Anne Quotes & Sayings

Robert Burns said it best: Life is but a day at most. — Anne Lamott

It is impossible for me to be all sugar one day and spit venom the next. I'd rather choose the golden mean (which is not so golden), keep my thoughts to myself, and try for once to be just as disdainful to them as they are to me. Oh, if only I could! — Anne Frank

Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow. — Mary Anne Radmacher

He actually cared. It was an odd friendship- awkward, grown slowly from beginnings of mutual contempt- but it was real nonetheless. — Anne Perry

Yeah, I loved her. I couldn't help it. She was my brother. — Julie Anne Peters

I wasn't a stranger to dealing with thirty-plus-year-old adolescents — Terri Anne Browning

I find most famous Christians to be full of themselves and of prejudice and self-loathing, masquerading as devout religious belief. I find all fundamentalism to be terrifying and very destructive. — Anne Lamott

This is a lyrical guide that addresses the deep human yearning to make a difference. It's full of indelible stories reminding us that, yes, helping people is hard-but it's both possible and infinitely rewarding. A Path Appears offers practical steps that any of us can take to empower others, and ourselves. — Anne Rice

There is something about the way that Greek poets, say Aeschylus, use metaphor that really attracts me. I don't think I can imitate it, but there's a density to it that I think I'm always trying to push towards in English. — Anne Carson

Meg nodded. She didn't understand the feeling, but she turned the words into a kind of image that she could recall later. "Anyway, — Anne Bishop

The outright propagandist sets up in me such a fury of opposition I am not apt to care much whether he has got his facts straight or not. He is like someone standing on your toes between you and an open window, describing the view to you. All I ask of him to do is to open the window, stand out of the way, and let me look at the view for myself. — Katherine Anne Porter

Charles, a footman who had once worked on his father's farm and who loved animals, appeared and came over to help her prepare dishes of boiled chicken and brown rice for the cats and dogs waiting eagerly at their feet.
When guests were staying, Charles often assisted with the care of her furry brood. Without asking, he set to work, even taking a few moments to gather fresh meat scraps for Aeolus, her wounded hawk, and cut-up apple and beetroots for Poppy, a convalescing rabbit who had an injured leg. He gave her several more apple quarters for the horses, who got jealous if she didn't bring them treats as well.
Once all her cats and dogs were fed, Esme set off for the stables, laden pail in hand, Burr trotting at her heels. She stopped along the way to chat with the gardener and his assistant, who gave her some timothy grass, comfrey and lavender to supplement the hay she regularly fed Poppy. — Tracy Anne Warren

Rhosh, remember the being's skin, smooth, dark brown skin, like this one's skin, and the being's hair. The hair was the same, thick like this and with loose curls and the very same golden streak in it, only broader and on the right side of the head. — Anne Rice

There's one golden rule to keep before you: laugh about everything and don't bother yourself about the others! — Anne Frank

Holl?" Seth turned over. "Where you going?"
"Home. Sorry. Go back to sleep." I pulled on my sweatpants.
"But we have all night." He pushed to his elbows.
"I know. I can't." My voice sounded hoarse, hollow. "I don't feel good. I'm sorry." I lurched for the door. I needed to get out, get away. As far away from here as possible. She was in me, in my blood, invading every cell in my body. She was the one I wanted. She was the one I saw, felt, desired. This was wrong. He was wrong. It was all so wrong. (Chapter. 12) — Julie Anne Peters

Unfortunately, what anti-human trafficking NGOs [non-governmental organizations] really do is instead quite damaging: they normalize existent labor opportunities for women, no matter how low the pay, dangerous the conditions, or abusive an environment they foster. And they shame women who reject such jobs. — Anne Elizabeth Moore

Mine was a patchwork God, sewn together from bits of rag and ribbon, Eastern and Western, pagan and Hebrew, everything but the kitchen sink and Jesus. — Anne Lamott

I made my life, the same way it looks like you're gonna make yours - out of pride and stubbornness and too much anger. You better think hard, Ruth Anne, about what you want and who you're mad at. You better think hard. — Dorothy Allison

