Anne Lamott Quotes

A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.

I try not to picture a reader when I'm writing. It's like trying to make a great table but not picturing anybody sitting at it.

I don't use the word 'artists' lightly.

Any artist that's involved in their work is inevitably going to have a focus in what they do.

Michael Jackson was the biggest star the world has ever seen - he put so much into everything; a lot of attention to detail. I want to do that. I want to pay that kind of attention to detail in everything - in music, visually - all of that.

If I were to try and find a unifying emotion that kept me calm and focused while I was dancing or writing or solving a math problem, I think the one unifying thing about all those that keeps my interest is creativity.

I can concentrate on my art.

What I love about photography, and it's the same thing I love about acting, really, is that it forces you, like, right into the moment, where you can't be distracted, where you can't be, like, thinking about other things or ahead of yourself or behind yourself.

Every one of us is an artist, and as an artist, you really can stroll into any venue that you want, as long as you take your time to learn the etiquette of that venue.

Art is all in the details.

The funny thing is, whenever I'm working on something, I kind of forget there's a lot of people watching. It makes it easier to be in the moment and to tell a story as well as possible.

When I make a film, I don't watch a lot of other films. I read a lot; I try to read poems, things that can liberate my human condition, that make me go away... I spend a lot of the time doing nothing, just concentrating on the subject. Sometimes I'll sit in my chair for two or three hours without doing anything.

I doubt Picasso ever painted a picture in an hour, he took his time, looked at every detail and made sure it was perfect.

I figure I can be artistic, but I work like a blue-collar person, too, and I'm serious about that.

The artist works with a concentration of his whole personality, and the conscious part of it resolves conflicts, organized memories, and prevents him from trying to walk in two directions at the same time.

It is as easy to create a castle as a button. It's just a matter of whether you're focused on a castle or a button.

I like the concentration, the crush; I like working with language, as others like working with clay, or notes.

My art practice is very detail-, labor- intensive and I think that that's a way of slowing myself down so that I can hear myself think. That quieter voice has sometimes the more interesting idea, if I can get to it.

What we make testifies who we are. People can sense care and can sense carelessness.

I think meditation helps greatly with creativity. If it's a pure expression of yourself no matter what it is or what medium, it's going to shine. It's going to resonate.

Creative people are all there, totally immersed, fascinated and absorbed in the present, in the current situation, in the here-now, with the matter-in-hand.

As the fletcher whittles and makes straight his arrows, so the master directs his straying thoughts.

Be the artist you were born to be.

When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing creature.

You are both a work of art and an artist at work.