Hone and spread your spirit till you yourself are a sail, whetted, translucent, broadside to the merest puff. Annie Dillard More Quotes by Annie Dillard More Quotes From Annie Dillard In literary history, generation follows generation in a rage. Annie Dillard generations rage literature Many writers do little else but sit in small rooms recalling the real world. Annie Dillard small-rooms real writing I woke at intervals until . . . the intervals of waking tipped the scales, and I was more often awake than not. Annie Dillard awake scales waking It would seem that emotions are the curse, not death-emotions that appear to have developed upon a few freaks as a special curse from Malevolence. All right then. It is our emotions that are amiss. We are freaks, the world is fine, and let us all go have lobotomies to restore us to a natural state. We can leave the library then, go back to the creek lobotomized, and live on its banks as untroubled as any muskrat or reed. You first. Annie Dillard library special world How you spend your days is how you spend your life. Annie Dillard All my books started out as extravagant and ended up pure and plain. Annie Dillard extravagant pure book When you write, you lay out a line of words. Annie Dillard finding-yourself lines writing Write as if you are dying. Annie Dillard dying ifs writing Doing something does not require discipline. It creates its own discipline - with a little help from caffeine. Annie Dillard discipline doe littles When I walk with a camera, I walk from shot to shot, reading the light on a calibrated meter. When I walk without a camera, my own shutter opens, and the moment's light prints on my own silver gut. When I see this second way I am above all an unscrupulous observer. Annie Dillard light reading sight The mind wants to live forever, or to learn a very good reason why not. The mind wants the world to return its love, or its awareness... The mind's sidekick, however, will settle for two eggs over easy. The dear, stupid body is easily satisfied as a spaniel. And, incredibly, the simple spaniel can lure the brawling mind to its dish. It is everlastingly funny that the proud, metaphysically ambitious mind will hush if you give it an egg. Annie Dillard eggs simple stupid Books swept me away, this way and that, one after the other; I made endless vows according to their lights for I believed them. Annie Dillard light book way Time is the continuous loop, the snakeskin with scales endlessly overlapping without beginning or end, or time is an ascending spiral if you will, like a child's toy Slinky. Annie Dillard ascending time children Our family was on the lunatic fringe. My mother was always completely irrepressible. My father made crowd noises into a microphone. Annie Dillard crowds mother father Today is one of those excellent January partly cloudies in which light chooses an unexpected part of the landscape to trick out in gilt, and then the shadow sweeps it away. You know you're alive. You take huge steps, trying to feel the planet's roundness arc between your feet. Annie Dillard hiking journey feet If you're going to publish a book, you probably are going to make a fool of yourself. Annie Dillard publish fool book I sip my coffee. I look at the mountain, which is still doing its tricks, as you look at a still-beautiful face belonging to a person who was once your lover in another country years ago: with fond nostalgia, and recognition, but no real feelings save a secret astonishment that you are now strangers. Thanks. For the memories. It is ironic that the one thing that all religions recognize as separating us from our creator--our very self-consciousness--is also the one thing that divides us from our fellow creatures. It was a bitter birthday present from evolution, cutting us off at both ends. Annie Dillard beautiful memories country If we were to judge nature by common sense or likelihood, we wouldn't believe the world existed. Annie Dillard common-sense atheist believe There was only silence. It was the silence of matter caught in the act and embarrassed. There were no cells moving, and yet there were cells. I could see the shape of the land, how it lay holding silence. Its poise and its stillness were unendurable, like the ring of the silence you hear in your skull when you're little and notice you're living the ring which resumes later in life when you're sick. Annie Dillard later-in-life cells moving It is difficult to undo our own damage, and to recall to our presence that which we have asked to leave. It is hard to desecrate a grove and change your mind. The very holy mountains are keeping mum. We doused the burning bush and cannot rekindle it; we are lighting matches in vain under every green tree. Annie Dillard mountain mind tree
