Writer Quotes by Annie Dillard

Write as if you were dying.

— Annie Dillard

Write as if you are dying.

— Annie Dillard

The writer studies literature, not the world.

— Annie Dillard

The sensation of writing a book is the sensation of spinning, blinded by love and daring.

— Annie Dillard

She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live.

— Annie Dillard

“Private life, book life, took place where words met imagination without passing through the world.”

— Annie Dillard

When you write, you lay out a line of words. Soon you find yourself deep in new territory.

— Annie Dillard

“She reads books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live.”

— Annie Dillard

“Society places the writer so far beyond the pale that society does not regard the writer at all.”

— Annie Dillard

Many writers do little else but sit in small rooms recalling the real world.

— Annie Dillard

People who read are not too lazy to turn on the television; they prefer books.

— Annie Dillard

Fiction keeps its audience by retaining the world as its subject matter. People like the world. Many people actually prefer it to…

— Annie Dillard

At its best, the sensation of writing is that of any unmerited grace. It is handed to you, but only if you…

— Annie Dillard

For writing a first draft requires from the writer a peculiar internal state which ordinary life does not induce. ... how to…

— Annie Dillard

“Why, why in the blue-green world write this sort of thing? Funny written culture, I guess; we pass things on.”

— Annie Dillard

“She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live. She read books as one would breathe ether, to…

— Annie Dillard

The writer studies literature, not the world. He is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write.

— Annie Dillard

I write in my own journal when something extraordinary or funny happens. And there's some nice imagery in there. I don't think…

— Annie Dillard

You have to take pains in a memoir not to hang on the reader's arm, like a drunk, and say, 'And then…

— Annie Dillard

If even rock was interesting, if even this ugliness was worth whole shelves at the library, required sophisticated tools to study, and…

— Annie Dillard

Writing a book is like rearing children -- willpower has very little to do with it. If you have a little baby…

— Annie Dillard

Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That…

— Annie Dillard

It has always been a happy thought to me that the creek runs on all night, new every minute, whether I wish…

— Annie Dillard

“At its best, the sensation of writing is that of any unmerited grace. It is handed to you, but only if you…

— Annie Dillard

The sensation of writing a book is the sensation of spinning, blinded by love and daring. It is the sensation of a…

— Annie Dillard

Your freedom as a writer is not freedom of expression in the sense of wild blurting; you may not let rip. It…

— Annie Dillard

When you write, you lay out a line of words. The line of words is a miner's pick, a wood carver's gouge,…

— Annie Dillard

The written word is weak. Many people prefer life to it. Life gets your blood going, & it smells good. Writing is…

— Annie Dillard

“One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right…

— Annie Dillard

“Hemingway studied, as models, the novels of Knut Hamsun and Ivan Turgenev. Isaac Bashevis Singer, as it happened, also chose Hamsun and…

— Annie Dillard

When you open a book,” the sentimental library posters said, “anything can happen.” This was so. A book of fiction was a…

— Annie Dillard

The way to learn about a writer is to read the text. Or texts.

— Annie Dillard

The novel is a game or joke shared between author and reader.

— Annie Dillard

Almost all of my many passionate interests, and my many changes of mind, came through books. Books prompted the many vows I…

— Annie Dillard

On plenty of days the writer can write three or four pages, and on plenty of other days he concludes he must…

— Annie Dillard

A writer looking for subjects inquires not after what he loves best, but after what he alone loves at all.

— Annie Dillard

The more you read, the more you will write. The better the stuff you read, the better the stuff you will write.

— Annie Dillard

“So it is that a writer writes many books. In each book, he intended several urgent and vivid points, many of which…

— Annie Dillard

It's a little silly to finally learn how to write at this age. But I long ago realized I was secretly sincere.

— Annie Dillard

I cannot imagine a sorrier pursuit than struggling for years to write a book that attempts to appeal to people who do…

— Annie Dillard