“I smelled silt on the wind, turkey, laundry, leaves . . . my God what a world. There is no accounting for… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest. — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
poetry has been able to function quite directly as human interpretation of the raw, loose universe. It is a mixture, if you… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Divinity is not playful. The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensibl e earnest. By a power that is… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“I want to climb up the blank blue dome as a man would storm the inside of a circus tent, wildly, dangling,… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
A shepherd on a hilltop who looks at a mess of stars and thinks, ‘There’s a hunter, a plow, a fish,’ is… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Trees have a curious relationship to the subject of the present moment. There are many created things in the universe that outlive… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“If, as Heraclitus suggests, god, like an oracle, neither "declares nor hides, but sets forth by signs," then clearly I had better… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
The sense impressions of one-celled animals are not edited for the brain. This is philosophically interesting in a rather mournful way, since… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
The universe is illusion merely, not one speck of it real, and we are not only its victims, falling always into or… — 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 universe has continued to deal in extravagances, flinging intricacies and colossi down eons of emptiness, heaping profusions on profligacies with ever-fresh… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
When I was six or seven years old, growing up in Pittsburgh, I used to take a precious penny of my own… — 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
After the one extravagant gesture of creation in the first place, the universe has continued to deal exclusively in extravagances, flinging intricacies… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Peeping through my keyhold I see within the range of only about 30 percent of the light that comes from the sun;… — 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
