Annie Dillard Quotes

Quotes about:

• 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

  Sea, Waiting, Listening

  Annie Dillard (2016). “Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters”, p.67, Canongate Books

  75 Copy quote

• 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

  Book, Struggle, Writing

  8 Copy quote

• We are here to witness the creation and to abet it. We are here to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed. Together we notice not only each mountain shadow and each stone on the beach but, especially, we notice the beautiful faces and complex natures of each other. We are here to bring to consciousness the beauty and power that are around us and to praise the people who are here with us. We witness our generation and our times. We watch the weather. Otherwise, creation would be playing to an empty house.

  Annie Dillard

  Beautiful, Beach, Our Generation

  57 Copy quote

• How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

  Annie Dillard

  Life, Wisdom, Travel

  "The Writing Life". Tikkun magazine, Volume 3, Number 6, 1988.

  89 Copy quote

• It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping God may wake someday and take offense, or the waking God may draw us out to where we can never return.

  Annie Dillard

  Sleep, Issues, Church

  Annie Dillard (2016). “The Abundance”, p.173, Canongate Books

  69 Copy quote

• No one escapes the wilderness on the way to the promised land.

  Annie Dillard

  Land, Peaceful, Way

  79 Copy quote

• Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed?

  Annie Dillard

  Reading, Mystery, Ifs

  Annie Dillard (2016). “The Abundance”, p.85, Canongate Books

  11 Copy quote

• Spend the afternoon. You can't take it with you.

  Annie Dillard

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Time

  Annie Dillard (2011). “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”, p.274, Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd

  16 Copy quote

• The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less.

  Annie Dillard

  Greed, Spirit, Sensations

  16 Copy quote

• 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. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. . . . Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.

  Annie Dillard

  Book, Writing, Play

  "The Writing Life". Book by Annie Dillard, archive.nytimes.com. 1989.

  56 Copy quote

• Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery.

  Annie Dillard

  Life, Rest In Peace, Mystery

  Annie Dillard (2011). “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”, p.145, Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd

  13 Copy quote

• I cannot cause light; the most I can do is try to put myself in the path of its beam.

  Annie Dillard

  Light, Trying, Path

  Annie Dillard (2016). “The Abundance”, p.121, Canongate Books

  11 Copy quote

• You can't test courage cautiously.

  Annie Dillard

  Courage, Insperational, Bravery

  Annie Dillard (2016). “An American Childhood”, p.102, Canongate Books

  16 Copy quote

• 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

  Thinking, Grace, Trying

  Annie Dillard (2016). “The Abundance”, p.105, Canongate Books

  51 Copy quote

• An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell? No, said the priest, not if you did not know. Then why, asked the Inuit earnestly, did you tell me?

  Annie Dillard

  Life, Religion, Atheism

  Pilgrim at Tinker Creek ch. 7 (1974)

  81 Copy quote

• Make connections; let rip; and dance where you can.

  Annie Dillard

  Rip, Connections

  Annie Dillard (2011). “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”, p.97, Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd

  12 Copy quote

• 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. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.

  Annie Dillard

  Motivational, Hands, Order

  "The Writing Life". Book by Annie Dillard, 1989.

  20 Copy quote

• I still try to keep my eyes open. I'm always on the lookout for antlion traps in sandy soil, monarch pupae near milkweed, skipper larvae in locust leaves. These things are utterly common, and I've not seen one

  Annie Dillard

  Eye, Trying, Soil

  Annie Dillard (2011). “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”, p.19, Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd

  14 Copy quote

• Writing a book is like rearing children -- willpower has very little to do with it. If you have a little baby crying in the middle of the night, and if you depend only on willpower to get you out of bed to feed the baby, that baby will starve. You do it out of love.

  Annie Dillard

  Baby, Children, Book

  5 Copy quote

• We are here on the planet only once, and might as well get a feel for the place.

  Annie Dillard

  Journey, Hiking, Might

  Annie Dillard (2016). “Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters”, p.56, Canongate Books

  16 Copy quote

• Adverbs are a sign that you've used the wrong verb.

  Annie Dillard

  Writing, Verbs, Used

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  Birthday, Self, Ironic

  1974 Of self-consciousness. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, ch.6.

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  Hands, Simplicity, Healthy

  Annie Dillard (2011). “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”, p.17, Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd

  6 Copy quote

• I wake expectant, hoping to see a new thing.

  Annie Dillard

  Recovery, New Beginnings, Addiction

  Annie Dillard (2011). “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”, p.4, Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd

  14 Copy quote

• The way we live our days, is the way we live our lives.

  Annie Dillard

  Life, Way, Self Help

  12 Copy quote

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