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I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you.

Annie Dillard

We have not yet encountered any god who is as merciful as a man who flicks a beetle over on its feet.
ANNIE DILLARD

Encounter Feet Flick God Mercy
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
The world knew you before you knew the world.
ANNIE DILLARD

Judgment World
Nothing moves a woman so deeply as the boyhood of the man she loves.
ANNIE DILLARD

Love Man She Woman
Write about winter in the summer.
ANNIE DILLARD

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

Pronounce Quite Sea Whisper
Art is like an ill-trained Labrador retriever that drags you out into traffic.
ANNIE DILLARD

Art Traffic Traning
Every live thing is a survivor on a kind of extended emergency bivouac.
ANNIE DILLARD

Emergency Extend Kind Live Survival
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
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 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
Nature is, above all, profligate.
ANNIE DILLARD

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

Bell Experience Inspirational Life Lift Moments Struck
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 think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you.

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I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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