Annie Dillard
Annie Dillard
Annie Dillardis an American author, best known for her narrative prose in both fiction and non-fiction. She has published works of poetry, essays, prose, and literary criticism, as well as two novels and one memoir. Her 1974 work Pilgrim at Tinker Creek won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Dillard taught for 21 years in the English department of Wesleyan University, in Middletown, Connecticut...
ProfessionNon-Fiction Author
Date of Birth30 April 1945
CityPittsburgh, PA
country real might-use
When I was quite young I fondly imagined that all foreign languages were codes for English. I thought that "hat," say, was the real and actual name of the thing, but that people in other countries, who obstinately persisted in speaking the code of their forefathers, might use the word "ibu," say, to designate not merely the concept hat, but the English word "hat." I knew only one foreign word, "oui," and since it had three letters as did the word for which it was a code, it seemed, touchingly enough, to confirm my theory.
wings way cliffs
If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair... or go into business. You’ve got to jump off cliffs and build your wings on the way down.
firsts extroverts introvert
When I first read the words 'introvert' and 'extrovert' when I was 10, I thought I was both.
misery
Put yourself out of your misery.
pain games skulls
Cruelty is a mystery, and the waste of pain. But if we describe a word to compass these things, a world that is a long, brute game, then we bump against another mystery: the inrush of power and delight, the canary that sings on the skull.
way helping possibility
No one can help you if you're stuck in a work. Only you can figure a way out, because only you can see the work's possibilities.
poet finest
Dan Gerber is one of our finest living poets.
understanding progress novelists
If I actually believed that the progress of human understanding depended on our crop of contemporary novelists, I would shoot myself.
flower pet doe
Does anything eat flowers. I couldn't recall having seen anything eat a flower - are they nature's privileged pets?
meaningful
The Pulitzer is more useful than meaningful.
grace
Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we sense them.
feelings none-of-your-business
Your feelings are none of your business.
eye yellow brain
[Insects] are not only cold-blooded, and green- and yellow-blooded, but are also cased in a clacking horn. They have rigid eyes and brains strung down their backs. But they make up the bulk of our comrades-at-life, so I look to them for a glimmer of companionship.
discipline doe littles
Doing something does not require discipline. It creates its own discipline - with a little help from caffeine.