"All the green in the planted world consists……" — Annie Dillard
"All the green in the planted world consists of these whole, rounded chloroplasts wending their ways in water. If you analyze a molecule of chlorophyll itself, what you get is one hundred thirty-six atoms of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen arranged in an exact and complex relationship around a central ring. At the ring's center is a single atom of magnesium. Now: If you remove the atom of magnesium and in its exact place put an atom of iron, you get a molecule of hemoglobin. The iron atom combines with all the other atoms to make red blood, the streaming red dots in the goldfish's tail."
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Annie Dillard
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260 Quotes by Annie Dillard
Annie Dillard has 260 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
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If we were to judge nature by common sense or likelihood, we wouldn't believe the world existed.
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Experiencing the present purely is being empty and hollow; you catch grace as a man fills his cup under a…
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We are here to witness the creation and to abet it. We are here to notice each thing so each…
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You empty yourself and wait, listening. After a time you hear it: There is nothing there...You feel the world's word…
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The way we live our days, is the way we live our lives.
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I wake expectant, hoping to see a new thing.
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I think the dying pray at the last not "please," but "thank you," as a guest thanks his host at…
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I think that the dying pray at the last not please but thank you, as a guest thanks his host…
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Learn punctuation; it is your little drum set, one of the few tools oyu have to signal the reader where…
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Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed?
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The more you read, the more you will write. The better the stuff you read, the better the stuff you…
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When you write, you lay out a line of words. The line of words is a miner's pick, a wood…
See all 260 quotes by Annie Dillard »
More All Quotes
This quote is filed under All Quotes,
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Total loyalty is possible only when fidelity is emptied of all concrete content, from which changes of mind might naturally…
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No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our…
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The ultimate end of human acts is eudaimonia, happiness in the sense of living well, which all men desire; all…
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The new always happens against the overwhelming odds of statistical laws and their probability, which for all practical, everyday purposes…
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Where all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of…
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We have almost succeeded in leveling all human activities to the common denominator of securing the necessities of life and…
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I keep my friends as misers do their treasure, because, of all the things granted us by wisdom, none is…
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We must all make peace so that we can all live in peace.
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The spirit of Ubuntu, that once led Haiti to emerge as the first independent black nation in 1804, helped Venezuela,…
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As we all know, many people remain buried under tons of rubble and debris, waiting to be rescued. When we…
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Wise people, even though all laws were abolished, would still lead the same life.
— Aristophanes
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A friend to all is a friend to none.
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