Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies

Category Archives: Quotes

Bono on Johnny Cash

September 30, 2003 – 12:02 am

RollingStone.com
From Bono, remembering Johnny Cash

“Every man could relate to him, but nobody could be him. To be that extraordinary and that ordinary was his real gift. That, and his humor and his bare-boned honesty. When I visited him at home one time, he said the most beautiful, poetic grace. He said, ‘Shall we bow our heads?’ We all bowed our heads. Then, when he was done, he looked at me and Adam Clayton and said, ‘Sure miss the drugs, though.’ It was just to say, ‘I haven’t become a holy Joe.’ He just couldn’t be self-righteous. I think he was a very godly man, but you had the sense that he had spent his time in the desert. And that just made you like him more. It gave his songs some dust. And that voice was definitely locusts and honey. As for ‘Hurt,’ it’s perhaps the best video ever made.”

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Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies

September 13, 2003 – 10:36 pm

I’m currently reading Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies, a bittersweet, humorous, true-to-life, coming to faith story. It’s even got cuss words. I know. Shocking.

“Death is really just a major change of address.” (63)

“There are cracks, cracks in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” – Leonard Cohen

“Only grieving can heal grief.” (68)

“..we are a world in grief, and it is at once intolerable and a great opportunity.” (68)

“And I didn’t understand why as usual God couldn’t give me a loud or obvious answer, through a megaphone or thunder, skywriting or stigmata.” (85)

“…from the Jewish Theological Seminary that said, ‘A human life is like a single letter of the alphabet. It can be meaningless. Or it can be a part of a great meaning.’” (100)

“…Eugene O’Neill’s line, ‘Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue.’” (112)

“…grace is having a committment to – or at least an acceptance of – being ineffective and foolish.” (142-143)

“But patience is when God – or something – makes the now a little roomier.” (167)

“…Picasso said, ‘Everything is a miracle; it’s a miracle that one does not dissolve in one’s bath like a lump of sugar.” (198)

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