50+ Best Annie Dillard Quotes From The 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek' Author
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Annie Dillard is a well-known American author.
She has published two novels and one memoir, amongst other literary works. Dillard won a Pulitzer Prize in 1975 for her work, ‘Pilgrim at Tinker Creek’.
Her other notable work includes ‘Holy the Firm’, ‘An American Childhood’, and many more. Dillard completed her education from Hollins College in Virginia.
She married her teacher, R. H. W. Dillard and after an amicable divorce in 1975, she moved to Lummi Island. There she got married to Gary Clevidence. She then married biographer Robert D. Richardson, and they stayed married to each other, until his passing in 2020.
Dillard continues to teach currently. She was inspired by Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and has cited them to be her influences.
You can find a list of many more Annie Dillard quotes in this article. There are plenty of Annie Dillard book quotes here for you to enjoy.
If you like this article, check out these Anne Lamott quotes and classic literature quotes.
Best Annie Dillard Quotes
Some of the best Annie Dillard quotes are listed below. Which quote is your favorite?
1. "Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now."
-Annie Dillard.
2. "As a life's work, I would remember everything - everything, against loss. I would go through life like a plankton net."
-Annie Dillard.
3. "We are here to witness the creation and to abet it."
-Annie Dillard.
4. "The whole show has been on fire from the word go. I come down to the water to cool my eyes. But everywhere I look I see fire; that which isn't flint is tinder, and the whole world sparks and flames."
-Annie Dillard.
5. "So many things have been shown so to me on these banks, so much light has illumined me by reflection here where the water comes down."
-Annie Dillard.
6. "Thoreau said that his firewood warmed him twice—because he labored to cut his own. Mine froze me twice, for the same reason."
-Annie Dillard.
7. "Evolution loves death more than it loves you or me."
-Annie Dillard.
Pilgrim At Tinker Creek Quotes
You can find a list of some famous 'Pilgrim At Tinker Creek' book quotes by Annie Dillard below.
8. "The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus."
-Annie Dillard.
9. "Nature is, above all, profligate. Don't believe them when they tell you how economical and thrifty nature is, whose leaves return to the soil. Wouldn't it be cheaper to leave them on the tree in the first place?"
-Annie Dillard.
10. "At night I read and write, and things I have never understood become clear."
-Annie Dillard.
11. "Go up into the gaps. If you can find them; they shift and vanish too. Stalk the gaps. Squeak into a gap in the soil, turn, and unlock-more than a maple- a universe."
-Annie Dillard.
12. "Even such sophisticated mammals as the great predator cats occasionally eat their cubs. A mother cat will be observed licking the area around the umbilical cord of the helpless newborn."
-Annie Dillard.
13. "The secret of seeing is, then, the pearl of great price. If I thought he could teach me to find it and keep it forever I would stagger barefoot across a hundred deserts after any lunatic at all."
-Annie Dillard.
14. "Just a glimpse, Moses; a cliff in the rock here, a mountain-top there, and the rest is denial and longing."
-Annie Dillard.
15. "Imperceptibly at first, and now consciously, I shy away from the arts, from the human emotional stew…I drive myself deeper and deeper into exile from my own kind."
-Annie Dillard.
Popular Annie Dillard Quotes
Listed below are some popular Annie Dillard quotes.
16. "Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes."
-Annie Dillard, ‘The Writing Life’.
17. "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."
-Annie Dillard.
18. "The Pulitzer is more useful than meaningful."
-Annie Dillard.
19. "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."
-Annie Dillard.
20. "Even when passages seemed to come easily, as though I were copying from a folio held open by smiling angels, the manuscript revealed the usual signs of struggle—bloodstains, teethmarks, gashes, and burns."
-Annie Dillard.
Top Annie Dillard Quotes
Annie Dillard fans can find a list of top Annie Dillard quotes below. Which of these Annie Dillard quotes is your favorite?
21. "It could be that our faithlessness is a cowering cowardice born of our very smallness, a massive failure of imagination. If we were to judge nature by common sense or likelihood, we wouldn't believe the world existed."
