The writer studies literature, not the world. He is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write. — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Having chosen this foolishness, I was a free being. How could the world ever stop me, how could I betray myself, if… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Fiction keeps its audience by retaining the world as its subject matter. People like the world. Many people actually prefer it to… — 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
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
How can people think that artists seek a name? A name, like a face, is something you have when you're not alone.… — 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… — 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
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
The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside by a generous hand. But- and this is the point- who… — 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
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
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
All the green in the planted world consists of these whole, rounded chloroplasts wending their ways in water. If you analyze a… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
She is nine, beloved, as open-faced as the sky and as self-contained. I have watched her grow. As recently as three or… — 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
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
What I sought in books was imagination. It was depth, depth of thought and feeling; some sort of extreme of subject matter;… — 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
