Anne Lamott Quotes About Suffering

Quotes about: Suffering

• Human lives are hard, even those of health and privilege, and don't make much sense. This is the message of the Book of Job: Any snappy explanation of suffering you come up with will be horseshit.

  Anne Lamott

  Jobs, Book, Suffering

  Anne Lamott (2013). “Help: The First Essential Prayer”, p.11, Hachette UK

• [S]he believed that the Buddhists were right–that if you want, you will suffer; if you love, you will grieve. (68)

  Anne Lamott

  Buddhist, Love You, Grieving

  Anne Lamott (1997). “Crooked Little Heart”, Pantheon

• When we're dealing with the people in our family - no matter how annoying or gross they may be, no matter how self-inflicted their suffering may appear, no matter how afflicted they are with ignorance, prejudice or nose hairs - we give from the deepest parts of ourselves.

  Anne Lamott

  Ignorance, Hair, Self

• God sent Jesus to join the human experience, which means to make a lot of mistakes. Jesus didn't arrive here knowing how to walk. He had fingers and toes, confusion, sexual feelings, crazy human internal processes. He had the same prejudices as the rest of his tribe: he had to learn that the Canaanite woman was a person. He had to suffer the hardships and tedium and setbacks of being a regular person. If he hadn't the incarnation would mean nothing.

  Anne Lamott

  Jesus, Crazy, Mistake

  Anne Lamott (2008). “Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith”, p.101, Penguin

• I used to think that paired opposites were a given, that love was the opposite of hate, right the opposite of wrong. But now I think we sometimes buy into these concepts because it is so much easier to embrace absolutes than to suffer reality. I don't think anything is the opposite of love. Reality is unforgivingly complex.

  Anne Lamott

  Hate, Reality, Thinking

  Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.104, Anchor

• Anything you say from your heart to God is a prayer. But "why" is rarely a useful question. When Job keeps asking God why he has had such loss and suffering, God says, "You wouldn't understand." I always want to know why, and I almost never have a good answer.

  Anne Lamott

  Jobs, Prayer, Heart

  "Interview with Anne Lamott, Author of Help, Thanks, Wow". Interview with Jana Llewellyn, www.friendsjournal.org. January 30, 2013.

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