Life with most teenagers was like having a low-grade bladder infection. It hurts, but you had to tough it out.
Anne LamottRead
I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all it is cracked up to be. But writing is.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing is a fulfilling endeavor, but publication may not bring the satisfaction one expects.
Anne Lamott emphasizes the intrinsic value of writing itself over the often misleading allure of publication. While she encourages aspiring writers to pursue their passion for writing, she cautions them that the journey of getting published may not live up to their expectations, implying that the act of writing is where the true reward lies.
Themes
WritingPublicationCreativityArtExpression
In practice
Example use cases
Use this quote when addressing a writing workshop to inspire participants.
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
In any society, the artist has a responsibility. His effectiveness is certainly limited and a painter or writer cannot change the world. But they can keep an essential margin of non-conformity alive. Thanks to them the powerful can never affirm that everyone agrees with their acts. That small difference is important.
Luis BunuelRead
The writing process for a short story feels more like field geology, where you keep turning the thing over and over, noting its qualities in detail, hammering at it, putting it near flame, pouring different acids on it, and then finally you figure out what it is, or you just give up and mount it on a ring and have an awkward chunky piece of jewelry that seems weirdly dominating but that you for some reason like. I could be wrong about field geology here.
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It's probably why I'm a short story writer. I tend to remember things in the past in narrative form, in story form, and I grew up around people who told stories all the time.
Tobias WolffRead
Every time I hear a recording I've made, I hear all kinds of things I could improve or things I should have done. There's always so much more to be done in music. It's so vast.
Charlie ParkerRead
The theatre is supremely fitted to say: 'Behold! These things are.' Yet most dramatists employ it to say: 'This moral truth can be learned from beholding this action.'
Thornton WilderRead
I never have an intended audience. I just write, you know.
Alice WalkerRead