Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Anne Lamott

Quote by Anne Lamott

“In response to her son, Sam Lamott, who said, " My Mom will start at 'A' on a question and just end at 'Z' so if we can get a time cop for like five minutes, do a timer, then we'll get out of here a lot earlier." Anne Lamott replied, "Well he's also worried that I don't make sense. I think in terms of tangents, and that's what I love, and those are the singers and the writers that I love, and the poets. I love to start with one thing, start with some leaves in the garden, and kind of trip out, and go, really far, into where we go, and we are...that's how I think. I was a spaced-out child... I was this way at six. I was spaced-out, and I was absent-minded, and maybe was long-winded, and I had all these tangents going. But that's what story tellers do, Sam. You have four or five balls in the air, and or three or four of those plates, you have some plates in the air, and that's what a good novelist is doing, keeping the plates in the air.”

Quote by Anne Lamott

Create image

Author

Anne Lamott
Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott is an American novelist born on April 10, 1954. Her works are known for their humor, directness, and profound emotional depth, primarily exploring themes of family, faith, and self-discovery. more

You May Also Like

“It wasn't that I gave up on her healing, but, as she continued to struggle to get in the door and actively needed her self-hatred to stay functional, I began to realize more deeply that her patterns had meaning and that it wasn't useful for me to predetermine what recovery might look like for her.”

HealingSelf LoveResistanceSelf AcceptancePresenceSelf HatredSelf HarmRadical AcceptancePsychological Safety
Book:The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships
Create image

“You want to lash out at the parts of your self that seem to hold you back. At moments like that, it's important to be able to sit down and speak gently within yourself, as if saying a prayer or reading a poem. Whichever part of you is unhappy, reassure it: accept your many selves, and allow them to speak both to you and to each other.”

Self AcceptancePluralitySelf KindnessConfigurations Of SelfPlural Self
Book:The Poetry Pharmacy Returns: More Prescriptions for Courage, Healing and Hope
Create image

“It is rather paradoxical for our task-focused self when it isn't the quality of the practice, but our honest and humble acceptance of the emerging moment, that prepares us for nonjudgemental, agendaless presence with another. Being kind to ourselves can be helpful as we seek to practice this way of being, because it places us at cross-purposes with our culture, where performance and improvement are so valued and the limits and variability of our humanness are cause for criticism and correction. Many aspects of our training as well as our everyday experience in this society urge us to take control to achieve a particular result, and this can become so implicitly ingrained that it feels wrong to sink toward our innate humanity. Again, just listening with kindness to the competing voices inside is good preparation for extending this attentiveness and kindness to all aspects of the person about to come in our door.”

WelcomeControlSelf AcceptanceImperfectionPresenceTrauma HealingOpen HeartednessSelf Compassion For Therapists
Book:The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships
Create image

“Between each meeting, I usually feel drawn to do a brief practice to let go of what was experienced and settle into the felt sense of opening into receptivity. It begins with rooting my feet into the stability of the earth; then listening to the sensations of my muscles, belly and heart with no intent to change anything; glancing upwards at the spaciousness of the sky as the complement to the solidity beneath my feet; following the flow of my in-breath and out-breath a couple of times, again with no intention to shift anything but just listen and experience; and opening into a bowl of receptivity, which may feel like an expansion and quieting of my heart. The experience is different every time. Sometimes there is pervasive distraction, sometimes a wish to change the tension in my muscles or the depth of my breath, sometimes judgement about how I'm doing this practice, and sometimes it flows like a sweet river. Most important is being present to what is with as little judgement as possible, even when this means being present to judgement itself. That level of acceptance, much more than the quality of the practice itself, is what can prepare us to receive our person with the same quality of attending.”

Self AcceptanceTherapist Self CareEmpathy MedititationGrounding MeditationSelf Compassion MeditationTherapy TransitionTransition Meditation
Book:The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships
Create image