Annie Dillard Quotes

The flesh surrenders itself. Eternity takes back its own. Our bodies stirred these waters briefly, danced with a certain intoxication before the love of life and self, dealt with a few strange ideas, then submitted to the instruments of Time. What can we say of this? I occurred. I am not...yet, I occurred.

Time flies never to be recalled.

Life is like a fire. Flames which the passer-by forgets. Ashes which the wind scatters. A man lived.

The whole message of the piece was that possessions are transient. You don't know if you are going to be able to have time with somebody, so you better be careful.

The flower that you hold in your hands was born today and already it is as old as you are.

I am not eternity, but a man; a part of the whole, as an hour is of the day.

I stare at this ceaseless, rushing crowd and imagine a time a hundred years from now. In a hundred years everybody here-me included-will have disappeared from the face of the earth and turned into ashes or dust. A weird thought, but everything in front of me starts to seem unreal, like a gust of wind could blow it all away.

The present flowed by them like a stream. The tree rustled. It had made music before they were born, and would continue after their deaths, but its song was of the moment. The moment had passed. The tree rustled again. Their senses were sharpened, and they seemed to apprehend life. Life passed. The tree rustled again.

Time is a river rolling into nowhere. We must live while we can, and we'll drink our cup of laughter.

Remember that man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant; all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed.

Lives are mere blips on the canvas of eternity.

Life is a frail moth flying Caught in the web of the years that pass.

Calvin: Look, a dead bird! Hobbes: It must've hit a window. Calvin: Isn't it beautiful? It's so delicate. Sighhh... once it's too late, you appreciate what a miracle life is. You realize that nature is ruthless and our existence is very fragile, temporary, and precious. But to go on with your daily affairs, you can't really think about that... which is probably why everyone takes the world for granted and why we act so thoughtlessly. It's very confusing. I suppose it will all make sense when we grow up. Hobbes: No doubt.

Everything we do is tinged with the knowledge that this may be the last time that we will do this, and that makes what we're doing incredibly sweet.

Life really is very brief.

For one thing we may be grateful: this life is not eternal.

Continuously thou wilt look at human things as smoke and nothing at all; especially if thou reflectest at the same time, that what has once changed will never exist again in the infinite duration of time. But thou, in what a brief space of time is thy existence? And why art thou not content to pass through this short time in an orderly way?

Life is but sighs; and, when they cease, 'tis over.

Life and death were so unpredictable. So close to each other. We existed moment to moment, never knowing who would be the next to leave this world.

We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.

In man's life, time is but a moment; being, a flux; sense is dim; the material frame corruptible; soul, an eddy of breath; fortune a thing inscrutable, and fame precarious.

Man has here two and a half minutes-one to smile, one to sigh, and a half to love: for in the midst of this minute he dies.