Experiencing the present purely is being empty and hollow; you catch grace as a man fills his cup under a waterfall.
ANNIE DILLARDIt has always been a happy thought to me that the creek runs on all night, new every minute, whether I wish it or know it or care, as a closed book on a shelf continues to whisper to itself its own inexhaustible tale.
More Annie Dillard Quotes
-
-
The dedicated life is worth living. You must give with your whole heart.
ANNIE DILLARD -
Adverbs are a sign that you’ve used the wrong verb.
ANNIE DILLARD -
You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it.
ANNIE DILLARD -
The secret is not to write about what you love best, but about what you, alone, love at all.
ANNIE DILLARD -
You can’t test courage cautiously.
ANNIE DILLARD -
I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you.
ANNIE DILLARD -
We live in all we seek.
ANNIE DILLARD -
No one escapes the wilderness on the way to the promised land.
ANNIE DILLARD -
We are here on the planet only once, and might as well get a feel for the place.
ANNIE DILLARD -
Nature’s silence is its one remark, and every flake of world is a chip off that old mute and immutable block.
ANNIE DILLARD -
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 -
Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery.
ANNIE DILLARD -
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 -
Every live thing is a survivor on a kind of extended emergency bivouac.
ANNIE DILLARD -
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