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I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.

Annie Dillard

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

Feeling Place Planet Travel
Art is like an ill-trained Labrador retriever that drags you out into traffic.
ANNIE DILLARD

Art Traffic Traning
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
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
We are most deeply asleep at the switch when we fancy we control any switches at all.
ANNIE DILLARD

Control Fancy Sleep Switch
Nature is, above all, profligate.
ANNIE DILLARD

Nature One Liner
Nothing moves a woman so deeply as the boyhood of the man she loves.
ANNIE DILLARD

Love Man She Woman
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

Cool Eyes Flame Look See Spark Tinder Water
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
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
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
The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper; I cannot quite make it out.
ANNIE DILLARD

Pronounce Quite Sea Whisper
What a hideout: Holiness lies spread and borne over the surface of time and stuff like color.
ANNIE DILLARD

Color Hide Holy Spread Surface
These are our few live seasons. Let us live them as purely as we can, in the present.
ANNIE DILLARD

Deason Inspirational Present Pure
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

Die Friendship Hope Writing
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

I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.

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I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.

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Popular Authors

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