It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance. — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“I want to climb up the blank blue dome as a man would storm the inside of a circus tent, wildly, dangling,… — 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
“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
When I was six or seven years old, growing up in Pittsburgh, I used to take a precious penny of my own… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“I chanced on a wonderful book by Marius von Senden, called Space and Sight. . . . For the newly sighted, vision… — 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
“I am sitting under a sycamore by Tinker Creek. I am really here, alive on the intricate earth under trees. But under… — 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
“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
“Say you could view a time lapse film of our planet: what would you see? Transparent images moving through light, “an infinite… — 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
“...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
“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
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
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
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
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
“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
“If we were to judge nature by its common sense or likelihood, we wouldn't believe the world existed. In nature, improbabilities are the one… — Annie Dillard Copy Share
For writing a first draft requires from the writer a peculiar internal state which ordinary life does not induce. ... how to set yourself spinning? — Annie Dillard Copy Share
