black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

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
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 Shoot Writing
The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper; I cannot quite make it out.
ANNIE DILLARD

Pronounce Quite Sea Whisper
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
Experiencing the present purely is being empty and hollow; you catch grace as a man fills his cup under a waterfall.
ANNIE DILLARD

Catch Cup Empty Experience Grace Hollow Present Waterfall
I wake expectant, hoping to see a new thing.
ANNIE DILLARD

Hope Inspirational Positive Wake Up
Nature’s silence is its one remark, and every flake of world is a chip off that old mute and immutable block.
ANNIE DILLARD

Block Flake Mute Nature Silence World
You can serve or you can sing, and wreck your heart in prayer, working the world’s hard work.
ANNIE DILLARD

Heart Prayer Serve Sing Work Hard World
The 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 DILLARD

Answer Beauty Grace Performance Sense Thinking Try
I would like to learn, or remember, how to live.
ANNIE DILLARD

Inspirational Learning Live Remember
The secret is not to write about what you love best, but about what you, alone, love at all.
ANNIE DILLARD

Alone Love Secret Writing
We are here on the planet only once, and might as well get a feel for the place.
ANNIE DILLARD

Feeling Place Planet Travel
The real and proper question is: why is it beautiful
ANNIE DILLARD

Beautiful Nature Proper Question Real
Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery.
ANNIE DILLARD

Faint Life Mystery Surface
Wherever we go, there seems to be only one business at hand – that of finding a workable compromise between the sublimity of our ideas and the absurdity of the fact of us.
ANNIE DILLARD

Absurd Business Compromise Fact Finding Hands Ideas Work
I break up through the skin of awareness a thousand times a day, as dolphins burst through seas, and dive again, and rise, and dive.
ANNIE DILLARD

Awareness Break Up Dive Rise Sea Skin Time

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Annie Dillard Quotes