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Young men make great mistakes in life; for one thing, they idealize love too much. Benjamin Jowett		Tuesday Nov 11, 2025
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Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery. Annie Dillard

Quote Author: Annie Dillard

	Annie Dillard
	Annie Dillard (born 30 April 1945 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American author, best known for her narrative nonfiction. She has also published poetry, essays, literary criticism, autobiography, and fiction. She is married to the historical biographer Robert D. Richardson, Jr. Read More

Other Annie Dillard Quotes

I read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest, If I did not know about god and sin, would I go to hell?. No, said the priest, not if you did not know, Then why, asked the Eskimo earnestly, did you tell me?

No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing.... The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?

You can't test courage cautiously.

Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery.

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

Nature is, above all, profligate. Don't believe them when they tell you how economical and thrifty nature is, whose leaves return to the soil. Wouldn't it be cheaper to leave them on the tree in the first place?

Experiencing the present purely is being empty and hollow; you catch grace as a man fills his cup under a waterfall.

I chanced on a wonderful book by Marius von Senden, called Space and Sight. . . . For the newly sighted, vision is pure sensation unencumbered by meaning: "The girl went through the experience that we all go through and forget, the moment we are born. She saw, but it did not mean anything but a lot of different kinds of brightness." . . . In general the newly sighted see the world as a dazzle of color-patches. They are pleased by the sensation of color, and learn quickly to name the colors, but the rest of seeing is tormentingly difficult. . . . The mental effort involved . . . proves overwhelming for many patients. It oppresses them to realize, if they ever do at all, the tremendous size of the world, which they had previously conceived of as something touchingly manageable. . . . A disheartening number of them refuse to use their new vision, continuing to go over objects with their tongues, and lapsing into apathy and despair. . . . On the other hand, many newly sighted people speak well of the world, and teach us how dull is our own vision.

Somewhere, and I can't find where, I read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest, 'If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?' 'No,' said the priest, 'not if you did not know.' 'Then why,' asked the Eskimo earnestly, 'did you tell me?'

Does anything eat flowers. I couldn't recall having seen anything eat a flower are they nature's privileged pets?

The secret of seeing is to sail on solar wind. Hone and spread your spirit, till you yourself are a sail, whetted, translucent, broadside to the merest puff.