If we were to judge nature by common sense or likelihood, we wouldn't believe the world existed. Annie Dillard More Quotes by Annie Dillard More Quotes From Annie Dillard I breathed the air of history all unaware, and walked oblivious through its littered layers. Annie Dillard layersawarenessair 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. Annie Dillard ironicselfbirthday Time is the warp and matter the weft of the woven texture of beauty in space, and death is the hurling shuttle. Annie Dillard texturewovenspace It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance. Annie Dillard glancespowerfulfirsts You can serve or you can sing, and wreck your heart in prayer, working the world's hard work. Annie Dillard hard-workprayerheart I don't know what it is about fecundity that so appalls. I suppose it is the teeming evidence that birth and growth, which we value, are ubiquitous and blind, that life itself is so astonishingly cheap, that nature is as careless as it is bountiful, and that with extravagance goes a crushing waste that will one day include our own cheap lives. Annie Dillard crushatheismgrowth No, the point is not only does time fly and do we die, but that in these reckless conditions we live at all, and are vouchsafed, for the duration of certain inexplicable moments, to know it. Annie Dillard time-fliesdurationdoe Whenever there is stillness there is the still small voice, God's speaking from the whirlwind, nature's old song, and dance. Annie Dillard whirlwindvoicesong We teach our children one thing only, as we were taught: to wake up. We teach our children to look alive there, to join by words and activities the life of human culture on the planet Annie Dillard lifeculturechildren The mind itself is an art object ... The mind is a blue guitar on which we improvise the song of the world. Annie Dillard bluesongart Just think: in all the clean, beautiful reaches of the solar system, our planet alone is a blot; our planet alone has death. Annie Dillard cleanbeautifulthinking I woke in bits, like all children, piecemeal over the years. I discovered myself and the world, and forgot them, and discovered them again. Annie Dillard childrenworldyears How can people think that artists seek a name? A name, like a face, is something you have when you're not alone. There is no such thing as an artist: there is only the world, lit or unlit as the light allows. Annie Dillard artistnamesthinking Wherever we go, there seems to be only one business at hand - that of finding workable compromises between the sublimity of our ideas and the absurdity of the fact of us. Annie Dillard handsfactsideas Johnston's books are beautifully written and among the funniest I have ever read. Annie Dillard writtenbook What do I make of all this texture? What does it mean about the kind of world in which I have been set down? The texture of the world, its filigree and scrollwork, means that there is the possibility for beauty here, a beauty inexhaustible in its complexity, which opens to my knock, which answers in me a call I do not remember calling, and which trains me to the wild and extravagant nature of the spirit I seek. Annie Dillard callingdoemean Geography is the key, the crucial accident of birth. A piece of protein could be a snail, a sea lion, or a systems analyst, but it had to start somewhere. This is not science; it is merely metaphor. And the landscape in which the protein "starts" shapes its end as surely as bowls shape water. Annie Dillard keysseawater Just once I wanted a task that required all the joy I had. Day after day I had noticed that if I waited long enough, my strong unexpressed joy would dwindle and dissipate inside me, like a fire subsiding . . . . Just this once I wanted to let it rip. Annie Dillard ripstrongfire I'd seen a great many partial eclipses, but a partial eclipse has the same relation to a total eclipse as flirting with a man does to marrying him. It's completely different. Annie Dillard flirtingdoemen We wake, if ever at all, to mystery. Annie Dillard lightprayerjoy
