Anne Lamott Quotes

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.

Reading has always been life unwrapped to me, a way of understanding the world and understanding myself through both the unknown and the everyday. If being a parent consists often of passing along chunks of ourselves to unwitting-often unwilling-recipients, then books are, for me, one of the simplest and most sure-fire ways of doing that.

Getting to know someone else involves curiosity about where they have come from, who they are.

A story about my life should not be particularly interesting, but it is: it's just about me and some kids who didn't know how to talk to each other. It's personal but not autobiographical.

Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.

I'm curious about people. That's what I've always done since I've been a small boy. I'm curious about others.

Friendship... is not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything.

My story of success and failure is not just about music and being famous. It's about living and loving and trying to find purpose in this crazy world.

Those who write about life, reflect about life. you see in others who you are.

Part of adulthood is searching for the people who understand you.

The more kindness and justice are challenged, the more we must embrace them. Only when you are challenged - and only when you challenge yourself - do you discover what truly matters.

Experience is how life catches up with us and teaches us to love and forgive each other.

Only in Relationship can you know yourself, not in abstraction and certainly not in isolation. The movement of behavior is the sure guide to yourself. It's the mirror of your consciousness; this mirror will reveal its content, the images, the attachments, the fears, the loneliness, the joy and sorrow. Poverty lies in running away from this, either in its sublimations or its identities.

I can't remember the last book that taught me so much, and so well, about what it means to be human.

We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel... is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become.

Read for fun, read for information, read in order to understand yourself and other people with quite different ideas. Learn about the world beyond your door. Learn to be compassionate and grow in wisdom. Books can help us in all these ways.

You can get spiritual things out of books and stories and they have nothing to do with religion.

We read books to find out who we are.

It's so funny, you go to acting school thinking you're going to learn how to be other people, but really it taught me how to be myself. Because it's in understanding yourself deeply that you can lend yourself to another person's circumstances and another person's experience.

I've never been interested in things that sparkle and shine; I'm more interested in people.

I'm insatiably curious about human nature.

A man doesn't have to have all the answers; children will teach him how to parent them, and in the process will teach him everything he needs to know about life.

I have the luxury of being a little boy... To me, the most important thing in life is to be a human being. Second is acting.

People are people, and they want to know about their own experiences.

I used to think, 'How can I write my life story? I'm still living it.'