Anne Lamott Quotes

I'd rather die my way than live yours.

I'm going to be me as I am, and you can beat me or jail me or even kill me, but I'm not going to be what you want me to be.

I refuse to act the way someone expects me to.

I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else's whim or to someone else's ignorance.

I developed a resistance to authority. Not to discipline - I learned that. But to authority. I like to think for myself. And I like to cause trouble.

One of mom's greatest acts of generosity was that she trained me to be defiant. Her great gift to me was encouraging me to be the person that I wanted to be, not the one that she and my father wished I was.

I've never been a yes man.

I resent limitations. I'm going to be this way for a while.

There's a line in the picture where he snarls, 'Nobody tells me what to do.' That's exactly how I've felt all my life.

I shall not change my course because those who assume to be better than I desire it.

Everyone just needs to be his own man.

I'm not a very good yes man, and I'm not very easily controlled.

I've never been a 'yes person.'

No mind should submit their mind to another mind He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still -- that's my motto. I won't be brainwashed.

I am doing what I'm doing, and if you don't like it, don't go see it.

I dig my heels in every now and then, and think 'I'm not going to do what's expected or what people think is the right thing.' So I have a little bit of that in my personality.

Daddy says the world is a drum tight and hard and I told him I'm gonna beat out my own rhythm.

Be an independent thinker at all times, and ignore anyone who attempts to define you in a limiting way.

Don't live your life to please other people.

What I'm suggesting is, stand for yourself, be for something, and the hell with it. Because the hand-wringers and the editorialists and the sigh-and-pontificate crowd will be against you, whatever you do.

The minute I was told what to do at any age, I did the opposite. Hopefully I'll do that for the rest of my life.

You have to figure out ways to do things on your own. I do my own thing, and I don't pay much attention to what anyone else is doing.

I'm not trying to keep anybody happy.

I'm quite contrary. If people agree on something, I tend to gravitate the other way by my nature. I don't like to be told what to do. I think it goes back to school. I like to do things I want to do and I really don't like doing what I don't want to do.

I refuse to be pushed around anymore.