Anne Lamott Quotes

Many people out there don't have a choice in choosing their friends and the people they're being manipulated by. Thank God, I have that choice. I can use my judgment and choose.

When you're good at controlling your own emotions, you can disguise your true feelings. When you know what others are feeling, you can tug at their heartstrings and motivate them to act against their own best interests.

I have pitfalls. I have emotional responses to things that are really not about me. They're about other people.

The head does not know how to play the part of the heart for long.

Women, when they have made a sheep of a man, always tell him that he is a lion with a will of iron.

Your mind must control, but you must have heart . . . . Give your feeling free.

People are least aware of others when demonstrating their own power over them.

I grew up around people, so I know 'em, and I do like playin' 'em. I'm not religious, but I am kind of a spiritual fanatic, so maybe I understand them in that way.

I think, over the course of one's lifetime, there are always certain core elements that are intriguing to you, and you take different looks as you get older, but it's something you keep coming back to. I've always been interested in the relationship between vulnerability and control. That's something that's a big thing for people, whoever they are, no matter how old you are. I think at different times, you're more aware than others.

Make your mind learn its way around the heart.

No one can manipulate anyone else. In any relationship, both parties know what they're doing. even if one complains later on that they were used.

Oh, I see;" said the Tin Woodman. "But, after all, brains are not the best things in the world." Have you any?" enquired the Scarecrow. No, my head is quite empty," answered the Woodman; "but once I had brains, and a heart also; so, having tried them both, I should much rather have a heart.

Comfort in expressing your emotions will allow you to share the best of yourself with others, but not being able to control your emotions will reveal your worst.

I can tell you this: I'm an extremely passionate individual. I try to be careful how I display it because you never know how people are going to take it.

I'm into people's emotional lives and relationships and the complications of living. That's my turf.

The professional must learn to be moved and touched emotionally, yet at the same time stand back objectively: I've seen a lot of damage done by tea and sympathy.

I try as best I can to enter the realm of nuances of human behavior.

What I find so interesting about people is the choices they make, and how that effects their behavior, their sense of self and their relationships.

I just think the more we're observed by other people, the less we can observe them in order to play them and find their true condition.

But some actors I have met possess an intelligence that I can only dream of. It's about character, it's about behavior. They understand things about people that I simply don't see.

The brain constantly assures us, reassures us, that we are in control. But the closer you look, the more questions you have about it.

I am affected by what is around. I don't think many people would admit that.

What I'd really like to control is not machines, but people.

I like to think of myself as kind of a sculptor, only I sculpt people.

I just think self-satisfied people ignore certain signs about other people.