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

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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
Stills
Near
Skipper
Still
Leaves
Lookout
Trying
Seen
Monarch
Always
Open
Sandy
Things
Eyes
Monarchs
Common
Traps
Eye
Utterly
Milkweed
Keep
Soil
Locust

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The secret is not to write about what you love best, but about what you, alone, love at all.
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Trees have a curious relationship to the subject of the present moment. There are many created things in the universe that outlive us, that outlive the sun, even, but I can't think about them. I live with trees.
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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.
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What is important is the moment of opening a life and feeling it touch--with an electric hiss and cry--this speckled mineral sphere, our present world.
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For all the insularity of the old guard, Pittsburgh was always an open and democratic town.
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why did I have to keep learning this same thing over and over?
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Unless all ages and races of men have been deluded by the same mass hypnotist (who?), there seems to be such a thing as beauty, a grace wholly gratuitous.
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The mind itself is an art object ... The mind is a blue guitar on which we improvise the song of the world.
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Like everyone in his right mind, I feared Santa Claus.
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What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?
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About five years ago I saw a mockingbird make a straight vertical descent from the roof gutter of a four-story building. It was an act as careless and spontaneous as the curl of a stem or the kindling of a star.
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But enough is enough. One turns at last even from glory itself with a sigh of relief. From the depths of mystery, and even from the heights of splendor, we bounce back and hurry for the latitudes of home.
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Writers serve as the memory of a people. They chew over our public past.
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Hone and spread your spirit till you yourself are a sail, whetted, translucent, broadside to the merest puff.
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I work mornings only. I go out to lunch. Afternoons I play with the baby, walk with my husband, or shovel mail.
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We live in all we seek.
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Why do we people in churches seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute?
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Whenever an encounter between a writer of good will and a regular person of good will happens to touch on the subject of writing, each person discovers, dismayed, that good will is of no earthly use. The conversation cannot proceed.
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The sensation of writing a book is the sensation of spinning, blinded by love and daring.
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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