Life with most teenagers was like having a low-grade bladder infection. It hurts, but you had to tough it out.
Anne LamottRead
What if we never 'get over' certain deaths, or our childhoods? What if the idea that we should have by now, or will, is a great palace lie? What if we're not supposed to? What if it takes a life time...?
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote challenges the notion of moving on from loss or past experiences, suggesting that it's natural to carry them throughout life.
Anne Lamott's quote explores the complex relationship we have with grief and our pasts, proposing that the expectation to 'get over' certain painful experiences may be misleading. Instead, she invites us to consider that some memories and losses remain with us, shaping our identity and understanding over a lifetime, and that perhaps this is a part of the human experience rather than a problem to overcome.
Themes
GriefLossMemoriesChildhoodAcceptance
In practice
Example use cases
During a memorial service, I shared this quote to highlight the ongoing nature of grief.
More from Anne Lamott
All quotes βOr you might shout at the top of your lungs or whisper into your sleeve, "I hate you, God." That is a prayer too, because it is real, it is truth, and maybe it is the first sincere thought you've had in months.
Anne LamottRead
Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd 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 people and circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are.
Anne LamottRead
It is hard to remember that you are a cherished spiritual being when you're burping up apple fritters and Cheetos.
Anne LamottRead
Gorgeous, amazing things come into our lives when we are paying attention: mangoes, grandnieces, Bach, ponds. This happens more often when we have as little expectation as possible. If you say, "Well, that's pretty much what I thought I'd see," you are in trouble. At that point you have to ask yourself why you are even here. [...] Astonishing material and revelation appear in our lives all the time. Let it be. Unto us, so much is given. We just have to be open for business.
Anne LamottRead
...because when people have seen you at their worst, you don't have to put on the mask as much.
Anne LamottRead
Similar quotes
Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.
Elizabeth Barrett BrowningRead
If abuses are destroyed, man must destroy them. If slaves are freed, man must free them. If new truths are discovered, man must discover them. If the naked are clothed; if the hungry are fed; if justice is done; if labor is rewarded; if superstition is driven from the mind; if the defenseless are protected, and if the right finally triumphs, all must be the work of man. The grand victories of the future must be won by man, and by man alone.
Robert Green IngersollRead
'Facts, facts, facts,' cries the scientist if he wants to emphasize the necessity of a firm foundation for science. What is a fact? A fact is a thought that is true. But the scientist will surely not recognize something which depends on men's varying states of mind to be the firm foundation of science.
Gottlob FregeRead
Down to Gehenna, or up to the Throne, He travels the fastest who travels alone.
Rudyard KiplingRead
I am no longer the wave of consciousness thinking itself separated from the sea of cosmic consciousness. I am the ocean of Spirit that has become the wave of human life.
Paramahansa YoganandaRead
Apathy is a rational reaction to a system that no longer represents, hears or addresses the vast majority of people.
Russell BrandRead