As soon as beauty is sought not from religion and love, but for pleasure, it degrades the seeker. — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" "No", said the priest, "not if you did… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
I sip my coffee. I look at the mountain, which is still doing its tricks, as you look at a still-beautiful face… — 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
There is a muscular energy in sunlight corresponding to the spiritual energy of wind. — 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
“What is the difference between a cathedral and a physics lab? Are not they both saying: Hello? We spy on whales and… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Eskimo: 'If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?' Priest: 'No, not if you did not… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“I had a head for religious ideas. They were the first ideas I ever encountered. They made other ideas seem mean....I had… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“What I call innocence is the spirit's unself-conscious state at any moment of pure devotion to any object. It is at once… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“What I call innocence is the spirit’s unself-conscious state at any moment of pure devotion to any object. It is at once… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“I have often noticed that these things, which obsess me, neither bother nor impress other people even slightly. I am horribly apt… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Hone and spread your spirit till you yourself are a sail, whetted, translucent, broadside to the merest puff. — 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
“You can live as a particle crashing about and colliding in a welter of materials with god, or you can live as… — 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
“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
An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
It is ironic that the one thing that all religions recognize as separating us from our creator, our very self-consciousness, is also… — 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
