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
heart gossip events
There are no events but thoughts and the heart's hard turning, the heart's slow learning where to love and whom. The rest is merely gossip, and tales for other times.
heart brain break
You search, you break your heart, your back, your brain, and then-and only then-it is handed to you.
prayer heart hard-work
You can serve or you can sing, and wreck your heart in prayer, working the world's hard work.
heart sleep home
We sleep to time's hurdy-gurdy; we wake, if ever we wake, to the silence of God. And then, when we wake to the deep shores of time uncreated, then when the dazzling dark breaks over the far slopes of time, then it's time to toss things, like our reason, and our will; then it's time to break our necks for home. There are no events but thoughts and the heart's hard turning, the heart's slow learning where to love and whom. The rest is merely gossip, and tales for other times.
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.
years waking would-be
I noticed this process of waking, and predicted with terrifying logic that one of these years not far away I would be awake continuously and never slip back, and never be free of myself again.
book writing long
It makes more sense to write one big book - a novel or nonfiction narrative - than to write many stories or essays. Into a long, ambitious project you can fit or pour all you possess and learn.
christmas mind santa
Like everyone in his right mind, I feared Santa Claus.