“Let the grass die. I let almost all of my indoor plants die from neglect while I was writing the book. There… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“Private life, book life, took place where words met imagination without passing through the world.” — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Almost all of my many passionate interests, and my many changes of mind, came through books. Books prompted the many vows I… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live. She read books as one would breathe ether, to… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“The written word is weak. Many people prefer life to it. Life gets your blood going, and it smells good. Writing is… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
The sensation of writing a book is the sensation of spinning, blinded by love and daring. It is the sensation of a… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
It makes more sense to write one big book - a novel or nonfiction narrative - than to write many stories or… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away,… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Write about winter in the summer. Describe Norway as Ibsen did, from a desk in Italy; describe Dublin as James Joyce did,… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
I cannot imagine a sorrier pursuit than struggling for years to write a book that attempts to appeal to people who do… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“So it is that a writer writes many books. In each book, he intended several urgent and vivid points, many of which… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
The writer studies literature, not the world. He is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write. — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“What geomancy reads what the windblown sand writes on the desert rock? I read there that all things live by a generous… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
People who read are not too lazy to turn on the television; they prefer books. — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
The written word is weak. Many people prefer life to it. Life gets your blood going, & it smells good. Writing is… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
I do not so much write a book as sit up with it, as a dying friend. I hold its hand and… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“Decade's reading had justified his guess that men and women perceive love identically save for, say, five percent. Reading books by men… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Novels written with film contracts in mind have a faint but unmistakable, and ruinous, odor. — 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
When you open a book,” the sentimental library posters said, “anything can happen.” This was so. A book of fiction was a… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“Our reading was subversive, and we knew it... I was now believing books more than I believed what I saw and heard...… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“I do not so much write a book as sit up with it, as with a dying friend. During visiting hours, I… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Every book has an intrinsic impossibility, which its writer discovers as soon as his first excitement dwindles. — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“This is a spendthrift economy; though nothing is lost, all is spent.” — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Nothing moves a woman so deeply as the boyhood of the man she loves. — 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 Image
“...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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 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 who wakes… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