Although we cannot number the infinite, nevertheless it can be comprehended by Him whose knowledge has no bounds. — Anne Rice

The deep baritone of his voice, and the words he uttered, held Haley spellbound. Was she beautiful? As she'd looked in the mirror at the glimmering teal gown, she'd felt ... different, more attractive. But would she go so far as to say she was beautiful? No one had ever told her she was - certainly not her grandparents - so how could she think that of herself? — Melody Anne

Jaenelle blushed. "No, none of them are my mate. I'm not old enough for a mate," she added hurriedly as Smoke gave them all a look of blatant disapproval. "This is Saetan, the High Lord. He's my sire. My brother, Prince Mephis, is the High Lord's pup. And this is my uncle, Prince Andulvar, and my cousin, Lord Prothvar. And that's Lord Beale. Everyone, this is Prince Smoke. — Anne Bishop

If you feel far from God right now, guess who moved? You're only a decision away from reconnecting. — Anne Graham Lotz

The most important distinction anyone can ever make in their life is between who they are as an individual and their connection with others. — Anne Linden

We listen. We listen. We move. We sit. It rains. The sun comes out. (there stands a friend) We listen. We laugh. We share. We sit. We dance. It rains. There stands a friend. We listen. We share. We sit. We dance. The sun comes up. There. I stand, a friend. — Mary Anne Radmacher

Anne DeGrace is a gifted story teller and Far From Home contains some of her most intriguing characters. Thoroughly enjoyable. — Paulette Jiles

Don't give up all your romance Anne, a little of it is a good thing - not too much of course-but keep a little of it - Matthew Cuthbert — L.M. Montgomery

It seemed jobs kept disappointing him, as did business partners and girlfriends and entire geographical regions. — Anne Tyler

She was young, healthy, stronger than she'd ever been. And she was in love with him. She'd fallen in love with a man who challenged the world to take him on, sometimes with laughing, boyish enthusiasm and other times as a warrior born and trained to kill. She could do this for him. Would do this for him. — Anne Bishop

Last night I dreamed about her," he said. "She had this shawl wrapped around her shoulders with tassels hanging off it, and her hair was long like old times. She said, 'Red, I want to learn every step of you, and dance till the end of the night.' " He stopped speaking. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. Denny and Stem stood with a screen balanced between them and looked at each other helplessly.

"Then I woke up," Red said after a minute. He stuffed the handkerchief back in his pocket. "I thought, 'This must mean I miss having her close attention, the way I've always been used to.' Then I woke up again, for real. Have either of you ever done that? Dreamed that you woke up, and then found you'd still been asleep? I woke up for real and I thought, 'Oh, boy. I see I've still got a long way to go with this.' Seems I haven't quite gotten over it, you know? — Anne Tyler

But you were the hero, weren't you? You were the one who made me brave when I might have given up. — Carrie Anne Noble

We can know what the Lord wants us to do - and experience 'the blessing which hath been bestowed upon us, that we have been made instruments in the hands of God to bring about this great work' (Alma 26:3). . . .

"To truly be an instrument in the hands of God, in order to fully have that blessing bestowed upon us in 'the day of this life' in which we 'perform [our] labors' (Alma 34:32), we must, as Elder Maxwell says, 'finally submit ourselves' (Ensign, Nov. 1995, 24) to the Lord. — Anne C. Pingree

I'm at the gym at 6, so I'm usually in my office by 7:15. And I try to not schedule a lot of meetings before 8. So I've got that first hour to get myself organized for the day and to make sure that I've structured what I want to do. — Anne M. Mulcahy

Ever since childhood, I've been interested in history and myth. Not just the facts and figures of the past, but everything that contributes to shape our perception of an age: architecture, art, literature and so forth. — Anne Fortier

Here are the two best prayers I know: 'Help me, help me, help me' and 'Thank you, thank you, thank you. — Anne Lamott

The more happiness we bestow, the more we shall receive, even here; and the greater will be our reward in heaven when we rest from our labours. — Anne Bronte

If the present is really all we have, then the present lasts forever. — Anne Lamott

