Anne Lamott Quotes

I think everyone has shame about something, whether it's a lack of a relationship with a child or maybe their weight or a lack of communication within their marriage. Everyone can relate to that because we all have something that we're like, 'God, I can work on that,' or, 'I wish I was better at doing this.'

I'm not a terrible person, I know that, but sometimes in a relationship, I can be crappy.

I am most proud of my integrity and least proud of my cynicism.

You will always move toward anyone who increases you and away from anyone who makes you less.

There must have been something in my nature - I believe, with all my heart, that I have conquered it now - which prevented me from being perfectly happy or making a woman perfectly happy.

As you learn who you are, you can better surround yourself with friends who make you a better person, and that sometimes only happens when you disassemble old relationships.

I think I'm prone to not being a good guy in relationships.

It would have been nice for Greg to eventually grow into a mature relationship with Laura. He was moving toward that already but then took a turn into the juvenile with Paige.

I just think that sometimes we hang onto people or relationships long after they've ceased to be of any use to either of you.

I have a knack for choosing the wrong people.

My failings are the result of my own inter-personal abilities. I am not a good husband or boyfriend.

When wrong people leave your life, wrong things stop happening

Relationships help you learn more about what you want. If one doesn't work out, you just kind of look at it and go, Okay, well, this is what I did like and this is what I didn't like, and this is what I did wrong, and maybe I need to be more like this. And so you learn things, and that's why you grow. And you bring all the stuff that you've changed about yourself to a new relationship until you finally find that person you really, really want.

I am not fit to marry. I am often cross, and I like my own way, and I have a distaste for men.

I criticize myself ruthlessly, but never mention the faults of which I am truly ashamed.

Trying to “fix” the people in your life that cause you pain is like massaging your shoes because your feet ache.

She was reaching the limits of how much its possible to change a man

Reflect upon the defects of your character: thoroughly realize their evils and the transient pleasures they give you, and firmly will that you shall try your best not to yield to them the next time.

No one is born without vices, and he is the best man who is encumbered with the least.

It took a very long time to really enjoy an audition, and to get in the room and do the best that I can. I've just been deeply grateful for my career, and that the love for the work and the characters is alive still. I try to let go of the armor as much as possible and not be afraid.

Marriage doesn't create problems. It reveals them. You bring unresolved stuff into it.

But I think it is hardly an argument against a man's general strength of character, that he should be apt to be mastered by love. A fine constitution doesn't insure one against small-pox or any other of those inevitable diseases. A man may be very firm in other matters, and yet be under a sort of witchery from a woman.

... one's own faults are always a heavy chain to drag through life and one can't help groaning under the weight now and then.

There's a lot of me in it. But the character is more egotistical. I'm also egotistical, but not the way the character is. This guy is successful, he has everything, but his wife has left him. The most important value - love - is missing. What is wrong with this institution called 'marriage'? What is wrong with this institution called 'the pursuit of happiness'?

The true hero is flawed. The true test of a champion is not whether he can triumph, but whether he can overcome obstacles - preferably of his own making - in order to triumph.