"When you open a book,” the sentimental library……" — Annie Dillard
"When you open a book,” the sentimental library posters said, “anything can happen.” This was so. A book of fiction was a bomb. It was a land mine you wanted to go off. You wanted it to blow your whole day. Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of books were duds. They had been rusting out of everyone’s way for so long that they no longer worked. There was no way to distinguish the duds from the live mines except to throw yourself at them headlong, one by one."
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Annie Dillard
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260 Quotes by Annie Dillard
Annie Dillard has 260 quotes on this site.
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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 »
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