“If we were to judge nature by its common sense or likelihood, we wouldn't believe the world existed. In nature, improbabilities are… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“We are here to witness the creation and abet it. We are here to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed.… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
No child on earth was ever meant to be ordinary, and you can see it in them, and they know it, too,… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“At a certain point, you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, the world, Now I am ready. Now… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Skin was earth; it was soil. I could see, even on my own skin, the joined trapezoids of dust specks God had… — 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
“If indeed [nature] has no greater aim than to provide a home for her greatest experiment, Man, it would be just like… — 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
Unfortunately, nature is very much a now-you-see-it, now-you-don't affair. A fish flashes, then dissolves in the water before my eyes like so… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“Last year I had a very unusual experience. I was awake, with my eyes closed, when I had a dream. It was… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“As symbol, or as the structuring of symbols, art can render intelligible -- or at least visible, at least discussible -- those… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
I alternate between thinking of the planet as home - dear and familiar stone hearth and garden - and as a hard… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
There is no whit less enlightenment under the tree by your street than there was under the Buddha's bo tree. I invite… — 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
“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
“These aren't still shots; the camera is always moving. And the scene is always just slipping out of sight, as if in… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Nature seems to exult in abounding radicality, extremism, anarchy. If we were to judge nature by its common sense or likelihood, we… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“I was still ringing. I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“...beauty and grace [in nature] are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Nature is, above all, profligate. Don't believe them when they tell you how economical and thrifty nature is, whose leaves return to… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“You adapt yourself, Paul Klee said, to the contents of the paintbox. Adapting yourself to the contents of the paintbox, he said,… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Does anything eat flowers. I couldn't recall having seen anything eat a flower - are they nature's privileged pets? — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“Were the earth smooth, our brains would be smooth as well; we would wake, blink, walk two steps to get the whole… — 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
“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
