Quotations

"I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine."

— Emily Dickinson, American poet, born 1830

"Once a woman has forgiven her man, she must not reheat his sins for breakfast."

— Marlene Dietrich, German-American actress, born 1901

"Most women set out to try to change a man, and when they have changed him they do not like him."

— Marlene Dietrich, German-American actress, born 1901

"In language, gender is particularly confusing. Why, please, should a table be male in German, female in French, and castrated in English?"

— Marlene Dietrich, German-American actress, born 1901

"I do it for the joy it brings, cause I'm a joyful girl. 'Cause the world owes us nothing, we owe each other the world."

— Ani DiFranco, American singer, born 1970

"There is no less enlightenment under the tree by your street than there was under Buddha’s Bo tree."

— Annie Dillard, American author, born 1945

"If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?, No, said the priest, not if you did not know. Then why, asked the Eskimo earnestly, did you tell me?"

— Annie Dillard, American author, born 1945

"You are wrong if you think that you can in any way take the vision and tame it to the page. The page is jealous and tyrannical; the page is made of time and matter; the page always wins."

— Annie Dillard, American author, born 1945

"At its best, the sensation of writing is that of any unmerited grace. It is handed to you, but only if you look for it."

— Annie Dillard, American author, born 1945

"One wants a room with no view, so imagination can meet memory in the dark."

— Annie Dillard, American author, born 1945

"Crystals grew inside rock like arithmetic flowers. They lengthened and spread, added plane to plane in an awed and perfect obedience to an absolute geometry that even stones - maybe only the stones - understood."

— Annie Dillard, American author, born 1945

"I don't do housework. Life is too short. If you want to take a year off to write a book, you have to take that year, or the year will take you by the hair and pull you toward the grave."

— Annie Dillard, American author, born 1945

"It is ironic that the one thing that all religions recognize as separating us from our creator, our very self-consciousness, is also the one thing that divides us from our fellow creatures. It was a bitter birthday present from evolution."

— Annie Dillard, American author, born 1945

"Who will teach me to write? a reader asked the writer Annie Dillard. "The page," she answered, "the page... the blankness of eternity which you cover slowly...the page in the purity of its possibilities; the page of your death, against which you pit such flawed excellences as you can muster with all your life's strength: that page will teach you to write."

— Annie Dillard, American author, born 1945