“In the great meteor shower of August, the Perseid, I wail all day for the shooting stars I miss. They’re out there showering down, committing hari-kiri in a flame of fatal attraction, and hissing perhaps into the ocean. But at dawn what looks like a blue dome clamps down over me like a lid on a pot. The stars and planets could smash and I’d never know. Only a piece of ashen moon occasionally climbs up or down the inside of the dome, and our local star without surcease explodes on our heads. We have really only that one light, one source for all power, and yet we must turn away from it by universal decree. Nobody here on the planet seems aware of that strange, powerful taboo, that we all walk about carefully averting our faces, this way and that, lest our eyes be blasted forever.”
Annie Dillard“Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.”
Annie Dillard“There is a muscular energy in sunlight corresponding to the spiritual energy of wind.”
Annie Dillard“Buddhism notes that it is always a mistake to think your soul can go it alone.”
Annie Dillard“Just think: in all the clean, beautiful reaches of the solar system, our planet alone is a blot; our planet alone has death.”
Annie Dillard“As soon as beauty is sought not from religion and love, but for pleasure, it degrades the seeker.”
Annie Dillard“The notion of the infinite variety of detail and the multiplicity of forms is a pleasing one; in complexity are the fringes of beauty, and in variety are generosity and exuberance.”
Annie Dillard“It is ironic that the one thing that all religions recognize as separating us from our creator, our very self-consciousness, is also the one thing that divides us from our fellow creatures. It was a bitter birthday present from evolution.”
Annie Dillard“You can't test courage cautiously.”
Annie Dillard“The surest sign of age is loneliness.”
Annie Dillard“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.”
Annie Dillard