Anne Lamott is an American teacher, speaker, and author of numerous novels and nonfiction books. Her writings and teachings cover subjects such as faith, Christianity, and sobriety.
CLEAR ALL
There is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious. It is too good to waste on jokes.
Stay a verb—don’t become a noun.
4
Life’s work is to wake up, to let the things that enter into the circle wake you up rather than put you to sleep. The only way to do this is to open, be curious, and develop some sense of sympathy for everything that comes along, to get to know its nature and let it teach you what it will.
3
There is light in darkness. You just have to find it.
5
Avoidance will make you feel less vulnerable in the short run, but it will never make you less afraid.
Happiness is closer to the experience of acceptance and contentment than it is to pleasure. True happiness exists as the spacious and compassionate heart’s willingness to feel whatever is present.
2
There’s a widespread belief that if you have solid self-esteem you don’t need outside affirmation and praise. This is patently untrue, by the way.
You know why it’s hard to be happy—it’s because we refuse to LET GO of the things that make us sad.
How strange that the nature of life is change, yet the nature of human beings is to resist change.
1
Don’t let your happiness depend on something you may lose.