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da2397d
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Help is the sunny side of control.
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Anne Lamott |
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f00a7ae
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being sober delivered almost everything drinking promised.
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sobriety
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Anne Lamott |
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a3df783
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Because for some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die. They are full of all the things that you don't..
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Anne Lamott |
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f1af955
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How are we going to get through this craziness?' I asked. There was silence for a moment. 'Left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe,' he said.
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Anne Lamott |
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f3def2a
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If courage is not there, if the possibility of things getting better is not there, listen a little harder.
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Anne Lamott |
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e10772f
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He lost the great big outward thing, the good- looking package, and the real parts endured. They shine through like crazy, the brillian mind and humor, the depth of generosity, the intense blue yes, those beautiful hands.
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looks
personality
character
charismatic
inner
mappereance
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Anne Lamott |
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6dd0a1c
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Children should not have treacherous diseases or be afraid. This should be one rule we all agree on.
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Anne Lamott |
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8cdcbe8
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Even if only the people in your writing group read your memoirs or stories or novel, even if you only wrote your story so that one day your children would know what life was like when you were a child and you knew the name of every dog in town -- still, to have written your version is an honorable thing to have done.
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Anne Lamott |
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7d78b4d
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whatever you come up with needs to suggest a voice that you are not trying to control. If you're lost in the forest, let the horse find the way home. You have to stop directing, because you will only get in the way.
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Anne Lamott |
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942ff8f
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My theory is that, as with our children, as with every surface of that geodesic dome inside the 8-Ball, every age we've ever been is who we are.
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Anne Lamott |
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ec5e8f1
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Human lives are hard, even those of health and privilege, and don't make much sense. This is the message of the Book of Job: Any snappy explanation of suffering you come up with will be horseshit. God tells Job, who wants an explanation for all his troubles, "You wouldn't understand." And we don't understand a lot of things. But we learn that people are very disappointing, and that they break our hearts, and that very sweet people will be b..
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Anne Lamott |
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adf18ea
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San Quentin's is the safest beach in the world. We're not talking about lifeguards here who might yell at someone who's being rude-we're talking about armed guards, in watchtowers, two blocks away.
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Anne Lamott |
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9d44dd4
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I was frozen like in a dream when your feet weigh fifty pounds each and the danger is almost upon you.
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Anne Lamott |
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225d9ce
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Rosie [her teenage daughter] had a secret life now, was putting together her own tribe, finding her identity there, and it was great to see, and it hurt like hell.
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Anne Lamott |
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73bc196
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There is cracks, cracks, in everything, that's how the light gets in.' I had cracks but not the hope.
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Anne Lamott |
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8db5066
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It can be too sad here. We so often lose our way.
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Anne Lamott |
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92d3c4c
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This is how we make important changes-- barely, poorly, slowly.
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Anne Lamott |
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2de6f68
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It's like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can't stop the raging storm, but singing
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Anne Lamott |
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3fd299b
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I bet I'm beginning to make some parents nervous - here I am, bragging of being a dropout, and unemployable, and about to make a pitch for you to follow your creative dreams, when what parents want is for their children to do well in their field, to make them look good, and maybe also to assemble a tasteful fortune . . . But that is not your problem. Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been is..
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Anne Lamott |
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ddb1d95
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She lived in fear of ifonic endings. (91)
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irony
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Anne Lamott |
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7fd6013
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I kept my expectations low, which is one of the secrets of life.
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secret
life
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Anne Lamott |
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cccdcb5
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My parents, teachers, and the culture I grew up in showed me a drawer in which to stuff my merciful nature, because mercy made me look vulnerable and foolish, and it made me less productive.
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Anne Lamott |
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a3a80c2
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Every one of us sometimes needs a tour guide to remind us how big and deep life is meant to be.
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Anne Lamott |
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27c0ca2
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The Dalai Lama said that "religion is like going out to dinner with friends. Everyone may order something different, but everyone can still sit at the same table."
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Anne Lamott |
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9e19a44
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Mercy means that we no longer constantly judge everybody's large and tiny failures, foolish hearts, dubious convictions, and inevitable bad behavior. We will never do this perfectly, but how do we do it better?
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Anne Lamott |
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d57ae45
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when a lot of things start going wrong all at once, it is to protect something big and lovely that is trying to get itself born--and that this something needs for you to be distracted so that it can be born as perfectly as possible.
