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
Many writers do little else but sit in small rooms recalling the real world.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writers often retreat into solitude to reflect on and recreate their experiences of the outside world.
Annie Dillard's quote suggests that the essence of writing is rooted in introspection and the act of remembering. It highlights how writers often isolate themselves to draw inspiration from their own experiences, transforming these memories into narratives that resonate with others.
Themes
WritersReflectionImaginationCreationSolitude
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used as a prompt in a writing workshop to encourage writers to explore their personal experiences.
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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