Quotes from Holy the Firm

“We sleep to time's hurdy-gurdy; we wake, if ever we wake, to the silence of God. And then, when we wake to the deep shores of time uncreated, then when the dazzling dark breaks over the far slopes of time, then it's time to toss things, like our reason, and our will; then it's time to break our necks for home.
There are no events but thoughts and the heart's hard turning, the heart's slow learning where to love and whom. The rest is merely gossip, and tales for other times.”
― Annie Dillard, quote from Holy the Firm

“There are no events but thoughts and the heart's hard turning, the heart's slow learning where to love and whom. The rest is merely gossip, and tales for other times.”
― Annie Dillard, quote from Holy the Firm

“You can serve or you can sing, and wreck your heart in prayer, working the world's hard work.”
― Annie Dillard, quote from Holy the Firm

“People love the good not much less than the beautiful, and the happy as well, or even just the living, for the world of it all, and heart's home. ”
― Annie Dillard, quote from Holy the Firm

“When the candle is burning, who looks at the wick? When the candle is out, who needs it? But the world without light is wasteland and chaos, and a life without sacrifice is abomination.”
― Annie Dillard, quote from Holy the Firm

“I seem to be on a road, walking, greeting the hedgerows, the rose-hips, the apples and thorn. I seem to be on a road, walking, familiar with neighbors, high-handed with cattle, smelling the sea, and alone. Already, I know the names of things. I can kick a stone.”
― Annie Dillard, quote from Holy the Firm

“The higher Christian churches...come at God with an unwarranted air of professionalism, with authority and pomp, as though they knew what they were doing, as though people in themselves were an appropriate set of creatures to have dealings with God. I often think of the set pieces of liturgy as certain words which people have successfully addressed to God without their getting killed. In the high churches they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a strand of scaffolding who have long since forgotten the danger. If God were to blast such a congregation to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it any minute.”
― Annie Dillard, quote from Holy the Firm

“What can an artist use but materials, such as they are? What can he light but the short string of his gut, and when that's burnt out, any muck ready to hand?”
― Annie Dillard, quote from Holy the Firm

“So live. I'll be the nun for you. I am now.”
― Annie Dillard, quote from Holy the Firm

“Each thing in the world is translucent.”
― Annie Dillard, quote from Holy the Firm

“The higher Christian churches--where, if anywhere, I belong--come at God with an unwarranted air of professionalism, with authority and pomp, as though they knew what they were doing, as though people in themselves were an appropriate set of creatures to have dealings with God. I often think of the set pieces of liturgy as certain words which people have successfully addressed to God without their getting killed. In the high churches they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a strand of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect in any minute. This is the beginning of wisdom.”
― Annie Dillard, quote from Holy the Firm

“I like to tease a bit, if he'll let me, with the owners' son, two, whose name happens to be Chandler, and who himself likes to play in the big bins of nails.

And so, forgetting myself, thank God: Hullo. Hullo, short and relatively new. Welcome again to the land of the living, to time, this hill of beans. Chandler will have, as usual, none of it. He keeps his mysterious counsel.”
― Annie Dillard, quote from Holy the Firm

“Here is the fringey edge where elements meet and realms mingle, where time and eternity spatter each other with foam.”
― Annie Dillard, quote from Holy the Firm

“I often think of the set pieces of liturgy as certain words which people have successfully addressed to God without their getting killed.”
― Annie Dillard, quote from Holy the Firm

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