How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
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. Sometimes I could not tell you exactly why, especially when it feels pointless and pitiful, like Sisyphus with cash-flow problems. Other days, though, my writing is like a person to me—the person who, after all these years, still makes sense to me. (Introduction.45)
Anne Lamott seems to be saying that your writing is almost like a great friend or a romantic interest. It has a life of its own, and somehow it's a deeply important part of your life, even if you're not getting rich, and even if it's not always easy.
Quote #2
I heard a preacher say recently that hope is a revolutionary patience; let me add that so is being a writer. Hope begins in 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. (Introduction.34)
Patience may sound a little boring, the kind of thing your mom recommends when you're stuck in the car on a long trip. Lamott is saying the kind of patience you need as a writer is anything but sitting and waiting. It's the kind of patience that works hard and eventually starts revolutions.
Quote #3
We sat side by side on his couch for a while, in silence. Finally he said, "Listen. I want you to write that book you just described to me. You haven't done it here. Go off somewhere and write me a treatment, a plot treatment. Tell me chapter by chapter what you just told me in the last half hour, and I will get you the last of the advance." (12.17)
If your teacher has ever asked you to rewrite something you thought was finished, Lamott can sympathize. She rewrote one novel three times before her editor would take it. That's the kind of effort being a famous writer takes. What are you working on that you'd care enough to redo that many times? If there isn't anything yet, what do you think it could be?