Life with most teenagers was like having a low-grade bladder infection. It hurts, but you had to tough it out.
Anne LamottRead
The real payoff is the writing itself, that a day when you have gotten your work done is a good day, that total dedication is the point.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The true reward of writing comes from the process itself, not just the outcome.
This quote emphasizes that the value of writing lies not solely in its finished product but in the commitment and effort put into the creative process. It highlights the importance of dedication and suggests that finding satisfaction in completing one's work is a significant achievement in itself.
Themes
WritingDedicationProcessArtCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop to encourage participants to embrace the process.
More from Anne Lamott
All quotes →Or 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
I can't understand these chaps who go round American universities explaining how they write poems: It's like going round explaining how you sleep with your wife.
Philip LarkinRead
The best thing about acting is that I get to lose myself in another character and actually get paid for it. As for myself, I'm not really sure who I am. I change every day.
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I'll be writing songs till I die. There's just no question.
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There is nothing settled about a poet's identity. The becoming doesn't stop because the being has been achieved. They proceed together, attached in ways that are hard to be exact about.
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I have spent a good many years since―too many, I think―being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that's all.
Stephen KingRead
My aim in painting has always been the most exact transcription possible of my most intimate impression of nature.
Edward HopperRead