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Authors:

Annie Dillard quotes

American Author April 30, 1945

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Quotes

We are here to witness. There is nothing else to do with those mute materials we do not need. Until Larry teaches his stone to talk, until God changes his mind, or until the pagan gods slip back to their hilltop groves, all we can do with the whole inhuman array is watch it. Annie Dillard
If indeed [nature] has no greater aim than to provide a home for her greatest experiment, Man, it would be just like her methods to scatter a million stars wherof one might haply achieve her purpose. Annie Dillard
Nature's silence is its one remark, and every flake of world is a chip off that old mute and immutable block. The Chiense say that we live in the world of ten thousand things. Each of the ten thousand things cries out to us precisely nothing. Annie Dillard
The silence is all there is. It is the alpha and the omega, it is God's brooding over the face of the waters; it is the blinded note of the ten thousand things, the whine of wings. You take a step in the right direction to pray to this silence, and even to address the prayer to "World." Distinctions blur. Quit your tents. Pray without ceasing. Annie Dillard
A work in progress quickly becomes feral. It reverts to a wild state overnight. It is barely domesticated, a mustang on which you one day fastened a halter, but which now you cannot catch. It is a lion you cage in your study. As the work grows, it gets harder to control; it is a lion growing in strength. You must visit it every day and reassert your mastery over it. If you skip a day, you are, quite rightly, afraid to open the door to its room. You enter its room with bravura, holding... Annie Dillard
Annie Dillard quote: "You can serve or you can sing, and wreck your heart in prayer,..."
You can serve or you can sing, and wreck your heart in prayer, working the world's hard work. Annie Dillard
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
Annie Dillard quote: "Nature's silence is its one remark, and every flake of world..."
Nature's silence is its one remark, and every flake of world is a chip off that old mute and immutable block. Annie Dillard
Annie Dillard quote: "Caring passionately about something isn't against nature, and..."
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
I am no scientist. I explore the neighborhood. An infant who has just learned to hold up his head has a frank and forthright way of gazing about him in bewilderment. He hasn’t the faintest clue where he is, and he aims to find out. In a couple of years, what he will have learned instead is how to fake it: he’ll have the cocksure air of a squatter who has come to feel he owns the place. Some unwonted, taught pride diverts us from our original intent, which is to explore the neighborhood,... Annie Dillard
What can an artist use but materials, such as they are? What can he light but the short string of his gut, and when that's burnt out, any muck ready to hand? Annie Dillard
Annie Dillard quote: "Buddhism notes that it is always a mistake to think your soul..."
Buddhism notes that it is always a mistake to think your soul can go it alone. Annie Dillard
I cannot cause light; the most I can do is try to put myself in the path of its beam. It is possible, in deep space, to sail on solar wind. Light, be it particle or wave, has force: you can rig a giant sail and go. The secret of seeing is to sail on solar wind. Hone and spread your spirit till you yourself are a sail, whetted, translucent, broadside to the merest puff Annie Dillard
And I suspect that for me the way is like the weasel's: open to time and death painlessly, noticing everyting, remembering nothing, choosing the given with a fierce and pointed will. Annie Dillard
The painter... does not fit the paints to the world. He most certainly does not fit the world to himself. He fits himself to the paint. The self is the servant who bears the paintbox and its inherited contents. Annie Dillard

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