Lamott On Writing and Books

On Writing

Writing can be a pretty desperate endeavor, because it is about some of our deepest needs: our need to be visible, to be heard, our need to make sense of our lives, to wake up grow and belong.

As a writer [...] hope begins in the 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.

I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all that it is craked up to be. But writing is. Writins has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do - the actual act of writing - turns out to be the best part. [...] The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.

On Books

For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What amiracle 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 arer 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