You tell anyone that I cried, and I'll cut your liver out."
"Do you even know where a human liver resides?"[ ... ]
"Yes," she said, and punched him in it. — Anne Stuart

Jenna turned and shot her another worried look. Her tone was ultra soothing. Yeah. I hear you. And I'm head over heels with Harry Potter and
Peeta Mellark. Stay with me. Okay? I'm right here. I feel your love. Now feel mine and start walking. — Anne Eliot

Patriotism demands the ability to feel shame as much as to feel pride. — Anne-Marie Slaughter

People who read Anne Lamott, like people who read Anne Rice, believe that tragedy is romantic, but the people who read Anne Lamott believe it ironically. — Kevin Brockmeier

Allegiance to a belief system can have deep, non-rational roots, — Anne Applebaum

I lost nothing I regret losing," Witch said softly. "I am what I want to be. — Anne Bishop

That Gilbert of yours is a darling, Anne, — L.M. Montgomery

I closed my eyes and heard the wind and the sound of water flowing softly, swiftly in the river. It was enough, for one moment. And I knew that it would not endure, that it would fly away from me like something torn out of my arms, and I would fly after it, more desperately lonely than any creature under God, to get it back. — Anne Rice

He could understand one guy punching another if legitimately provoked, but a man didn't abuse an animal or ever hurt a woman. Those were pretty basic morals. — Melody Anne

She had no idea, really, what it meant to see a man's arm ripped out by the root, to see a head torn off a neck. She had no idea. We human beings live perpetually insulated from the horrors that happen all around us. No matter what she'd suffered, she had not witnessed the vicious ugliness of that kind of death. No, it had to be unreal to her, even Laura who had endured so much. — Anne Rice

Believing in George Bush was so ludicrous that believing in God almost seems rational. — Anne Lamott

No; for instead of delivering myself up to the full enjoyment of them as others do, I am always troubling my head about how I could produce the same effect upon canvas; and as that can never be done, it is more vanity and vexation of spirit. — Anne Bronte

If you would have fought like a man you wouldn't have to die like a dog."
(Anne Bonny to John "Calico Jack" Rackham) — Anne Bonny

Because he spoke to her the way no one else had ever spoken to her, which meant he saw her in a way no one else saw her. — Julie Anne Long

She loved them so much that she felt a kind of hollowness on the inner surface of her arms whenever she looked at them-an ache of longing to pull them close and hold them tight against her. — Anne Tyler

I know that I can write, a couple of my stories are good, my descriptions of the 'Secret Annex' are humorous, there's a lot in my diary that speaks, but whether I have real talent remains to be seen. — Anne Frank

He said he loved me," she whispered.
Daniel swallowed, and he had the strangest sensation, almost a premonition of what it must like to be a parent.
Someday, God willing, he'd have a daughter, and that daughter would look like the woman standing in front of him, and if ever she looked at him with that bewildered expression, whispering, "He said he loved me ... "
Nothing short of murder would be an acceptable response. — Julia Quinn

Marilla!" Anne sat down on Marilla's gingham lap, took Marilla's lined face between her hands, and looked gravely and tenderly into Marilla's eyes. "I'm not a bit changed - not really. I'm only just pruned down and branched out. The real me - back here - is just the same. It won't make a bit of difference where I go or how much I change outwardly; at heart I shall always be your little Anne, who will love you and Matthew and dear Green Gables more and better every day of her life. — L.M. Montgomery

I feel wicked sleeping in a warm bed, while my dearest friends have been knocked down or have fallen into a gutter somewhere out in the cold night. I get frightened when I think of close friends who have now been delivered into the hands of the cruelest brutes that walk the earth. And all because they are Jews! — Anne Frank

They went to the tree. Daemon dismounted and leaned against the tree, staring in the direction of the house. The stallion jiggled the bit, reminding him he wasn't alone. "I wanted to say good-bye," Daemon said quietly. For the first time, he truly saw the intelligence - and loneliness - in the horse's eyes. After that, he couldn't keep his voice from breaking as he tried to explain why Jaenelle was never going to come to the tree again, why there would be no more rides, no more caresses, no more talks. For a moment, something rippled in his mind. He had the odd sensation he was the one being talked to, explained to, and his words, echoing back, lacerated his heart. To be alone again. To never again see those arms held out in welcome. To never hear that voice say his name. To ... Daemon gasped as Dark Dancer jerked the reins free and raced down the path toward the field. Tears of grief pricked Daemon's eyes. The horse might have a simpler mind, but the heart was just as big. — Anne Bishop

