Other Quote by Annie Dillard — Inspiring Words on Life, Love & Wisdom

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

“What have we been doing all these centuries but trying to call God back to the mountain, or, failing that, raise a peep out of anything that isn't us? What is the difference between a cathedral and a physics lab? Are not they both saying: Hello? We spy on whales and on interstellar radio objects; we starve ourselves and pray till we're blue.”

“The soul may ask God for anything, and never fail.”

“The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside by a generous hand. But- and this is the point- who gets excited by a mere penny? But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days.”

“There are 1,198,500,000 people alive now in China.”

“The mountains are great stone bells; they clang together like nuns. Who shushed the stars? There are a thousand million galaxies easily seen in the Palomar reflector; collisions between and among them do, of course, occur. But these collisions are very long and silent slides. Billions of stars sift amont each other untouched, too distant even to be moved, heedless as always, hushed. The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper; I cannot quite make it out. But God knows I have tried.”

“The creative adult is the child who survived.”

“To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.”

“Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions — not outside.”

“Don't count the days, make the days count.”

“Sleep is the real beauty secret, but I don't get enough of that.”

“The future depends on what you do today.”