Anne Lamott Quotes

Forgiveness means that you do not carry the baggage of an experience.

Forgiveness is first for you, the forgiver...to release you from something that will eat you alive; that will destroy your joy and your ability to love fully and openly. Do you think this man cares about the pain and torment you have gone through? If anything, he feeds on that knowledge. Don't you want to cut that off? And in doing so, you'll release him from a burden that he carries whether he knows it or not--acknowledges it or not.

Forgiveness has its comforts, but it can never give you back what you've lost.

Most of us need time to work through pain and loss. We can find all manner of reasons for postponing forgiveness. One of these reasons is waiting for the wrongdoers to repent before we forgive them. Yet such a delay causes us to forfeit the peace and happiness that could be ours.

The most important thing that I learned in growing up is that forgiveness is something that, when you do it, you free yourself to move on.

If there are people you haven't forgiven, you're not going to really awaken. You have to let go.

You don't have to move on to let go.

The very person you find it hardest to forgive is the one you need to let go of the most. Forgiveness means letting go. It has nothing to do with condoning behavior, it's just letting the whole thing go. We do not have to know how to forgive. All we need to do is be willing to forgive. The Universe will take care of the hows.

When we have painful memories from hurting experiences, we may feel justified in holding on to the resentment. But resentment is corrosive. It doesn't affect the person we feel anger toward, it destroys the host.

Forgiveness means accepting what is or what has been and becoming willing to see it differently. You cannot un-hear what you have heard or un-see what you have seen. What you can do is stop believing that what occurred has somehow left you broken, damaged and wounded. While forgiveness ain’t easy, it’s the most important inner work you can do within your mind and heart.

To forgive is to abandon your right to pay back the predator in his own coin, but it is the loss that Liberates.

Forgiving the past means remembering the love there, and releasing all the rest as the illusion that it really was.

Forgiving isn't something you do for someone else. It's something you do for yourself. It's saying, 'You're not important enough to have a stranglehold on me.' It's saying, 'You don't get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future.

You don't rest well as long as you're seeking vengeance. I feel sad justice wasn't done, but it's time to move on and sleep well.

Many people want payback and to see others suffer. Forgiveness is the key to freedom. You can choose to be enslaved and burdened or you can choose to be free. It's a choice. Forgiveness is a state of being. So once you do it, it alters who you are and the way you can be in the world.

The worst part of all is that, without forgiveness, bitterness is all that is left

Forgiveness isn't about letting the other person off the hook - it's about releasing ourselves.

When you haven't forgiven those who've hurt you, you turn back against your future. When you do forgive, you start walking forward.

Forgive everybody for everything. Just forgive and start - most of us can't start with ourselves. We have to forgive the people we think did things to us. So that's fine. Start there - wherever. Start with the dog who peed on the rug. I don't care where you start, just do it.

Holding on to anger, resentment and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life.

Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself.

If you're betrayed, release disappointment at once. By that way, the bitterness has no time to take root.

Revenge is a caustic thing. I say, Breathe in, breathe deeply, let it go.

I always tell myself that nothing ever is worth holding onto if it hurt you, because the longer you hold onto anger and resentment, the longer you feed it and keep it alive.

Reconciliation and forgiveness can actually help all of us move on in a healthier, happier way.