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There 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 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

Beam Cause Inspirational Light Myself Path Practice See Try Wave
We are most deeply asleep at the switch when we fancy we control any switches at all.
ANNIE DILLARD

Control Fancy Sleep Switch
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
We are here on the planet only once, and might as well get a feel for the place.
ANNIE DILLARD

Feeling Place Planet Travel
Nothing moves a woman so deeply as the boyhood of the man she loves.
ANNIE DILLARD

Love Man She Woman
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 dedicated life is worth living. You must give with your whole heart.
ANNIE DILLARD

Dedicate Giving Heart Life Live Worth
I would like to learn, or remember, how to live.
ANNIE DILLARD

Inspirational Learning Live Remember
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
These are our few live seasons. Let us live them as purely as we can, in the present.
ANNIE DILLARD

Deason Inspirational Present Pure
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
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
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
At 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 DILLARD

Empty Listen Mountain Ready Wait Wood Yourself
The extravagant gesture is the very stuff of creation.
ANNIE DILLARD

Creation Gesture Stuff
It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance.
ANNIE DILLARD

Breathe Glance Power See Time

There 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.

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There 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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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