I wonder if it's because I haven't been able to poke my nose outdoors for so long that I've grown so crazy about everything to do with Nature? — Anne Frank

Oh, I know I'll improve. It's just that my life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes now. That's a sentence I read once, and I say it over to comfort myself in these times that try the soul. — Anne Shirley

You reflect your age differently. You reflect its broken heart. — Anne Rice

I had the feeling, when the thoughts first clarified on paper, that my experience was very different from other people's. (Are we all under this illusion?) — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Jews and Christians wait, the whole world waits,and there are many who wait for death — Anne Frank

Ah, now my pet, you'll be callin' me, Ma. Me gynecologist calls me Mrs. McClung," Charlie's mother instructed a blushing Marian. From "A Good Girl — Mary Anne Edwards

You're in the Courtyard.
Whatever rules humans have for employers aren't my rules unless I say they're my rules.
So I can hire you even though you don't have any idea what you're doing, and I can fire you for having stinky hair! — Anne Bishop

Life is like a nice fresh batch of Swiss cheese. Note to self: savor the holes, too, like the spaces between musical notes. — Anne Lamott

Why then should I often be unhappy over what happens here? Shouldn't I always be glad, contented and happy, except when I think about her and her companions in distress? I am selfish and cowardly. Why do I always dream and think of the most terrible things- my fear makes me want to scream out loud sometimes. Because still, in spite of everything, I have not enough faith in God. He has given me so much- which I certainly do not deserve- and I still do so much that is wrong every day. If you think of your fellow creatures, then you only want to cry, you could really cry the whole day long. The only thing to do is to pray that God will perform a miracle and save some of them. And I hope that I am doing that enough! — Anne Frank

Wolsey sits with his elbows on his desk, his fingers dabbing his closed lids. He takes a great breath, and begins to talk: he begins to talk about England. You can't know Albion, he says, unless you can go back before Albion was thought of. You must go back before Caesar's legions, to the days when the bones of giant animals and men lay on the ground where one day London would be built. You must go back to the New Troy, the New Jerusalem, and the sins and crimes of the kings who rode under the tattered banners of Arthur and who married women who came out of the sea or hatched out of eggs, women with scales and fins and feathers; beside which, he says, the match with Anne looks less unusual. These are old stories, he says, but some people, let us remember, do believe them. — Hilary Mantel

There are amazing people in this world that just need an opportunity. — Leigh Anne Tuohy

What spooked him was how the lack of a barrier ratcheted up not only the physical sensation but also the pound of his heart, the inability to get air into his lungs. — Anne Calhoun

I sent all sorts of manically happy thoughts toward him, the exchange heightened by our direct contact.
"Ugh." He let his hand drop. "I can't take that much optimism. Maybe that's it."
"It's your kryptonite."
His gaze dropped to my hand as it patted him. Complicated emotions whipped through him again. "No, my biggest weakness is turning out to be something else entirely. — Anne Zoelle

That I was born to this circle - I am blessed. That I choose to stand in this circle - I am proud. — Mary Anne Radmacher

It's as if you've been walking against a great wind all your life, and then the wind is gone, and you can't walk. — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

I think of my father born in this very small, limited situation and then coming out of that. Many people have this story. — Anne Waldman

When I was with Ellen, I was telling people, If you come out, it's gonna be better for you. But I honestly don't know that. — Anne Heche

Maybe that was all there ever will be just that one weekend and forever this unfinished feeling ... — Anne Rice

I don't read reviews and I don't know what to do with opinions, so I just lose them. They take up space, they become a process of manufacturing a persona, which I want to avoid. — Anne Carson

No one can appropriate God, goodness, the Bible or Jesus. It just seems that way. — Anne Lamott

