Anne Lamott Quotes

'The Night Watch' is a beautiful story about the pains of dealing with what you are.

...assume that art begins in unhappiness. True, the goal of art is to convey a vision of coherence and peace, but the effort to develop that vision starts in the more common experience of confusion and pain.

O wretched state! O bosom black as death! O limed soul that, struggling to be free, art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay! Bow, stubborn knees! and, heart with strings of steel, be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!

When I am halfway there with a painting, it can occasionally be thrilling... But it happens very rarely; usually it's agony... I go to great pains to mask the agony. But the struggle is there. It's the invisible enemy.

That love is a conflict seems to me obvious and natural. There isn't a single worthwhile work in world literature based on love that is only about the conquest of happiness, the effort to arrive at what we call love. It's the struggle that has always interested those who produce works of art - literature, cinema or poetry.

Working in the arts, you see people who come from terrible circumstances and who, for whatever reason, have incredible talent. But of course, with that great talent comes some guilt because, if you come from circumstances that don't encourage it, it can be really confusing.

Every artist has his or her struggle to work out in their work. The more powerful the struggle, the more persuasive the art.

All the trials we endure cannot be compared to these interior battles.

It is the moment when our resolution seems about to become irrevocable--when the fatal iron gates are about to close upon us--that tests our strength. Then, after hours of clear reasoning and firm conviction, we snatch at any sophistry that will nullify our long struggles, and bring us the defeat that we love better than victory.

I am weary of personal worrying, in love with the art of madness.

No flower of art ever fully blossomed save it was nourished by tears of agony.

The organic laws of construction tangled me in my desires, and only with great pain, effort, and struggle did I break through these 'walls around art.

Music is probably the only place I get energy from. Music and maybe watching a really tremendous performer, watching a terrific performer like Jagger or watching a great movie.

I have so little mastered the art of tranquil living that wherever I go I trail storm clouds of drama around me.

Of all human struggles there is none so treacherous and remorseless as the struggle between the artist man and the mother woman.

You always wrestle with depression, you always wrestle with those things, because the events and the experiences are still there, and the things that take place are still happening.

In youth there are always two forces fighting in people. The warm unthinking little animal struggles against the thing that reflects and remembers

Of course he was a part of what I hated about myself. Everything was a part of what I hated about myself. It wasn't really personal.

But perhaps my art is the art of a lunatic, I thought, mere glittering quicksilver, a blue soul breaking in upon my pictures.

Basically, I thought for a very long time that making music and art projects, that that was just something that I did, and real life was separate. And I'm starting to realize that the things that I do, making music and art and photography and all that, it's not just something that I do. It's who I am. So I don't think I'll ever be able to stop. It's like that curse that you live with, this thing that you love but you also hate it at the same time. It brings you a lot of joy but also a lot of heartbreak.

Our rages, daughters of despair, creep and squirm like worms. Prayer is the only form of revolt which remains upright.

With stammering lips and insufficient sound I strive and struggle to deliver right the music of my nature.

Darkness is a lot of what art is and certainly in our community a lot of it is people sort of wrestling with their demons.

With my art, it's the one thing that I know will outlive me and outlive my feelings. It will outlive my depressive seasons.