Annie Dillard - Read Quotes

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I read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest, If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell? No, said the priest, not if you did not know. Then why, asked the Eskimo earnestly, did you tell me?

Annie Dillard
She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live. She read books as one would breathe ether, to sink in and die.

Annie Dillard
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.

Annie Dillard
Why do you never find anything written about that idiosyncratic thought you advert to, about your fascination with something no one else understands? Because it is up to you. There is something you find interesting, for a reason hard to explain. It is hard to explain because you have never read it on any page; there you begin. You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment.

Annie Dillard
He is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write. He is careful of what he learns, for that is what he will know.

Annie Dillard
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

Annie Dillard
The writer... is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write.

Annie Dillard
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.

Annie Dillard
Evolution loves death more than it loves you or me. This is easy to write, easy to read, and hard to believe.

Annie Dillard