Quotes from The Living

Annie Dillard ·  464 pages

Rating: (2.4K votes)


“She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live.”
― Annie Dillard, quote from The Living


“She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live. She read books as one would breathe ether, to sink in and die.”
― Annie Dillard, quote from The Living


“Naturally society cherished itself alone; it prized what everyone agreed was precious, despised what everyone agreed was despicable, and ignored what no one mentioned-all to it's own enhancement, and with the loud view that these bubbles and vapors were eternal and universal. If June had stressed to Mabel that she was going to die, would she have learned to eat with a fork? Society's loyal members, having sacrificed their only lives to it's caprices, hastened to entrap the next generation into agreement, so their follies would not have been in vain and they could all go down together, blind and well turned out. The company, the club, and the party had offered him a position like bait, and he bit. He had embedded himself in the company like a man bricked into a wall, and whirled with the building's maps, files, and desks,senselessly, as the planet spun and death pooled on the cold basement floors. Who could blame him?- when people have always lived so. Now , however, he saw the city lifted away, and the bricks and files vaporized; he saw the preenings of men laid low, and the comforts of family scattered. He was free and loosed on the black beach.”
― Annie Dillard, quote from The Living


“How loose he seemed to himself, under the stars! The spaces between the stars were pores, out of which human meaning evaporated.”
― Annie Dillard, quote from The Living


“No child on earth was ever meant to be ordinary, and you can see it in them, and they know it, too, but then the times get to them, and they wear out their brains learning what folks expect, and spend their strength trying to rise over those same folks.”
― Annie Dillard, quote from The Living



“When, over the following months, Minta Randall found that Eustace apparently reciprocated her profoundest and most secret feelings, she thought she had never lived before, or knew what life could hold, or what absolute power one heart could exert upon another. She perceived no trace, fossil, or echo of this wild sensation anywhere around her, and concluded that she and Eustace had invented it together, which would be, she thought, just like them.”
― Annie Dillard, quote from The Living


“How we spend our days is,how we spend our lives.”
― Annie Dillard, quote from The Living


About the author

Annie Dillard
Born place: in Pittsburgh, PA, The United States
Born date April 30, 1945
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Popular quotes

“Not scared.

But excited in that
jiggering-on-too-much-hot-sauce
kind of way
that it's time to
step out
of my old framework,
raw and amorphous,
to become something I've never thought of before.”
― Thalia Chaltas, quote from Because I Am Furniture


“I'm the lucky one, Tara. I have you; I have Nathan. I have the perfect life. Thank you.”
― Jaci Burton, quote from The Perfect Play


“I wandered over to the motorbike and read the work Triumph on the side. 'How long has he had it?' I asked Jack.
'No. Over my dead body.' Jack's expression was hard.
[…]
'[…] I told Dad I'd keep you safe and the Alex you know is not the Alex who drives that bike. He's not known to respect the speed limit.'
Now I definitely wanted to go on it.”
― Sarah Alderson, quote from Hunting Lila


“Possession of the ice didn’t remain a Third Class monopoly for long.”
― Walter Lord, quote from A Night to Remember


“Johanna sat by the fire every night and worked on her tapestry. Dumfries waited until she was settled in her chair and then draped himself across her feet. It became a ritual for Alex to squeeze himself up next to her and fall asleep during her stories about fierce warriors and fair maidens. Johanna's tales all had a unique twist, for none of the heroines she told stories about ever needed to be rescued by their knights in shining armor. More often than not, the fair maidens rescued their knights.
Gabriel couldn't take issue with his wife. She was telling Alex the truth. It was a fact that maidens could rescue mighty, arrogant warriors. Johanna had certainly rescued him from a bleak, cold existence. She'd given him a family and a home. She was his love, his joy, his companion.
She was his saving grace.”
― Julie Garwood, quote from Saving Grace


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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

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