When you open a book,β the sentimental library posters said, βanything can happen.β This was so. A book of fiction was a bomb. It was a land mine you wanted to go off. You wanted it to blow your whole day. Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of books were duds. They had been rusting out of everyoneβs way for so long that they no longer worked. There was no way to distinguish the duds from the live mines except to throw yourself at them headlong, one by one. β¨ Annie Dillard (2016). An American Childhood, p.77, Canongate Books
More Author Quotes
- Buddhism notes that it is always a mistake to think your soul can go it alone. β¨ Annie Dillard (2010). For the Time Being, p.11, Vintage
- The sensation of writing a book is the sensation of spinning, blinded by love and daring. It is the sensation of a stunt pilot's turning barrel rolls, or an inchworm's blind rearing from a stem in se β¦ βΆ
- We are here to witness. There is nothing else to do with those mute materials we do not need. Until Larry teaches his stone to talk, until God changes his mind, or until the pagan gods slip back to t β¦ βΆ
- The real and proper question is: why is it beautiful? β¨ Annie Dillard (2011). Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, p.107, Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd
- So the Midwest nourishes us [...] and presents us with the spectacle of a land and a people completed and certain. And so we run to our bedrooms and read in a fever, and love the big hardwood trees o β¦ βΆ
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