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Quote by Annie Dillard

Work

An American Childhood

This work traces the early life and inner development of the author during her childhood in the 1940s and 1950s. The narrative captures the landscape, textures, and sensations of everyday American life in that era, examining how the ordinary experiences of youth shape consciousness and imagination. Through vivid recollections of family life, neighborhood, and the natural world, the memoir reflects on the deep impressions left by childhood that would influence a developing writer's sensibility. more

Author

Annie Dillard
Annie Dillard

Annie Dillard is an American author known for her unique writing style and profound observations of nature. Born on April 30, 1945, she has written several notable works, including 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek' and 'Under the Sun'. more

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“Noticing and remembering everything would trap bright scenes to light and fill the blank and darkening past which was already piling up behind me. The growing size of that blank and ever-darkening past frightened me; it loomed beside me like a hole in the air and battened on scraps of my life I failed to claim. If one day I forgot to notice my life, and be damned grateful for it, the blank cave would suck me up entire.”

IfsLightPastRememberBehindsGrowingAirSceneOne DayClaimsGratefulSizeHolesFrightenedBlankTrapsCavesNoticingScrapDarkening
Author:Annie Dillard
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“So the Midwest nourishes us [...] and presents us with the spectacle of a land and a people completed and certain. And so we run to our bedrooms and read in a fever, and love the big hardwood trees outside the windows, and the terrible Midwest summers, and the terrible Midwest winters [...]. And so we leave it sorrowfully, having grown strong and restless by opposing with all our will and mind and muscle its simple, loving, single will for us: that we stay, that we stay and find a place among its familiar possibilities. Mother knew we would go; she encouraged us.”

PeopleMindBigsRunningMotherCertainStrongSimpleTreeLandPossibilityTerribleSummerWindowAnd LoveWinterFamiliarMusclesBedroomRestlessFeverOpposingMidwestHardwood
Author:Annie Dillard
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“The langour of Youth - how unique and quintessential it is! How quickly, how irrecoverably, lost! The zest, the generous affections, the illusions, the despair, all the traditional attributes of Youth - all save this come and go with us through life...These things are a part of life itself; but languor - the relaxation of yet unwearied sinews, the mind sequestered and self-regarding, the sun standing still in the heavens and the earth throbbing to our own pulse - that belongs to Youth alone and dies with it.”

MindStillsSelfEarthDiesLostHeavenSunYouthDespairUniqueIllusionStandingAffectionTraditionalGenerousAttributesRelaxationPulseComes And GoesParts Of LifeZestStanding StillQuintessentialBrideshead Revisited
Author:Evelyn Waugh
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“The light was leaving in the west it was blue The children's laughter sang and skipping just like the stones they threw the voices echoed across the way its getting late It was just another night with the sun set and the moon rise not so far behind to give us just enough light to lay down underneath the stars listen to papas translations of the stories across the sky we drew our own constellations”

WayGivingChildrenEnoughStoriesLightNightStarsVoiceBehindsSunSkyMoonLateLaughterStonesBlueLaysWestLeavingTranslationsConstellationsPapaSun SetMoon Rise
Author:Jack Johnson
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“There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find comfort somewhere.”

IfsFirstsHumansLittlesTurnsAttitudeToo MuchFailingHuman NatureComfortExpectationsDisappointmentSchemesCalculationsStart The DayMansfield Park
Book:8 Books in 1: Jane Austen's Complete Novels. Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Lady Susan, and Love an
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