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Anne Lamott |
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4fad635
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What you're looking for is already inside you..You can't buy it, lease it, rent it, date it, or apply for it. The best job in the world can't give it to you. Neither can success, or fame, or financial security.
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Anne Lamott |
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442132c
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Books! To fling myself into a book, to be carried away to another world while being at my most grounded, on my butt or in my bed or favorite chair is literally how I have survived being here at all.
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Anne Lamott |
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1a445b1
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What seems true is that something in life, on the highways or in our hearts, is always being installed, or being repaired, or being torn down for the next installation.
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Anne Lamott |
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a4b2144
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I have become the woman I hardly dared imagine I could be. There are parts I don't love--until a few years ago, I had no idea that you could have cellulite on your stomach--but not only do I get along with me most of the time now, I am militantly and maternally on my own side. Left to my own devices, would I trade this for firm thighs, fewer wrinkles, a better memory? You bet I would. That is why it's such a blessing that I'm not left to my..
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women
grace
aging
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Anne Lamott |
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ed43814
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Mercy is radical kindness. Mercy means offering or being offered aid in desperate straits. Mercy is not deserved. It involves absolving the unabsolvable, forgiving the unforgivable. Mercy brings us to the miracle of apology, given and accepted, to unashamed humility when we have erred or forgotten.
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Anne Lamott |
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efcd9ca
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I prayed for my heart to soften, to forgive her, and love her for what she did give me--life, great values, a lot of tennis lessons, and the best she could do. Unfortunately, the best she could do was terrible, thee the Minister of Silly Walks trying to raise an extremely sensitive young girl, and my heart remained hardened toward her. [p. 46]
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Anne Lamott |
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1b13cb0
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I do believe that God is with us even when we're at our craziest and that this goodness guides, provides, and protects.
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Anne Lamott |
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94e55a7
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You lose the known package of your nice organized self almost instantly here. Overeating is one way back, the way it is at funerals at home.
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Anne Lamott |
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7150b33
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Although when I mentioned this to my priest friend Tom, he said 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.)
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Anne Lamott |
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b3556a6
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Then it came to me: I was asking the wrong question. The right one is: Where is God in gang warfare? And the answer is, The same place God is in Darfur, and in our alcoholism, and when children are bullied: being crucified.
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Anne Lamott |
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284da6d
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When we agree to (or get tricked into) being part of something bigger than our own wired, fixated minds, we are saved. When we search for something larger than our own selves to hook into, we can come through whatever life throws at us.
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Anne Lamott |
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783119c
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They taught me that being of service, an ally to the lonely and suffering, a big-girl helper to underdogs, was my best shot at happiness. They taught me that most of my good ideas were not helpful, and that all of my ideas after ten p.m. were especially unhelpful. They taught me to pay attention, but not so much attention to my tiny princess mind.
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Anne Lamott |
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a9bf327
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Rosie had been a little girl with a dead dad, and there was no getting around that or over that. Even a drunk dad, even an asshole, was better than a dead dad, which shouldn't reflect on you but did, and left a cannon hole in your heart. [p. 121]
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Anne Lamott |
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0ace0c6
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I was raised by my parents to believe that you had a moral obligation to try and save the world. You sent money to the Red Cross, you registered people to vote, you marched in rallies, stood in vigils, picked up litter.
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Anne Lamott |
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cd56765
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Human lives are hard, even those of health and privilege, and don't make much sense. This is the message of the Book of Job: Any snappy explanation of suffering you come up with will be horseshit. God tells Job, who wants an explanation for all his troubles, "You wouldn't understand."
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Anne Lamott |
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fad389d
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This is where I liked to be when I was hangover or coming down off a cocaine binge, here in the dust with all these dusty people, all this liveliness and clutter and color, things for sale to cheer me up, and greasy food that would slip down by throat.
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Anne Lamott |
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2710b64
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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.
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Anne Lamott |
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455d06d
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I tell my students that the odds of their getting published and of it bringing them financial security, peace of mind, and even joy are probably not that great. Ruin, hysteria, bad skin, unsightly tics, ugly financial problems, maybe; but probably not peace of mind. I tell them that I think they ought to write anyway.
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Anne Lamott |