I couldn't remember how to forget myself. I didn't want to think about myself, to reckon myself in, to deal with myself every livelong minute on top of everything else—but swerve as I might, I couldn't avoid it. I was a boulder blocking my own path. I was a dog barking between my own ears, a barking dog who wouldn't hush. So this was adolescence.

About Annie Dillard

Annie Dillard (née Doak; April 30, 1945 – September 15, 2026) was an American author, best known for her narrative prose in both fiction and nonfiction. She published works of poetry, essays, prose, and literary criticism, as well as two novels and one memoir. Her 1974 book Pilgrim at Tinker...

More quotations from Annie Dillard

In the Koran, Allah asks, "The heaven and the earth and all in between, thinkest thou I made them in jest?" It's a good question. What do we think of the created universe, spanning an unthinkable void with an unthinkable profusion of forms?… If the giant water bug was not made in jest, was it then made in earnest?

—Annie Dillard

If you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days.

—Annie Dillard

money poverty thrift

I don't think I can learn from a wild animal how to live in particular… but I might learn something of mindlessness, something of the purity of living in the physical senses and the dignity of living without bias or motive.

—Annie Dillard

purity wildness

There is a muscular energy in sunlight corresponding to the spiritual energy of wind.

—Annie Dillard

energy sunlight wind

If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be too cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.

—Annie Dillard

love cynicism intellect nonsense affairs

History

1 Jan 2016 Added
26 Oct 2026 Wording changed

Previous wording

I couldn't remember how to forget myself. I didn't want to think about myself, to reckon myself in, to deal with myself every livelong minute on top of everything else — but swerve as I might, I couldn't avoid it. I was a boulder blocking my own path. I was a dog barking between my own ears, a barking dog who wouldn't hush. So this was adolescence.