I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.
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
-
-
We have not yet encountered any god who is as merciful as a man who flicks a beetle over on its feet.
ANNIE DILLARD -
She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live.
ANNIE DILLARD -
We are here on the planet only once, and might as well get a feel for the place.
ANNIE DILLARD -
You can’t test courage cautiously.
ANNIE DILLARD -
The secret is not to write about what you love best, but about what you, alone, love at all.
ANNIE DILLARD -
The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest.
ANNIE DILLARD -
Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.
ANNIE DILLARD -
Books swept me away, this way and that, one after the other; I made endless vows according to their lights for I believed them.
ANNIE DILLARD -
Experiencing the present purely is being empty and hollow; you catch grace as a man fills his cup under a waterfall.
ANNIE DILLARD -
You search, you break your heart, your back, your brain, and then-and only then-it is handed to you.
ANNIE DILLARD -
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 -
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 -
You can serve or you can sing, and wreck your heart in prayer, working the world’s hard work.
ANNIE DILLARD -
Art is like an ill-trained Labrador retriever that drags you out into traffic.
ANNIE DILLARD -
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






