We wake, if we ever wake at all, to mystery, rumors of death, beauty, violence... — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed? — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle, curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Cruelty is a mystery, and the waste of pain. But if we describe a word to compass these things, a world that… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
There must be bands of enthusiasts for everything on earth-fanatics who shared a vocabulary, a batch of technical skills and equipment, and,… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
But enough is enough. One turns at last even from glory itself with a sigh of relief. From the depths of mystery,… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Theirs is the mystery of continuous creation and all that providence implies: the uncertainty of vision, the horror of the fixed, the… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
As a thinker I keep discovering that beauty itself is as much a fact, and a mystery...I consider nature's facts -- its… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“I have often noticed that these things, which obsess me, neither bother nor impress other people even slightly. I am horribly apt… — 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
The gaps are the thing. The gaps are the spirit's one home, the altitudes and latitudes so dazzlingly spare and clean that… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“Cruelty is a mystery, and the waste of pain. But if we describe a world to compass these things, a world that… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“We don't know what's going on here. If these tremendous events are random combinations of matter run amok, the yield of millions… — 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
