39 Quotes by Annie Dillard about Writing


  • Author Annie Dillard
  • Quote

    I write in my own journal when something extraordinary or funny happens. And there's some nice imagery in there. I don't think of what to do with it.

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  • Author Annie Dillard
  • Quote

    Old memories are very easy to get except that once you write about something you've destroyed it.

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  • Author Annie Dillard
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    The written word is weak. Many people prefer life to it. Life gets your blood going, & it smells good. Writing is mere writing, literature is mere. It appeals only to the subtlest senses—the imagination’s vision, & the imagination’s hearing—& the moral sense, & the intellect. This writing that you do, that so thrills you, that so rocks & exhilarates you, as if you were dancing next to the band, is barely audible to anyone else.

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  • Author Annie Dillard
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    It makes more sense to write one big book - a novel or nonfiction narrative - than to write many stories or essays. Into a long, ambitious project you can fit or pour all you possess and learn.

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  • Author Annie Dillard
  • Quote

    I do not so much write a book as sit up with it, as a dying friend. I hold its hand and hope it will get better.

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  • Author Annie Dillard
  • Quote

    He is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write. He is careful of what he learns, for that is what he will know.

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