Novels written with film contracts in mind have a faint but unmistakable, and ruinous, odor. — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Writing a book is like rearing children -- willpower has very little to do with it. If you have a little baby… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Painters work from the ground up. The latest version of a painting overlays earlier versions, and obliterates them. Writers, on the other… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“The writing that so thrills and exhilarates you, as if you were dancing right next to the band, is barely audible to… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
The mind of the writer does indeed do something before it dies, and so does its owner, but I would be hard… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Every book has an intrinsic impossibility, which its writer discovers as soon as his first excitement dwindles. — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Old memories are very easy to get except that once you write about something you've destroyed it. — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
There is neither a proportional relationship, nor an inverse one, between a writer’s estimation of a work in progress & its actual… — 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 deprivation. Many… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Evolution loves death more than it loves you or me. This is easy to write, easy to read, and hard to believe. — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Many writers do little else but sit in small rooms recalling the real world. — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
At night I read and write, and things I have never understood become clear; I reap the harvest of the rest of… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“The range of rhythms in prose is larger and grander than it is in poetry, and it can handle discursive ideas and… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“Get to work. Your work is to keep cranking the flywheel that turns the gears that spin the belt in the engine… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“Why, why in the blue-green world write this sort of thing? Funny written culture, I guess; we pass things on.” — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
The secret is not to write about what you love best, but about what you, alone, love at all. — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Appealing workplaces are to be avoided. One wants a room with no view, so imagination can meet memory in the dark. — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
“Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed? Can the writer… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
You can, in short, lead the life of the mind, which is, despite some appalling frustrations, the happiest life on earth. And… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Writers serve as the memory of a people. They chew over our public past. — 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
