Anything can happen Quote by 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.”
About This Quote
Source Book: The Sentimental Library Posters (source unclear)
Fiction can be explosive, but many books become irrelevant over time, making it hard to tell which will inspire and which will disappoint.
In simple terms: Books can inspire or disappoint.
Key Takeaway
Seek out books that truly engage you.
Themes
literature
inspiration
disappointment
selection
Mood
curious
reflective
Type
literary
motivational
When to use this quote
- personal growth
- education
- creative work
- reading clubs
Key Concepts
cultural impact
value of reading
risk of stagnation
Questions to Reflect On
- How do you decide which books to invest time in?
- What makes a book feel like a 'bomb' of inspiration?
A Different Perspective
Not all books are equally impactful; finding quality requires effort.
![“Anything Can Happen is also, incidentally, a poem that arose from teaching. I'd talked about the Horace Ode (I, 34) [on which the poem is based] in a lecture I gave at Harvard in the fall of 2000 entitled Bright Boltsand remembered it after the Twin Towers attack.” quote by Seamus Heaney](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/2e6/seamus-heaney-1711_anything-can-happen_anything-can-happen-is-also-incidentally_181651.jpg)
