Anne Lamott Quotes

In order to know what he is, a man must first know what the sum of this mysterious humanity is, a humanity made up of people who, like himself, do not understand what they are.

The marvelous thing about a good question is that it shapes our identity as much by the asking as it does by the answering.

Who are we? The answer to this question is not only one of the tasks but the task of science.

We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel... is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become.

We read books to find out who we are.

Every one is least known to himself, and it is very difficult for a man to know himself.

People have asked me about playing outsiders. I don't consider myself an outsider. Maybe that's why I'm interested in that. I'm not really sure.

Nature has planted in our minds an insatiable longing to see the truth.

A movie that's about other horror movies isn't interesting. A movie about who we are, is.

I was a little truth seeker as a child. I wanted more than anything to understand myself and also other people.

My motivation is to get a deeper understanding and exploration of something that I want to know about the human condition. So, that's what I look for in the material I read: if it's asking a genuine question about a concept of the world that interests me. And also, it helps if it's a context that I find interesting.

I always write to understand my place in the world. I can see myself and my life unfold on the page, and I can understand my strengths, my weaknesses - I can see where I need to step up a bit.

I am a writer of books in retrospect. I talk in order to understand; I teach in order to learn.

Know thyself.

There is no self-knowledge except historical self-knowledge.

Writing isn't necessarily about what one knows but what one wants to know.

We have to have a very clear understanding of ourselves.

had no need of a guide to learn ignorance

Tell me who I am. (29)

All your life you compare and contrast, explore and search. But knowing yourself well is, well, elusive.

They knew each other. He knew her and so himself, for in truth he had never known himself. And she knew him and so herself, for although she had always known herself she had never been able to recognize it until now.

When I was a boy, I was a bit puzzled, and hardly knew weather it was myself or the world that was curious and worth looking into. Now I know that it is myself, and stick to that.

It takes longer for man to find out man than any other creature that is made.

Without ego I don't know how identity works, I don't know... I need to sit down and re-read some philosophy or something.

Not to know me argues yourselves unknown.