Quote

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

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Annie Dillard
Age: 79
Born: 1945
Born: April 30
Author
Essayist
Novelist
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
Pittsburg
Pennsylvania
Annie Dillard Doak
Faces
Wings
Note
Distinctions
Water
Praying
Quit
Brooding
Without
Step
Quitting
Tents
Take
Thousand
Distinction
Blur
Omega
Right
Steps
Pray
Blinded
Whine
Even
Silence
Direction
Waters
Alphas
Things
Prayer
Notes
Address
Ceasing
World
Face
Ten
Addresses
Alpha

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Silence is not our heritage but our destiny we live where we want to live.
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Nature's silence is its one remark, and every flake of world is a chip off that old mute and immutable block.
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Whenever there is stillness there is the still small voice, God's speaking from the whirlwind, nature's old song, and dance.
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The novel is a game or joke shared between author and reader.
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Admire the world for never ending on you -- as you would an opponent, without taking your eyes away from him, or walking away.
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Just think: in all the clean, beautiful reaches of the solar system, our planet alone is a blot our planet alone has death.
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The point of going somewhere like the Napo River in Ecuador is not to see the most spectacular anything. It is simply to see what is there.
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We are most deeply asleep at the switch when we fancy we control any switches at all.
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The creatures I seek do not want to be seen.
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The sense impressions of one-celled animals are not edited for the brain. This is philosophically interesting in a rather mournful way, since it means that only the simplest animals perceive the universe as it is.
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The life of sensation is the life of greed it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less.
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Those of us who read carried around with us like martyrs a secret knowledge, a secret joy, and a secret hope: There is a life worth living where history is still taking place there are ideas worth dying for, and circumstances where courage is still prized.
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Our life seems cursed to be a wiggle merely, and a wandering without end.
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The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper I cannot quite make it out.
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Does anything eat flowers. I couldn't recall having seen anything eat a flower - are they nature's privileged pets?
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At night I read and write, and things I have never understood become clear I reap the harvest of the rest of the year's planting
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