Anne Lamott Quotes

Most of me was glad when my mother died. She was a handful, but not in a cute, festive way. More in a life-threatening way, that had caused me a long time ago to give up all hope of ever feeling good about having had her as a mother.

My mother had a very difficult childhood, having seen her own mother kill herself. So she didn't always know how to be the nurturing mother that we all expect we should have.

I know I was very unstable and unhappy all through my life. I lost my mother and then my father. Losing Dad was like losing the bearings of my life. My sisters took it badly, but I took it worse. Throughout my lean phases, Dad was like a solid rock, supporting me, whether it was work, or my jail term.

My family's messed up, for real.

I got a mother who's very strong after taking the whippings that she took from my father.

When I was 19 years old, both of my parents died in the same year; my mom of cancer and my dad in a car accident. Through the next two or three years and a series of bad decisions - all my own, I might add - I ended up literally homeless, before that was even a word. I even slept occasionally under a pier on the Gulf Coast.

I did not realize how broken I was until I saw how broken Mama was.

It's... a hard thing for a director, to think you came up with a shot, something from your mind, and someone died while doing it. It's the worst thing you'll ever have to live with. It was very hard for me to get back on the horse again.

I forgive my mom for being a psycho and my dad for being a loser.

Talk about your negative experiences with the father, with your girlfriends. Not with your children. And bite your tongue when it comes to diminishing, denying, dismissing, name-calling.

I lost my mother and my brother when I was 15 in two separate car accidents. I was doing well at school. I was a good sportsperson, but at that point, I gave up on all of those things that were there to be done. I couldn't deal with them.

My father was a very unhappy person, very sarcastic, and my mother was very nervous and worried about what people thought. They weren't monsters, but it wasn't a good childhood.

I'm working on my relationship with my mother and father, but my upbringing has been very destructive.

I hated my father long before I knew there was a word for hate.

The flip side of suicide is that it leaves a lingering question in the minds of the people who survived. It's like a cancer that's metastasized. The suicide is the cancer and the metastasis is all these people saying, Why? Why? Why?

It's no wonder the narcissistic mother will always have a place in literature: she's a freak of nature.

I don't think I've ever put it in words before. But daddy took a gun and ended his life and took momma's with him.

I had a very angry father and was disconnected from my family.

My father was absolutely no good.

In 2008, while the film version of my book 'Choke' was coming to market, my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. That meant that I had to appear in public to promote a comedy about a son trying to save his dying mother - the plot of Choke - while privately I was caring for my own dying mother. It was torture.

The main cause of my difficulties stemmed from the tragedy of my daughter's unsound birth and my inability to face my feelings.

The real demon in my life is my father.

'Eyes Wide Open' took shape from two real life events straight from my own past. One was the sad suicide of my young nephew, a troubled kid, who was found at the bottom of a landmark cliff in central California. The second was a chance encounter forty years ago with none other than, ahem, Charles Manson!

I think that when something happens when you're growing up, like a death or divorce, it does open the world slightly because things aren't as straightforward.

It just broke my heart, and I had to get away from it. I love them to death, but they know how bad it got. It's not their fault, but I couldn't do that any longer.