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
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
The world did not have me in mind; it had no mind. It was a coincidental collection of things and people, of… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Could two live that way? Could two live under the wild rose, and explore by the pond, so that the smooth mind… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
It is difficult to undo our own damage, and to recall to our presence that which we have asked to leave. It… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
So the Midwest nourishes us [...] and presents us with the spectacle of a land and a people completed and certain. And… — 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
The mind of the writer does indeed do something before it dies, and so does its owner, but I would be hard… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
The mind wants to live forever, or to learn a very good reason why not. The mind wants the world to return… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
We are here to witness. There is nothing else to do with those mute materials we do not need. Until Larry teaches… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
The mind itself is an art object. It is a Mondrian canvas onto whose homemade grids it fits its own preselected products.… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
I never met a man who was shaken by a field of identical blades of grass. An acre of poppies and a… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
You can, in short, lead the life of the mind, which is, despite some appalling frustrations, the happiest life on earth. And… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
The mind itself is an art object ... The mind is a blue guitar on which we improvise the song of the world. — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
I like to be aware of a book as a piece of writing, and aware of its structure as a product of… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Hasidism has a tradition that one of man's purposes is to assist God in the work of redemption by "hallowing" the things… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
The mind wants the world to return its love, or its awareness; the mind wants to know all the world, and all… — 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