Anne Lamott Quotes

All I have are the people.

I don't want to be alone my whole life. It is much more fun to share what you have than to have it to yourself. And it isn't like I don't have love in my life. I have a lot of friends who love me and who I love.

At the risk of sounding like a spoilsport, I'd say that pagans have about the same experience of otherness and isolation as anyone else. We're not special in that regard. But this is because the problem of loneliness is almost universal - and that, to my mind, makes it much more serious.

I've been in Los Angeles for a while, and the kind of psychological connection that one makes to people, it just doesn't happen out here.

You can be much more alone with other people than you are by yourself. Even if it's people you love.

Understand that everybody has their own struggles, regardless of whether you can see it or not. Just surround yourself with the people who love you, and know you're not really alone.

I have always been very interested in the idea of loneliness and the presumption that romantic relationships are supposed to rid you of that.

The most profound question is, "What would I risk dying for?" The natural answer is "for my family." But for most of history, we didn't live in families. We lived in small communities that gave us our sense of safety and place in the world, so the natural answer would be "for my people." The blessing and the tragedy of modern life is that we don't need our community to survive anymore. When we lose that idea, we lose a sense of who we are.

Sometimes life is too hard to be alone, and sometimes life is too good to be alone.

So it is that Lonely Places attract as many lonely people as they produce, and the loneliness we see in them is partly in ourselves.

We are most of us very lonely in this world; you who have any who love you, cling to them and thank God.

It creates community when you talk about private things and you can find other people that have the same things. Otherwise, I don't know, I felt very lonely with some of the issues that I had or history that I had. And when I shared about it, I found that others had it, too.

Sometimes my hands they don’t feel like my own; I need someone to love, I need someone to hold.

You were one person alive and your brain was encased in a skull. There were other people out there. It took effort to be connected.

I realize, for the first time, how very lonely I've been in the arena. How comforting the presence of another human being can be.

People are meant to go through life two by two. ’Tain’t natural to be lonesome.

No one can live without friendship, because what would you do all day without friends?

For was that all, she thought bleakly, that love ever was? Something that saved one from loneliness? A sort of insurance policy against not counting?

Even when I lived in Chicago and I didn't have any family there, I would just go like I would be a guest and have dinner with a bunch of friends and do potluck or something. So I think that's it, just finding people that you love that love you and hang out with them.

The worst thing someone gets is isolated. Isolation is the darkest part of any condition. You can live with almost any condition if you're living within a community of people who can share a common understanding. We create these communities from women who share common conditions, and those mothers carry each other through.

She had a lot of hugs to give, but not enough people to give them to.

I wish I had more friends, but people are such jerks. If you can just get most people to leave you alone, you're doing good. If you can find even one person you really like, you're lucky. And if that person can also stand you, you're really lucky.

We have fewer friends than we imagine, but more than we know.

The trouble with me is that for a long time I have just been an I person. All people belong to a We except me. Not to belong to a We makes you too lonesome.