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 There is neither a proportional relationship, nor an inverse one, between a writer’s estimation of a work in progress & its actual quality. The feeling that the work is magnificent, & the feeling that it is abominable, are both mosquitoes to be repelled, ignored, or killed, but not indulged. Annie Dillard progress quality feelings 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 careful knows writing 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 writing book hands Crystals grew inside rock like arithmetic flowers. They lengthened and spread, added plane to plane in an awed and perfect obedience to an absolute geometry that even stones - maybe only the stones - understood. Annie Dillard rocks flower fear A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. Annie Dillard schedules time hands At its best, the sensation of writing is that of any unmerited grace. It is handed to you, but only if you look for it. Annie Dillard grace writing looks I cannot imagine a sorrier pursuit than struggling for years to write a book that attempts to appeal to people who do not read in the first place. Annie Dillard struggle writing book The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest. Annie Dillard jest earnest made The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside by a generous hand. But- and this is the point- who gets excited by a mere penny? But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. Annie Dillard simplicity healthy hands According to Inuit culture in Greenland, a person possesses six or seven souls. The souls take the form of tiny people scattered throughout the body. Annie Dillard inuit soul people Write about winter in the summer. Annie Dillard summer writing winter I would like to learn, or remember, how to live. Annie Dillard education remember Aim for the chopping block. If you aim for the wood, you will have nothing. Aim past the wood, aim through the wood; aim for the chopping block. Annie Dillard woods block past Out of a human population on earth of four and a half billion, perhaps twenty people can write a book in a year. Some people lift cars, too. Some people enter week-long sled-dog races, go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, fly planes through the Arc de Triomphe. Some people feel no pain in childbirth. Some people eat cars. There is no call to take human extremes as norms. Annie Dillard pain dog book Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed? Annie Dillard mystery reading ifs Take a quick dip, relax with a schnapps and a sandwich, stretch out, have a smoke, take a nap or just rest, and then sit around and chat until three. Then I hunt some more until sundown, bathe again, put on white tie and tails to keep up appearances, eat a huge dinner, smoke a cigar and sleep like a log until the sun comes up again to redden the eastern sky. This is living…. Could it be more perfect? Annie Dillard white sky sleep Why do we people in churches seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? Annie Dillard cheerful church people The reader's ear must adjust down from loud life to the subtle, imaginary sounds of the written word. An ordinary reader picking up a book can't yet hear a thing; it will take half an hour to pick up the writing's modulations, its ups and downs and louds and softs. Annie Dillard sound writing book 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 positive life thinking Nothing moves a woman so deeply as the boyhood of the man she loves. Annie Dillard boyhood men moving
