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

— Annie Dillard

"The thing is to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way, to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse."

— Annie Dillard

"You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary."

— Annie Dillard

"The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there."

— Annie Dillard

"Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case."

— Annie Dillard

"Spend the afternoon. You can't take it with you."

— Annie Dillard

"We wake, if we ever wake at all, to mystery, rumors of death, beauty, violence."

— 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

"I cannot cause light; the most I can do is try to put myself in the path of its beam."

— Annie Dillard