I woke in bits, like all children, piecemeal over the years. I discovered myself and the world, and forgot them, and discovered… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
By dipping us children in the Bible so often, they hoped, I think, to give our lives a serious tint, and to… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Time is the continuous loop, the snakeskin with scales endlessly overlapping without beginning or end, or time is an ascending spiral if… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
We teach our children one thing only, as we were taught: to wake up. We teach our children to look alive there,… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Young children have no sense of wonder. They bewilder well, but few things surprise them. All of it is new to young… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
There is a certain age at which a child looks at you in all earnestness and delivers a long, pleased speech in… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
There is a certain age at which a child looks at you in all earnestness and delivers a long, pleased speech in… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Like any child, I slid into myself perfectly fitted, as a diver meets her reflection in a pool. Her fingertips enter the… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Possibly everyone now dead considered his own death as a freak accident, a mistake. Some bad luck caused it. Every enterprising man… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Writing a book is like rearing children -- willpower has very little to do with it. If you have a little baby… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“It should surprise no one that the life of the writer--such as it is--is colorless to the point of sensory deprivation. Many… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
No child on earth was ever meant to be ordinary, and you can see it in them, and they know it, too,… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Who and of what import were the men whose bones bulk the Great Wall, the thirty million Mao starved, or the thirty… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“Their song reminds me of a child’s neighborhood rallying cry—ee-ock-ee—with a heartfelt warble at the end. But it is their call that… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“A child is asleep. Her private life unwinds inside skin and skull; only as she sheds childhood, first one decade and then… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
She is nine, beloved, as open-faced as the sky and as self-contained. I have watched her grow. As recently as three or… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“We teach our children one thing only, as we were taught: to wake up. We teach our children to look alive there,… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“As a child I read hoping to learn everything, so I could be like my father. I hoped to combine my father's… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“What can we make of the inexpressible joy of children? It is a kind of gratitude, I think—the gratitude of the ten-year-old… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“Children...wake up and find themselves here, discover themselves to have been here all along; is this sad? They wake like sleepwalkers, in… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“Children ten years old wake up and find themselves here, discover themselves to have been here all along; is this sad? They… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
It's about waking up. A child wakes up over and over again, and notices that she's living. She dreams along, loving the… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
We live in all we seek. The hidden shows up in too-plain sight. It lives captive on the face of the obvious… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
We live in all we seek. The hidden shows up in too-plain sight. It lives captive on the face of the obvious - the… — Annie Dillard Copy Share
“...The mockingbird took a single step into the air and dropped. His wings were still folded against his sides as though he were singing… — Annie Dillard Copy Share
“Father had stretched out his long legs and was tilting back in his chair. Mother sat with her knees crossed, in blue slacks, smoking… — Annie Dillard Copy Share
I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am aging and eaten and have done… — Annie Dillard Copy Share
It should surprise no one that the life of the writer - such as it is - is colorless to the point of sensory… — Annie Dillard Copy Share
It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life… — Annie Dillard Copy Share
The sense impressions of one-celled animals are not edited for the brain. This is philosophically interesting in a rather mournful way, since it means… — Annie Dillard Copy Share
“What can we make of the inexpressible joy of children? It is a kind of gratitude, I think—the gratitude of the ten-year-old who wakes… — Annie Dillard Copy Share
“If we were to judge nature by its common sense or likelihood, we wouldn't believe the world existed. In nature, improbabilities are the one… — Annie Dillard Copy Share
For writing a first draft requires from the writer a peculiar internal state which ordinary life does not induce. ... how to set yourself spinning? — Annie Dillard Copy Share
