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

—Annie Dillard

energy sunlight wind

About Annie Dillard

Portrait of 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

There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by.

—Annie Dillard

Write about winter in the summer. Describe Norway as Ibsen did, from a desk in Italy; describe Dublin as James Joyce did, from a desk in Paris. Willa Cather wrote her prairie novels in New York City; Mark Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn in Hartford. Recently, scholars learned that Walt Whitman rarely left his room.

—Annie Dillard

art summer winter

The dying must often feel this way — steaming along just fine, while on ahead someone has torn up the rails.

—Annie Dillard

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.

—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

universe earth heaven

More quotations tagged with “energy”

The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.

—Albert Einstein

war weapons necessity problems energy

If you're condemned to death they have to give you one last meal of your choice. What is that all about? A group of people plans to kill you, so they want you to eat something you like? Do they think the food part will take your mind off the dying part? Or do they prefer to kill you when you're just coming off a peak experience and full of positive energy?

—George Carlin

mind death food energy

When, at some point in our lives, we meet a real tragedy — which could happen to any one of us — we can react in two ways. Obviously, we can lose hope, let ourselves slip into discouragement, into alcohol, drugs, and unending sadness. Or else we can wake ourselves up, discover in ourselves an energy that was hidden there, and act with more clarity, more force.

—14th Dalai Lama

hope sadness tragedy energy alcohol live clarity drugs

In the beginning there was my mother. A shape. A shape and a force, standing in the light. You could see her energy; it was visible in the air. Against any background she stood out.

—Marilyn Krysl

Love is energy of life.

—Robert Browning

love life energy