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Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life QUOTES

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life QUOTES

1 " Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it. "

― Anne Lamott , Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

2 " E.L. Doctorow said once said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you're going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard. "

― Anne Lamott , Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

3 " Bird by bird buddy. Just take it bird by bird. "

― Anne Lamott , Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

4 " Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It's like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can't stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship. "

― Anne Lamott , Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

5 " You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander. We build this place with the sand of memories; these castles are our memories and inventiveness made tangible. So part of us believes that when the tide starts coming in, we won't really have lost anything, because actually only a symbol of it was there in the sand. Another part of us thinks we'll figure out a way to divert the ocean. This is what separates artists from ordinary people: the belief, deep in our hearts, that if we build our castles well enough, somehow the ocean won't wash them away. I think this is a wonderful kind of person to be. "

― Anne Lamott , Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

6 " If something inside of you is real, we will probably find it interesting, and it will probably be universal. So you must risk placing real emotion at the center of your work. Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it. If you’re a writer you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act—truth is always subversive. "

― Anne Lamott , Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

7 " Because this business of becoming conscious, of being a writer, is ultimately about asking yourself, How alive am I willing to be? "

― Anne Lamott , Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

8 " Try looking at your mind as a wayward puppy that you are trying to paper train. You don't drop-kick a puppy into the neighbor's yard every time it piddles on the floor. You just keep bringing it back to the newspaper. "

― Anne Lamott , Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

9 " I heard a preacher say recently that hope is a revolutionary patience; let me add that so is being a writer. Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up. "

― Anne Lamott , Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

10 " The problem is acceptance, which is something we're taught not to do. We're taught to improve uncomfortable situations, to change things, alleviate unpleasant feelings. But if you accept the reality that you have been given- that you are not in a productive creative period- you free yourself to begin filling up again. "

― Anne Lamott , Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

11 " The society to which we belong seems to be dying or is already dead. I don't mean to sound dramatic, but clearly the dark side is rising. Things could not have been more odd and frightening in the Middle Ages. But the tradition of artists will continue no matter what form the society takes. And this is another reason to write: people need us, to mirror for them and for each other without distortion-not to look around and say, 'Look at yourselves, you idiots!,' but to say, 'This is who we are. "

― Anne Lamott , Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

12 " If your wife locks you out of the house, you don't have a problem with your door. "

― Anne Lamott , Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

13 " Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird. "

― Anne Lamott , Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

14 " I want people who write to crash or dive below the surface, where life is so cold and confusing and hard to see.

Your anger and damage and grief are the way to the truth. "

― Anne Lamott , Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

15 " Perfectionism means that you try not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived. "

― Anne Lamott , Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

16 " Writing takes a combination of sophistication and innocence; it takes conscience, our belief that something is beautiful because it is right. "

― Anne Lamott , Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

17 " When people shine a little light on their monster, we find out how similar most of our monsters are. "

― Anne Lamott , Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

18 " For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die. "

― Anne Lamott , Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

19 " You want to avoid at all costs drawing your characters on those that already exist in other works of fiction. You must learn about people from people, not from what you read. Your reading should confirm what you’ve observed in the world. "

― Anne Lamott , Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

20 " How alive am I willing to be? "

― Anne Lamott , Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life