-Annie Dillard.
22. "There is a muscular energy in sunlight corresponding to the spiritual energy of wind."
-Annie Dillard.
23. "We sleep to time's hurdy-gurdy; we wake, if ever we wake, to the silence of God."
-Annie Dillard., ‘Holy the Firm’
24. "What do we ever know that is higher than that power which, from time to time, seizes our lives, and reveals us startlingly to ourselves as creatures set down here bewildered? Why does death so catch us by surprise, and why love?"
-Annie Dillard.
25. "If you stay still, earth buries you, ready or not."
-Annie Dillard.
26. "On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke?"
-Annie Dillard.
27. "We wake, if ever at all, to mystery."
-Annie Dillard.
28. "We still and always want waking."
-Annie Dillard.
Famous Annie Dillard Quotes
Listed below is a list of some famous Annie Dillard quotes that you will find illuminating.
29. "These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water."
-Annie Dillard.
30. "People love pretty much the same things best. A writer looking for subjects inquires not after what he loves best, but after what he alone loves at all."
-Annie Dillard.
31. "Every book has an intrinsic impossibility, which its writer discovers as soon as his first excitement dwindles."
-Annie Dillard.
32. "Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case."
-Annie Dillard.
33. "Old memories are very easy to get except that once you write about something you’ve destroyed it."
-Annie Dillard.
34. "I saw in a blue haze all the world poured flat and pale between the mountains."
-Annie Dillard.
35. "Doing something does not require discipline. It creates its own discipline - with a little help from caffeine."
-Annie Dillard.
36. "When I see this way, I analyze and pry. I hurl over logs and roll away stones; I study the bank a square foot at a time, probing and tilting my head."
-Annie Dillard.
37. "The surest sign of age is loneliness."
-Annie Dillard.
38. "You can’t test courage cautiously."
-Annie Dillard.
Annie Dillard Quotes About Writing And Reading
A list of Annie Dillard quotes about writing and reading are listed below. These quotes are great for all writers. Which of these Annie Dillard quotes is your favorite?
39. "One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all shoot it play it lose it all right away every time...give it, give it all, give it now."
-Annie Dillard.
40. "She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live."
-Annie Dillard., ‘The Living’
41. "The writer studies literature, not the world. He is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write."
-Annie Dillard., ‘The Writing Life’
42. "He is careful of what he learns, for that is what he will know."
-Annie Dillard., ‘The Writing Life’
43. "Putting a book together is interesting and exhilarating."
-Annie Dillard.
44. "Adverbs are a sign that you’ve used the wrong verb."
-Annie Dillard.
45. "Something completely necessary [in your writing] is false or fatal. Once you find it, and if you can accept the finding, of course it will mean starting again. This is why many experienced writers urge young men and women to learn a useful trade."
-Annie Dillard.
46. "Why do you never find anything written about that idiosyncratic thought you advert to, about your fascination with something no one else understands?"
-Annie Dillard.
Annie Dillard Quotes About Life
Some Annie Dillard quotes about life are given below. Find your favorite one here!
47. "You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down."
-Annie Dillard.
48. "How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives."
-Annie Dillard., ‘The Writing Life’
49. "I'm a housewife: I spend far more time on housework than anything else."
-Annie Dillard.
50. "What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days."
-Annie Dillard, ‘The Writing Life’
51. "I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck."
-Annie Dillard.
52. "The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet."
-Annie Dillard.
Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for the best Annie Dillard quotes from the 'Pilgrim At Tinker Creek' author, then why not take a look at Toni Morrison quotes, or Alice Walker quotes.
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Bachelor of Arts specializing in English
Arkoprabho SadhuBachelor of Arts specializing in English
Arkoprabho is an English graduate from Bidhannagar University with experience in academic writing on various subjects such as business management, law, and medicine. He is a published poet and enjoys films, music, and finance. As a member of the Content Updating team, he aims to become an expert in SEO content writing and editing. In his free time, he likes to write film scripts, research the stock market, and indulge in creative interests such as poetry writing, anime, and music.
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