Plan B Quotes

“Hope is not about proving anything. It's about choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“It's good to do uncomfortable things. It's weight training for life.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“When God is going to do something wonderful, He or She always starts with a hardship; when God is going to do something amazing, He or She starts with an impossibility. ”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me--that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back. You're done. It doesn't necessarily mean that you want to have lunch with the person. If you keep hitting back, you stay trapped in the nightmare...”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“Help" is a prayer that is always answered. It doesn't matter how you pray--with your head bowed in silence, or crying out in grief, or dancing. Churches are good for prayer, but so are garages and cars and mountains and showers and dance floors. Years ago I wrote an essay that began, "Some people think that God is in the details, but I have come to believe that God is in the bathroom.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“Certainty is missing the point entirely.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“There's a lovely Hasidic story of a rabbi who always told his people that if they studied the Torah, it would put Scripture on their hearts. One of them asked, "Why on our hearts, and not in them?" The rabbi answered, "Only God can put Scripture inside. But reading sacred text can put it on your heart, and then when your hearts break, the holy words will fall inside.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“This is one thing they forget to mention in most child-rearing books, that at times you will just lose your mind. Period. ”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“Hope is not about proving anything. It’s about choosing to believe this one thing: that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“I didn't need to understand the hypostatic unity of the Trinity; I just needed to turn my life over to whoever came up with redwood trees.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“I'm here to be me, which is taking a great deal longer than I had hoped.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“You want to protect your child from pain, and what you get instead is life, and grace; and though theologians insist that grace is freely given, the truth is that sometimes you pay for it through the nose. And you can't pay your child's way. ”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“Rest and laughter are the most spiritual and subversive acts of all. Laugh, rest, slow down.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“Teenagers who do not go to church are adored by God, but they don't get to meet some of the people who love God back.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“peace is joy at rest, and joy is peace on its feet”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“Rule 1: When all else fails, follow instructions. And Rule 2: Don't be an asshole.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“Why couldn't Jesus command us to obsess over everything, to try to control and manipulate people, to try not to breathe at all, or to pay attention, stomp away to brood when people annoy us, and then eat a big bag of Hershey's Kisses in bed?”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“When we did art with the kids, the demons would lie down.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“... everyone has come to understand that unconditional love is a reality, but with as shelf life of about eight to ten seconds. [p. 110]”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“... the reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day. [pp. 65-66]”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“... one of the immutable laws of being human is that the people who show up are the right people. [p. 65]”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“Her purse was a weight, ballast; it tethered her to the earth as her mind floated away.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“Talking to the parents of older kids was helpful for me, since the parents of kids the same age as yours won't admit how horrible their children are. ... you can either practice being right or practice being kind. Screaming in the car helped. [p. 94]”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“Believing in George Bush was so ludicrous that believing in God almost seems rational.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“I've spent my whole life trying to get over having had Nikki for a mother, and I have to say that from day one after she died, I liked having a dead mother much more than having an impossible one. [p. 47]”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“What a mess we are, I thought. But this is usually where any hope of improvement begins, acknowledging the mess. When I am well, I know not to mess with mess right away; I try to let silence and time work their magic. [p. 100]”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“What if Sam's heart got broken again? As with most kids who are fourteen, it has been spackled and duct-taped and caulked back together many times as it is. [p. 258]”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“We can see Spirit made visible when people are kind to one another, especially when it's a really busy person, like you, taking care of a needy, annoying, neurotic person, like you.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“I prayed for my heart to soften, to forgive her, and love her for what she did give me--life, great values, a lot of tennis lessons, and the best she could do. Unfortunately, the best she could do was terrible, thee the Minister of Silly Walks trying to raise an extremely sensitive young girl, and my heart remained hardened toward her. [p. 46]”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith