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

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

“I have often noticed that these things, which obsess me, neither bother nor impress other people even slightly. I am horribly apt to approach some innocent at a gathering, and like the ancient mariner, fix him with a wild, glitt’ring eye and say, “Do you know that in the head of the caterpillar of the ordinary goat moth there are two hundred twenty-eight separate muscles?” The poor wretch flees. I am not making chatter; I mean to change his life.”

“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 their hilltop groves, all we can do with the whole inhuman array is watch it.”

“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 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.”

“IT'S A SWORD, said the Hogfather. THEY'RE NOT /MEANT/ TO BE SAFE.”

“Shouldn't we be speaking of something more important than life and death?”

“Flowers, cold from the dew,”

“The young open the paper to forget about life by reading the funny strips. The old do it to forget about death by reading other people's obits. My advice: don't open the paper and go on with your life.”

“Life is a temporary condition, Henry. And it's uncertain. That's why you have to seize chances when you find them. Pursue what you want. Take risks. Live, love...all of it. Every last one of us is going to die, but if we don't live as we truly want, if we're not with the one we want to be with, we're dead already.”

“Undo it, take it back, make every day the previous one until I am returned to the day before the one that made you gone. Or set me on an airplane traveling west, crossing the date line again and again, losing this day, then that, until the day of loss still lies ahead, and you are here instead of sorrow.”