What is important is the moment of opening a life and feeling it touch--with an electric hiss and cry--this speckled mineral sphere,… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Cruelty is a mystery, and the waste of pain. But if we describe a word to compass these things, a world that… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
It's about waking up. A child wakes up over and over again, and notices that she's living. She dreams along, loving the… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Nature's silence is its one remark, and every flake of world is a chip off that old mute and immutable block. — 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
“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
Admire the world for never ending on you -- as you would an opponent, without taking your eyes away from him, or… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
I feel as though I stand at the foot of an infinitely high staircase, down which some exuberant spirit is flinging tennis… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
The point of the dragonfly's terrible lip, the giant water bug, birdsong, or the beautiful dazzle and flash of sunlighted minnows,is not… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
I come down to the water to cool my eyes. But everywhere I look I see fire; that which isn't flint is… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
You empty yourself and wait, listening. After a time you hear it: There is nothing there...You feel the world's word as a… — 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
The world is wider in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should… — 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
I had hopes for my rough edges. I wanted to use them as a can opener, to cut myself a hole in… — 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 silence is all there is. It is the alpha and the omega, it is God's brooding over the face of the… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
It is the fixed that horrifies us, the fixed that assails us with the tremendous force of mindlessness. The fixed is a… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
What do I make of all this texture? What does it mean about the kind of world in which I have been… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
I saw in a blue haze all the world poured flat and pale between the mountains — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
What is a house but a bigger skin, and a neighborhood map but the world's skin ever expanding? — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
It could be that our faithlessness is a cowering cowardice born of our very smallness, a massive failure of imagination... If we… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
There is always the temptation in life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for years on end. It… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“I set up and staged hundreds of ends-of-the-world and watched, enthralled, as they played themselves 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
