We wake, if we ever wake at all, to mystery, rumors of death, beauty, violence... — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality? — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Time is the warp and matter the weft of the woven texture of beauty in space, and death is the hurling shuttle. — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Just think: in all the clean, beautiful reaches of the solar system, our planet alone is a blot; our planet alone has… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
I think the dying pray at the last not "please," but "thank you," as a guest thanks his host at the door. — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
I would like to live. . . open to time and death painlessly, noticing everything, remembering nothing, choosing the given with a… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“And I suspect that for me the way is like the weasel's: open to time and death painlessly, noticing everyting, remembering nothing,… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Evolution loves death more than it loves you or me. This is easy to write, easy to read, and hard to believe. — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
The universe that suckled us is a monster that does not care if we live or die--it does not care if it… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“The death of self of which the great writers speak is no violent act. It is merely the joining of the great… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go,… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Those of us who read carried around with us like martyrs a secret knowledge, a secret joy, and a secret hope: There… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“What do we ever know that is higher than that power which, from time to time, seizes our lives, and reveals us… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
What I sought in books was imagination. It was depth, depth of thought and feeling; some sort of extreme of subject matter;… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“I saw to the south a man walking. He was breaking ground in perfect silence. He wore a harness and pulled a… — 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
“What I sought in books was imagination. It was depth, depth of thought and feeling; some sort of extreme of subject matter;… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“And we the people are so vulnerable. Our bodies are shot with mortality. Our legs are fear and our arms are time.… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“There were no formerly heroic times, and there was no formerly pure generation. There is no one here but us chickens, and… — 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