The trouble was, Elizabeth thought, they did not tell the children of colonial families not to love these foreign lands, not to fall in love with their birthplaces. While parents dreamt of retiring in peace to another place called 'home', their children soaked up knowledge of the only world they knew: its different peoples, its spicy food, its birdsong, the way warm rain fell like a curtain through the palm trees. Their souls would be forever torn. — Anne M. Chappel

Women do not avoid fighting because they are dainty or scared, but because they have a greater stake than men in staying alive to rear their offspring. Women compete with each other just as tenaciously as men, but with a stealth and subtlety that reduces their chances of being killed or injured. — Anne Campbell

I've heard people, usually writers, say that no one wrote a great book after winning the Booker, but I honestly did not feel any big pressure. 'The Gathering' did hang over me in that it was darker than I thought at the time. — Anne Enright

There is no object that we see, no action that we do, no good that we enjoy, no evil that we feel of fear, but we may make some spiritual advantage of all. — Anne Bradstreet

I am drawn to people that are not going to shy away from the very dark, scary stuff of the human condition and in a lot of cases people need alcohol or drugs to create poetry and poetic pose that can take you so far out there where you are still able to recognize yourself and then to bring you back home where you're not the same person you were when you left. — Anne Lamott

From "Her Kind"
I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind. — Anne Sexton

The Annex is an ideal place to hide in. It may be damp and lopsided, but there's probably not a more comfortable hiding place in all of Amsterdam. No, in all of Holland. — Anne Frank

I'm beginning to think that maybe it's not just how much you love someone. Maybe what matters is who you are when you're with them. — Anne Tyler

More women than men graduate in media studies. They don't know how to find a fixer; they don't know about weaponry; they don't know where is safe, where is not safe - they just want to prove themselves. — Anne Sebba

The joy that isn't shared dies young. — Anne Sexton

Vere blinked. And blinked. And blinked. And blinked.
OMG. Try to speak. Try. — Anne Eliot

I'm going to have the daintiest things possible ... things that will match the spring, you understand ... little jelly tarts and lady fingers, and drop cookies frosted with pink and yellow icing, and buttercup cake. — L.M. Montgomery

You really felt a radical shift in the advance of a poetics that had really been engendered by [Walt] Whitman. This was very exciting. I wanted to work in this environment. — Anne Waldman

People can tell you to shut up, but they can't keep you from having an opinion. — Anne Frank

Our library isn't very extensive," said Anne, "but every book in it is a friend. We've picked our books up through the years, here and there, never buying one until we had first read it and knew that it belonged to the race of Joseph. — L.M. Montgomery

You don't have to be better, or healed, or over your husband. You just have to be here. That's all I'm asking for. I'm not asking for forever. I'm just asking you to be here, now, with me. — Anne Calhoun

You fell, she said, just remember you fell.
I fell, is all he told the doctors
in the big hospital. A nice lady came
and asked him questions but because
he didn't want to be sent away he said, I fell.
He never said anything else although he could talk fine. — Anne Sexton

Watch out for love
(unless it is true,
and every part of you says yes including the toes),
it will wrap you up like a mummy,
and your scream won't be heard
and none of your running will run. — Anne Sexton

January is my favorite month, when the light is plainest, least colored. And I like the feeling of beginnings. — Anne Truitt

It was really hard coming to terms with the Nazi history. Then in my twenties I was traveling to Germany. There was a lot of poetry activity and some of my first readings abroad and trying to relate with people my own age there and what they were discovering and learning had to examine in terms of their backgrounds. Then so many of my friends had family who had either perished in the holocaust or survived in the holocaust. It was very palpable. — Anne Waldman

Myths, by their definition, involve transformations, struggles through various worlds or layers of reality and of obscuration. — Anne Waldman

It was not fear of ridicule,
to which everyday life as a winged red person had accommodated Geryon early in life,
but this blank desertion of his own mind
that threw him into despair. — Anne Carson

I don't write about the intimate details of my cousins and aunts and uncles, and my mother and my father because it's not right to, for me. — Anne Lamott

26. Plants do not actually sleep. Nor do they lie or even bluff. They do, however, expose their genitalia. — Anne Carson