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
Geography is the key, the crucial accident of birth. A piece of protein could be a snail, a sea lion, or a… — 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
“Thomas Merton wrote, “there is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.” There is always an… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“I am no scientist. I explore the neighborhood. An infant who has just learned to hold up his head has a frank… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“What I aim to do is not so much learn the names of the shreds of creation that flourish in this valley,… — 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
“The secret of seeing is, then the pearl of great price. If I thought he could teach me to find it and… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“At the time of Lewis and Clark, setting the prairies on fire was a well-known signal that meant, ‘Come down to the… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“Think of a globe, a revolving globe on a stand. Think of a contour globe, whose mountain ranges cast shadows, whose continents… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“When her doctor took her bandages off and led her into the garden, the girl who was no longer blind saw “the… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Landscape consists in the multiple, overlapping intricacies and forms that exist in a given space at a moment in time. — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Today is one of those excellent January partly cloudies in which light chooses an unexpected part of the landscape to trick out… — 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
