"You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."
— Anne Lamott

"Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a better past."
— Anne Lamott

"It's good to do uncomfortable things. It's weight training for life."
— Anne Lamott (Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith)

"Your problem is how you are going to spend this one and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are.

From her graduation commencement address to Berkeley."
— Anne Lamott

"Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They depen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It's like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can't stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship."
— Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life)

"I think joy and sweetness and affection are a spiritual path. We're here to know God, to love and serve God, and to be blown away by the beauty and miracle of nature. You just have to get rid of so much baggage to be light enough to dance, to sing, to play. You don't have time to carry grudges; you don't have time to cling to the need to be right.
- author Anne Lamott, in a recent interview. (Source: The Washington Times)"
— Anne Lamott

"Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere."
— Anne Lamott (Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life)

"Laughter is carbonated holiness."
— Anne Lamott

"I do not understand the mystery of grace -- only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us."
— Anne Lamott

"I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish."
— Anne Lamott

"Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining."
— Anne Lamott

"You can either practice being right or practice being kind."
— Anne Lamott

"If you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans."
— Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life)

"I've always thought tests are a gift. And great tests are a great gift. To fail the test is a misfortune. But to refuse the test is to refuse the gift, and something worse, more irrevocable, than misfortune."
— Lois McMaster Bujold (Shards of Honour)

"Never do yourself, what you can con professionals into doing for you."
— Lois McMaster Bujold