How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
But while he helped the prisoners and me to discover that we had a lot of feelings and observations and memories and dreams and (God knows) opinions we wanted to share, we all ended up just the tiniest bit resentful when we found the one fly in the ointment: that at some point we had to actually sit down and write. (Introduction.4)
Being a writer isn't all signing multimillion-dollar film contracts and getting interviewed on TV. You actually do have to turn up to work at your desk, which turns out to take a lot of unglamorous self-discipline. On the bright side, you can do it in your pajamas.
Quote #5
I've managed to get some work done nearly every day of my adult life, without impressive financial success. Yet I would do it all over again in a hot second, mistakes and doldrums and breakdowns and all. (Introduction.45)
Wow. It may not sound like it, but what Lamott says here really is quite a recommendation. If someone is still sold on a career that didn't make her a ton of money, caused lots of stress, and was full of small disappointments, there's gotta be something seriously great about it somewhere. And there is: Lamott thinks writing changes who we are as people and is ultimately one of the most satisfying things we can do.
Quote #6
So after I've completely exhausted myself thinking about the people I most resent in the world, and my more arresting financial problems, and, of course, the orthodontia, I remember to pick up the one-inch picture frame and to figure out a one-inch piece of my story to tell, one small scene, one memory, one exchange. (2.5)
Writing sounds super hard when Lamott talks like this, but that's why she encourages us to take it slowly, bird by bird, getting small, important things right first. You can't do it all at once. Even if you wanted to, you couldn't write War and Peace in a day. Even Tolstoy didn't do that.