A Quote by Anne Lamott

Perfectionism means that you try not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived.

Anne Lamott

Quote Topics

Being Clean Clean Up Clutter Leave Life Life Is Lived Means Mess Much Perfectionism Show Try Up Us

Quote Author

Anne Lamott
American - Novelist
Born: April 10, 1954

Perfectionism means that you try desperately not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived. Clutter is wonderfully fertile ground - you can still discover new treasures under all those piles, clean things up, edit things out, fix things, get a grip. Tidiness suggests that something is as good as it's going to get. Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation, while writing needs to breathe and move.

Anne Lamott

Clutter and mess show us that life is being lived.

Anne Lamott

Clutter and mess show us that life is being lived...Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation... Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist's true friend. What people somehow forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here.

Anne Lamott

If religion had a good purpose, then man would have created something great. But we're man: we mess up everything. We mess up nature. We mess up God. We take what is given to us and make it into what we think it should be.

Ziggy Marley

Comedians take a neat situation and turn it into a mess. And in my books I do the same thing, but it's the other way around. I like to mess around with mess. A mess is only a mess because someone tells you it is.

Ursus Wehrli

Life is a mess. And theology must be lived out in the midst of that mess.

Charles Colson

It may sound like a mess, but sometimes mess can be okay, mess can be fine. Sometimes mess is just another word for living your life as real you, not someone else's version of what they think you should be.

Terence Blacker

Life isn't like a book. Life isn't logical or sensible or orderly. Life is a mess most of the time. And theology must be lived in the midst of that mess.

Charles Caleb Colton

So many of the conscious and unconscious ways men and women treat each other have to do with romantic and sexual fantasies that are deeply ingrained, not just in society but in literature. The women's movement may manage to clean up the mess in society, but I don't know whether it can ever clean up the mess in our minds.

Nora Ephron

The main thing going through my head when I step out onto any show is: 'Don't mess it up, Emma, don't mess it up.'

Emma Willis

Trudeau valued performance above image. He Knew he could give me a shovel if there was a mess to clean up, and he kept moving me from one mess to another.

Jean Chretien

I can try to disable it," I said, "but if I mess up, this whole apartment is going to fill with gas. We'll die." Thalia swallowed. " I trust you. Just... don't mess it up.

Rick Riordan

A rock star is expected to act like a mess, sound like a mess and look like a mess. People don't expect you to show up on time and be a professional. But when you're a pop star, you have to do all that, look perfect and be a role model.

Tove Lo

Ultimately, I'm a mess. I don't mean I'm a mess, like, emotionally - I mean, I think probably everybody's a mess. David's a mess. But. I'm talking about... I'm messy.

Michael C. Hall

But Sunday is our cleaning day: we give ourselves only one and a half hours and we clean everywhere. We do that together because we made the mess together. I refuse to get a cleaner, although I'd love one, because I don't want to teach my kids that we make a mess and then we pay someone else to clean it.