Life with most teenagers was like having a low-grade bladder infection. It hurts, but you had to tough it out.
Anne LamottRead
For some of us, good books and beautiful writing are our ultimate solace, even more comforting than exquisite food.
Interpretation
Books and writing can provide deep emotional comfort, sometimes even more than physical pleasures.
Anne Lamott suggests that for many people, the joy and solace found in reading good books and appreciating beautiful writing surpass even the comforts offered by delicious food. This highlights the profound emotional and intellectual nourishment that literature can provide, serving as a refuge in challenging times.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of literature in education.
Life with most teenagers was like having a low-grade bladder infection. It hurts, but you had to tough it out.
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.
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.
It is hard to remember that you are a cherished spiritual being when you're burping up apple fritters and Cheetos.
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.
...because when people have seen you at their worst, you don't have to put on the mask as much.
It's so fine and yet so terrible to stand in front of a blank canvas.
When I was a little boy, they called me a liar, but now that I am grown up, they call me a writer.
Vinyl survived, we managed not to kill it. Knowing that youβve taken part in this fight... You canβt imagine the happiness it brings. Every time I see a kid going out of the store with a vinyl record under the arms, my heart beats faster. Music should only be this. An intense emotion.
My theater has always been a political battle on the stage.
All dress is fancy dress, is it not, except our natural skins?
There is a communication of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine is drunk. And that is my answer when people ask me: Why do you write about hunger, and not wars or love.
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