Lise’s Reviews > Pilgrim at Tinker Creek > Status Update

“…we are moral creatures, then, in an amoral world. The universe that suckled us is a monster that does not care if we live or die—does not care if it itself grinds to a halt. It is fixed and blind, a robot programmed to kill.”

And then a few sentences later she quotes Julian of Norwich? Ms Dillard you are speaking my language

The comparisons to Thoreau are apt. Whenever I have a hard time penetrating her style, I'll start reading aloud, and then my voice will tighten as I stumble across something profound in real time. Now when I go for my walks I think, "how would Annie Dillard describe what I'm seeing right now?" Can't believe she was 28 when she wrote this.

“Time gives us a whirl. We keep waking up from a dream we can’t recall, looking around in surprise, and lapsing back, for years on end. All I want to do is stay awake, keep my head up, prop my eyes open, with toothpicks, with trees.”