Annie Dillard
Annie Dillard
Annie Dillardis an American author, best known for her narrative prose in both fiction and non-fiction. She has published works of poetry, essays, prose, and literary criticism, as well as two novels and one memoir. Her 1974 work Pilgrim at Tinker Creek won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Dillard taught for 21 years in the English department of Wesleyan University, in Middletown, Connecticut...
ProfessionNon-Fiction Author
Date of Birth30 April 1945
CityPittsburgh, PA
fall two wild-roses
Could two live that way? Could two live under the wild rose, and explore by the pond, so that the smooth mind of each is as everywhere present to the other, and as received and as unchallenged, as falling snow?
fall rivers knowing
Knowing you are alive is watching on every side your generation's short time falling away as fast as rivers drop through air, and feeling it hit.
real fall rope
The universe is illusion merely, not one speck of it real, and we are not only its victims, falling always into or smashed by a planet slung by the sun-but also its captives, bound by the mineral-made ropes of our senses.
life fall airplane
I think that the dying pray at the last not please but thank you, as a guest thanks his host at the door. Falling from airplanes the people are crying thank you, thank you, all down the air; and the cold carriages draw up for them on the rocks.
hone sail secret seeing solar spread till
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.
eyes startled threw
I startled a weasel who startled me, and we exchanged a long glance. . . . Our eyes locked, and someone threw away the key.
absolute added arithmetic crystals geometry grew inside maybe obedience perfect plane rock stones
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.
trying causes ashes
Don't save something good for a later place. Don't hold back from your students, from the poor, don't try to keep anything for yourself 'cause it'll turn to ashes.
years quitting notes
I had good innings, as the British say. I wrote for 38 years at the top of my form, and I wanted to quit on a high note.
nice writing thinking
I write in my own journal when something extraordinary or funny happens. And there's some nice imagery in there. I don't think of what to do with it.
creative painting process
The creative process obtains in all creative acts. So if I'm painting suddenly I'll see something that I didn't see before.
vacation people remember
People who take photographs during their whole vacation won't remember their vacation. They'll only remember what photographs they took.
memories writing easy
Old memories are very easy to get except that once you write about something you've destroyed it.
mind doe would-be
The mind of the writer does indeed do something before it dies, and so does its owner, but I would be hard put to call it living.