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We teach our children one thing only, as we were taught: to wake up. We teach our children to look alive there, to join by words and activities the life of human culture on the planet

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
Human
Planets
Humans
Activity
Looks
Taught
Children
Alive
Thing
Teach
Activities
Life
Words
Join
Culture
Wake
Look
Planet

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The dedicated life is worth living. You must give with your whole heart.
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I wake up thinking: What am I reading? What will I read next? I'm terrified that I'll run out, that I will read through all I want to, and be forced to learn wildflowers at last, to keep awake.
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How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and with that one, is what we are doing.
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There must be bands of enthusiasts for everything on earth-fanatics who shared a vocabulary, a batch of technical skills and equipment, and, perhaps, a vision of some single slice of the beauty and mystery of things, of their complexity, fascination, and unexpectedness.
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The interior life is often stupid.
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There is a muscular energy in sunlight corresponding to the spiritual energy of wind.
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Even if things are as bad as they could possible be, and as meaningless, then matters of truth are themselves indifferent we may as well please our sensibilities and, with as much spirit as we can muster, go out with a buck and a wing.
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What I call innocence is the spirit's unself-conscious state at any moment of pure devotion to any object. It is at once a receptiveness and total concentration.
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At its best, the sensation of writing is that of any unmerited grace. It is handed to you, but only if you look for it.
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Write as if you are dying.
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I know only enough of God to want to worship him, by any means ready to hand.
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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.
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You can serve or you can sing, and wreck your heart in prayer, working the world's hard work.
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Having chosen this foolishness, I was a free being. How could the world ever stop me, how could I betray myself, if I was not afraid?
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How you spend your days is how you spend your life.
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If even rock was interesting, if even this ugliness was worth whole shelves at the library, required sophisticated tools to study, and inspired grown men to crack mountains and saw crystals--then what wasn't?
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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.
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Johnston's books are beautifully written and among the funniest I have ever read.
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The world knew you before you knew the world.
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Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you.
Annie Dillard