As a life's work, I would remember everything - everything, against loss. I would go through life like a plankton net. Annie Dillard
It's a little silly to finally learn how to write at this age. But I long ago realized I was secretly sincere. Annie Dillard
I noticed this process of waking, and predicted with terrifying logic that one of these years not far away I would be awake continuously and never slip back, and never be free of myself again. Annie Dillard
There is no such thing as an artist - only the world, lit or unlit, as the world allows. Annie Dillard
The mind of the writer does indeed do something before it dies, and so does its owner, but I would be hard put to call it living. Annie Dillard
Every book has an intrinsic impossibility, which its writer discovers as soon as his first excitement dwindles. Annie Dillard
A writer looking for subjects inquires not after what he loves best, but after what he alone loves at all. Annie Dillard
I woke in bits, like all children, piecemeal over the years. I discovered myself and the world, and forgot them, and discovered them again. 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
The painter... does not fit the paints to the world. He most certainly does not fit the world to himself. He fits himself to the paint. The self is the servant who bears the paintbox and its inherited contents. Annie Dillard