Anne Lamott.
I’m here to be me, which is taking a great deal longer than I had hoped. ~ Anne Lamott.
Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor. ~ Anne Lamott.
Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor; the enemy of the people. It will keep you insane your whole life. ~ Anne Lamott.
Best Anne Lamott Quotes
The opposite of faith is not doubt, it’s certainty. ~ Anne Lamott.
Hope begins in the dark. ~ Anne Lamott.
Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining. ~ Anne Lamott.
Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird. ~ Anne Lamott.
It’s good to do uncomfortable things. It’s weight training for life. ~ Anne Lamott.
You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town. ~ Anne Lamott.
Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you. ~ Anne Lamott.
The truth of my experience is that we are all a lot more alike than we are different. ~ Anne Lamott.
A good marriage is where both people feel like they’re getting the better end of the deal. ~ Anne Lamott.
Great Anne Lamott Quotes
Radical self-care is quantum, and radiates out into the atmosphere, like a little fresh air. ~ Anne Lamott.
Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. ~ Anne Lamott.
You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. ~ Anne Lamott.
You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better. ~ Anne Lamott.
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.
Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. ~ Anne Lamott.
We are not here to see through one another, but to see one another through. ~ Anne Lamott.
Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back. ~ Anne Lamott.
Thoughtful Anne Lamott Quotes
In fact, not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die. ~ Anne Lamott.
It’s a great time to be alive. ~ Anne Lamott.
I can tell you that what you’re looking for is already inside you. ~ Anne Lamott.
Gratitude, not understanding, is the secret to joy and equanimity. ~ Anne Lamott.
Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns. ~ Anne Lamott.
I wish grace and healing were more abracadabra kind of things. Also, that delicate silver bells would ring to announce grace’s arrival. But no, it’s clog and slog and scootch, on the floor, in the silence, in the dark. ~ Anne Lamott.
Rest and laughter are the most spiritual and subversive acts of all. Laugh, rest, slow down. ~ Anne Lamott.
I believe that discipline and self-love are the total secrets to freedom. ~ Anne Lamott.
The reason ‘help’ is such a great prayer is that God is the gift of desperation. When you’re in despair, you’re teachable. ~ Anne Lamott.
Powerful Anne Lamott Quotes
Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back. You’re done. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you want to have lunch with the person. If you keep hitting back, you stay trapped in the nightmare… ~ Anne Lamott.
Gratitude begins in our hearts and then dovetails into behavior. It almost always makes you willing to be of service, which is where the joy resides. ~ Anne Lamott.
My best teachers were mess, failure, death, mistakes, and the people I hated, including myself. ~ Anne Lamott.
There is nothing as sweet as a comeback, when you are down and out, about to lose, and out of time. ~ Anne Lamott.
The difference between you and God is that God doesn’t think He’s you. ~ Anne Lamott.
I love silence. I seek and create it at every opportunity. I need it to work. ~ Anne Lamott.
We begin to find and become ourselves when we notice how we are already found, already truly, entirely, wildly, messily, marvelously who we were born to be. ~ Anne Lamott.
You can either practice being right or practice being kind. ~ Anne Lamott.
Write regularly, whether you feel like writing or not, and whether you think what you’re writing is any good or not. ~ Anne Lamott.
We write to expose the unexposed. If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through, you must. The writer’s job is to turn the unspeakable into words – not just into any words, but if we can, into rhythm and blues. ~ Anne Lamott.
Wise Anne Lamott Quotes
Dogs are the closest we come to knowing the divine love of God on this side of eternity. ~ Anne Lamott.
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.
But grace can be the experience of a second wind, when even though what you want is clarity and resolution, what you get is stamina and poignancy and the strength to hang on. ~ Anne Lamott.
A hundred years from now? All new people. ~ Anne Lamott.
Perfection is shallow, unreal, and fatally uninteresting. ~ Anne Lamott.
Pay attention to the beauty surrounding you. ~ Anne Lamott.
Radical self-care is what we’ve been longing for, desperate for, our entire lives-friendship with our own hearts. ~ Anne Lamott.
You don’t always have to chop with the sword of truth. You can point with it too. ~ Anne Lamott.
Never compare your insides to everyone else’s outsides. ~ Anne Lamott.
Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship. ~ Anne Lamott.
When God is going to do something wonderful, He or She always starts with a hardship; when God is going to do something amazing, He or She starts with an impossibility. ~ Anne Lamott.
