Anne Lamott Quotes

Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious. When you're conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader. He or she will recognize his or her life and truth in what you say, in the pictures you have painted, and this decreases the terrible sense of isolation that we have all had too much of.

A book should be luminous not voluminous.

No writing has any real value which is not the expression of genuine thought and feeling.

A vocabulary of truth and simplicity will be of service throughout your life.

You're going to write straight and simple and good now. That's the start.''What if I'm not straight and simple and good? Do you think I can write that way?''Write how you are but make it straight.

Truth and clarity are complementary.

I write from my knowledge not my lack, from my strength not my weakness. I am not interested if anyone knows whether or not I am familiar with big words, I am interested in trying to render big ideas in a simple way. I am interested in being understood not admired.

Simple questions--and simple answers--were what we needed in life. That was what Mma Ramotswe believed. Yes.

The art of writing is not, as many seem to imagine, the art of bringing fine phrases into rhythmical order, but the art of placing before the reader intelligible symbols of the thoughts and feelings in the writer's mind.

No two people will ever see or feel things in the same way, Merry. The challenge is to be truthful when you write. Don't approximate. Don't settle for the easiest combination of words. Go searching instead for those that explain exactly what you think. What you feel.

To be a writer you need to see things as they are, and to see things as they are you need a certain basic innocence.

Short, sweet, and to the point. Clear writing, and therefore clear commands, comes from clear thinking. Think simple.

Truth resists simplicity.

You can't say you want things to be simple and then in the next breath ask me to be honest.

Rule one of reading other people's stories is that whenever you say 'well that's not convincing' the author tells you that's the bit that wasn't made up. This is because real life is under no obligation to be convincing.

As with all other aspects of fiction, the key to writing good dialogue is honesty.

It is not confused. We are.

It is sure to be dark if you shut your eyes.

Simplicity is the outward sign and symbol of depth of thought.

All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.

I write about what I know, what I live, what I observe.

Genius: The capacity to see and to express what is simple, simply!

You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity. When you get it right, it is obvious that it is right -- at least if you have any experience -- because usually what happens is that more comes out than goes in.

You can't write nothing that ain't real.

To arrive at the simplest truth requires years of contemplation.