Annie Dillard Quotes

Nothing is yours permanently so you better enjoy it while it's happening.

With me, the present is forever, and forever is always shifting, flowing, melting. This second is life. And when it is gone it is dead. But you can't start over with each new second. You have to judge by what is dead. It's like quicksand... hopeless from the start.

The more you own, the more you know you don't own.

Diamonds are forever, my youth is not.

Everything passes. Nobody gets anything for keeps. And that's how we've got to live.

I don't take things for granted, because everything feels more fragile. It's made me wonder about mortality and how long you've got somebody in the world. I'm more fearful than I used to be.

I cherish every moment, because success can be taken right away from you.

Life is short, and, once somebody is gone, they're gone.

Sometimes you think things are going to be forever, and then... of course, they're not.

The worldly stuff is not always going to be there and it could be taken away at any moment.

He that will do thee a good turne, either he will be gon or dye.

For me and my family personally, September 11 was a reminder that life is fleeting, impermanent, and uncertain. Therefore, we must make use of every moment and nurture it with affection, tenderness, beauty, creativity, and laughter.

I think we all lose in the end because we don't get to stay here forever.

But, though I was very much in lust with him, I knew from the start we were nothing like "forever." Maybe because forever is such a scary place.

Every morning when I wake up, now, I regard it as having another borrowed day.

From childhood I had never believed in permanence, and yet I had longed for it. Always I was afraid of losing happiness. This month, next year...death was the only absolute value in my world. Lose life and one would lose nothing again forever.

Was life nothing more than a storm that constantly washed away what had been there only a moment before, and left behind something barren and unrecognizable?

Driving home, it's all I can do to keep from crying. Time's come, time's gone, time's never returning, I say to myself. What's here in front of me is all I've got, I decide, and as I drive my car through the blowing snow it doesn't seem like much, except for the kindness that I've just exchanged with an old lady, so I concentrate on that.

When something good comes your way, you better feel fortunate, because it doesn't last forever.

Things are always changing, so nothing can be yours.

Feel lucky for what you have when you have it. Isn't that the point? Happily ever after doesn't mean happy forever.

If good things lasted forever, would we appreciate how precious they are?

When I say forever,' Koschei whispered, 'I mean until the black death of the world. An Ivan means just the present moment, the flickering light of it, in a green field, his mouth on yours. He means the stretching of that moment. But forever isn't bright; it isn't like that. Forever is cold and hard and final.

There is no complete life. There are only fragments. We are born to have nothing, to have it pour through our hands. And yet, this pouring, this flood of encounters, struggles, dreams...

And the days went by like paper in the wind. Everything changed, then changed again. It's hard to find a friend. It's hard to find a friend.