"Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison, and then waiting around for the rat to die."

Anne Lamott Literature See all quotes by Anne Lamott →

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More by Anne Lamott

“So Rita and I decided that the most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do was to show up for my life and not be ashamed.”

“I try to write the books I would love to come upon, that are honest, concerned with real lives, human hearts, spiritual transformation, families, secrets, wonder, craziness—and that can make me laugh. When I am reading a book like this, I feel rich and profoundly relieved to be in the presence of someone who will share the truth with me, and throw the lights on a little, and I try to write these kinds of books. Books, for me, are medicine.”

“100 years from now? All new people.”

“Joy is the best makeup.”

“When you're conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader.”

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”

Resonant Thoughts

"To be a living being is not the ultimate state; there is something beyond, much more wonderful, which is neither being nor not-being, neither living nor not-living. It is a state of pure awareness, be…"

— Nisargadatta Maharaj

Education1897–1981

#life

"It must be immense, this silence, in which sounds and movements have room, and if one thinks that along with all this the presence of the distant sea also resounds, perhaps as the innermost note in th…"

— Rainer Maria Rilke

Literature1875–1926

#life

"All I want is not to die on a day when I went unseen."

— Nicole Krauss

Literature1974

#life

"Verily Allah has enjoined goodness to everything; so when you kill, kill in a good way and when you slaughter, slaughter in a good way. So every one of you should sharpen his knife, and let the slaugh…"

— Prophet Muhammad ﷺ

Religion570–632

#life