What is important is the moment of opening a life and feeling it touch--with an electric hiss and cry--this speckled mineral sphere, our present world.
Annie DillardRead
It has always been a happy thought to me that the creek runs on all night, new every minute, whether I wish it or know it or care, as a closed book on a shelf continues to whisper to itself its own inexhaustible tale.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The creek symbolizes the constant flow of life and stories, regardless of our awareness or appreciation.
Annie Dillard's quote reflects on the ever-flowing nature of life and stories, much like a creek that continues to run through the night, rejuvenating each moment. It suggests that there are narratives and experiences unfolding around us constantly, akin to a book on a shelf that, despite being closed, continues to hold and whisper its stories. The quote encourages mindfulness toward the unseen beauty and continuity of life that persists beyond our immediate perception.
Themes
CreekNatureStoriesLifeContinuityAwareness
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used as an introduction to a talk on the importance of nature in our lives.
More from Annie Dillard
All quotes →Geography is the key, the crucial accident of birth. A piece of protein could be a snail, a sea lion, or a systems analyst, but it had to start somewhere. This is not science; it is merely metaphor. And the landscape in which the protein "starts" shapes its end as surely as bowls shape water.
Annie DillardRead
Buddhism notes that it is always a mistake to think your soul can go it alone.
Annie DillardRead
Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.
Annie DillardRead
It is difficult to undo our own damage, and to recall to our presence that which we have asked to leave. It is hard to desecrate a grove and change your mind. The very holy mountains are keeping mum. We doused the burning bush and cannot rekindle it; we are lighting matches in vain under every green tree.
Annie DillardRead
To crank myself up I stood on a jack and ran myself up. I tightened myself like a bolt. I inserted myself in a vise-clamp and wound the handle till the pressure built. I drank coffee in titrated doses. It was a tricky business, requiring the finely tuned judgment of a skilled anesthesiologist. There was a tiny range within which coffee was effective, short of which it was useless, and beyond which, fatal.
Annie DillardRead
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Most species do their own evolving, making it up as they go along, which is the way Nature intended. And this is all very natural and organic and in tune with mysterious cycles of the cosmos, which believes that there's nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fiber and, in some cases, backbone.
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