She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live.
ANNIE DILLARDShe read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live.
ANNIE DILLARDBooks swept me away, this way and that, one after the other; I made endless vows according to their lights for I believed them.
ANNIE DILLARDI would like to learn, or remember, how to live.
ANNIE DILLARDOur life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery.
ANNIE DILLARDThe world knew you before you knew the world.
ANNIE DILLARDMake connections; let rip; and dance where you can.
ANNIE DILLARDThere are no events but thoughts and the heart’s hard turning, the heart’s slow learning where to love and whom. The rest is merely gossip, and tales for other times.
ANNIE DILLARDThe real and proper question is: why is it beautiful
ANNIE DILLARDThese are our few live seasons. Let us live them as purely as we can, in the present.
ANNIE DILLARDThe answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.
ANNIE DILLARDYou can serve or you can sing, and wreck your heart in prayer, working the world’s hard work.
ANNIE DILLARDAt a certain point, you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, the world, Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive. You empty yourself and wait, listening.
ANNIE DILLARDEvery live thing is a survivor on a kind of extended emergency bivouac.
ANNIE DILLARDYou can’t test courage cautiously.
ANNIE DILLARDWrite about winter in the summer.
ANNIE DILLARDThe life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less.
ANNIE DILLARD