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You search, you break your heart, your back, your brain, and then-and only then-it is handed to you.

Annie Dillard

Caring passionately about something isn’t against nature, and it isn’t against human nature. It’s what we’re here to do.
ANNIE DILLARD

Care Human Nature Nature Passionate
I do not so much write a book as sit up with it, as a dying friend. I hold its hand and hope it will get better.
ANNIE DILLARD

Die Friendship Hope Writing
Write about winter in the summer.
ANNIE DILLARD

Summer Winter Writing
He is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write. He is careful of what he learns, for that is what he will know.
ANNIE DILLARD

Care Learning Reading Writing
There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by.
ANNIE DILLARD

Hard Time Life Live Shortage
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days.
ANNIE DILLARD

Inspirational Live Spend Time
The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper; I cannot quite make it out.
ANNIE DILLARD

Pronounce Quite Sea Whisper
One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time…give it, give it all, give it now.
ANNIE DILLARD

Giving Lose Play Time Writing
People love pretty much the same things best. A writer looking for subjects inquires not after what he loves best, but after what he alone loves at all.
ANNIE DILLARD

Alone Inquire Love People Pretty Subject
The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest.
ANNIE DILLARD

Comprehensive Earn Universe
I come down to the water to cool my eyes. But everywhere I look I see fire; that which isn’t flint is tinder, and the whole world sparks and flames.
ANNIE DILLARD

Cool Eyes Flame Look See Spark Tinder Water
Every live thing is a survivor on a kind of extended emergency bivouac.
ANNIE DILLARD

Emergency Extend Kind Live Survival
She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live.
ANNIE DILLARD

Air Book Breathe Live Reading
I cannot cause light; the most I can do is try to put myself in the path of its beam. It is possible, in deep space, to sail on solar wind. Light, be it particle or wave, has force: you rig a giant sail and go. The secret of seeing is to sail on solar wind.
ANNIE DILLARD

Beam Cause Inspirational Light Myself Path Practice See Try Wave
The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less.
ANNIE DILLARD

Greed Life Requirement Sensation Spirit
We have not yet encountered any god who is as merciful as a man who flicks a beetle over on its feet.
ANNIE DILLARD

Encounter Feet Flick God Mercy

You search, you break your heart, your back, your brain, and then-and only then-it is handed to you.

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You search, you break your heart, your back, your brain, and then-and only then-it is handed to you.

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Popular Authors

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