I don't know where to start," one [writing student] will wail. Start with your childhood, I tell them. Plug your nose and jump in, and write down all your memories as truthfully as you can. Flannery O' Connor said that anyone who has survived childhood has enough material to write for the rest of his or her life. Maybe your childhood was grim and horrible, but grim and horrible is Okay if it is well done. Don't worry about doing it well yet, though. Just get it down.
advice child childhood encouragement memoir memories writers writing young
Download Image Share on X Share on Facebook

About This Quote

About Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott was a contemporary American novelist and nonfiction writer. Anne Lamott is an American novelist and nonfiction writer. Read more on Wikipedia →

More quotes by Anne Lamott

“...It really IS easier to experience spiritual connection when your life is in the process of coming apart.”
— Anne Lamott
spiritual-connection spirituality

“Nothing can be delicious when you are holding your breath.”
— Anne Lamott
life love personal-growth spirituality

“I don't remember who said this, but there really are places in the heart you don't even know exist until you love a child.”
— Anne Lamott
children love parenting

“Hope is not about proving anything. It's about choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us.”
— Anne Lamott
hope love

“And we've read scary books and watched scary movies and TV shows together. He's met monsters, ghouls, and demons on the page and on the screen. There's nothing like watching Anaconda with your best...”
— Anne Lamott
fear scary

“She lived in fear of ifonic endings. (91)”
— Anne Lamott
fear irony
View all quotes by Anne Lamott →

Related Quotes

“Anyone who is willing to work and is serious about it will certainly find a job. Only you must not go to the man who tells you this, for he has no job to offer and doesn't know anyone who knows of ...”
— B. Traven, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
advice work

“Choose your counsel, company and companions wisely: beware seeking wise words of advice from a fool or expecting informed opinions or decisions from the ignorant.”
— Rasheed Ogunlaru
advice advice-giver advice-quotes counsel

“If you find it difficult to get along with your boss, try to reason with him and talk through your differences. If that doesn't work, drive him to suicide and take over the company.”
— Anthony Rubino Jr., Life Lessons from Melrose Place
advice amanda melrose-place soap-operas

“If you want, you can be a child for the rest of your life and be a great LEARNER”
— #NAME?
child great inspirational-quotes learner

“The eternal child. - We think that play and fairy tales belong to childhood:how shortsighted that is! As though we would want at any time of life tolive without play and fairy tales! We give these ...”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
child childhood fairy-tales life

“one of the best and the most painful things about time traveling has been the opportunity to see my mother alive.”
— Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife
child childhood-memory happiness loss

“In a universe where all life is in movement, where ever fact seen in perspective is totally engaging, we impose stillness on lively young bodies, distort reality to dullness, make action drudgery. ...”
— Marjorie Spock
childhood children learning school

“If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter. ”
— Markus Zusak, The Book Thief
childhood laughter love oblivious

“When you're a kid all you know is that your dad puts on his suit or overalls and vanishes from your life until nightfall. Sometimes my pops came back exhausted and scarlet-eyed, as if he'd been eng...”
— Craig Davidson, Cataract City
childhood dad kids work