Quotes About Wonder

For me, beauty is a hint, a flash, a glimpse of the divine and a promise that the world is good.

people who lived in the mountains knew that all the truly great things had already been accomplished. They did not need to imagine ladders that would lead to heaven, or things of massive size that would astound the heart, because they had them in such profusion that it was difficult to get from town to town, and because of them the sun itself often was denied a chance to shine, or forced to break in gold through opaque ridges of ice and snow whiter than physics would allow.

At least until there are new lakes in the clouds that open upon living cities as yet unknown, and perhaps forever, that is a question which you must answer within your own heart.

It makes me wonder now, in middle age, if being spontaneous and kind and curious are all parts of our natural ability to swim.

I think a good novel makes the reader think not just about what happened, but about what is possible

Nature is a beautiful gift of magic.

Why didn't someone hand those newly sighted people paints and brushes from the start, when they still didn't know what anything was? Then maybe we all could see color-patches too, the world unraveled from reason, Eden before Adam gave names. The scales would drop from my eyes; I'd see trees like men walking; I'd run down the road against all orders, allowing and leaping.

explore the neighborhood, view the landscape, to discover at least where it is that we have been so startlingly set down, if we can't learn why.

Beauty is not a hoax . . . Come on, I say to the creek, surprise me; and it does, with each new drop. Beauty is real. I would never deny it; the appalling thing is that I forget it (271).

It snowed. It snowed all yesterday and never emptied the sky, although the clouds looked so low and heavy they might drop all at once with a thud.

The great hurrah about wild animals is that they exist at all, and the greater hurrah is the actual moment of seeing them. Because they have a nice dignity, and prefer to have nothing to do with me, even as the simple objects of my vision. They show me by their very wariness what a prize it is simply to open my eyes and behold.

At four Petie took to yelling at the heavenly bodies: —Hey, orbs! Wait for me! or, Orbs…listen to this! A genius, Lou thought; he commanded constellations. Clearly a poet.

Annie Dillard

There is something you find interesting, for a reason hard to explain. It is hard to explain because you have never read it on any page; there you begin. You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment.

Could tiny birds be sifting through me right now, birds winging through the gaps between my cells, touching nothing, but quickening in my tissues, fleet?

No claims of any and all revelations could be so far-fetched as a single giraffe.

The Polyphemus moth never made it to the past; it crawls in that crowded, pellucid pool at the lip of the great waterfall. It is as present as this blue desk and brazen lamp, as this blackened window before me.

The question from agnosticism is, 'who turned on the lights?' The question from faith is 'whatever for?' Thoreau climbed Mount Katahdin and gives vent to an almost outraged sense of the reality of the things of this world: "I fear bodies, I tremble to meet them. What is this Titan that has possession of me? Talk of mysteries- think of our life in nature-daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it,- rocks, trees, wind!

Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle, curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what's going on here. Then we can at least wail the right question into the swaddling band of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise.

I was holding my breath. Is this where we live, I thought, in this place at this moment, with the air so light and wild?

The line of words feels for cracks in the firmament.

Thank you, Lord, for this good life. Thank you for the love and time, fleeting as it seemed, we've had together. Thank for your grace and mercy on us poor, pitiful creatures who have tried to do your work, to follow you in love and goodness, and all too often failed and fell short. Thank you for the wonder of this world and the promise of the next. Thank you, Lord, for giving me my Mama and for taking her soon to be with you...Amen.

On ne résume pas le mystère du flot d'une rivière par une poignée dérisoire de galets extirpés de son lit.

It's an irritating reality that many places and events defy description. Angkor Wat and Machu Picchu, for instance, seem to demand silence, like a love affair you can never talk about. For a while after,you fumble for words, trying vainly to assemble a private narrative, an explanation, a comfortable way to frame where you've been and whats happened. In the end, you're just happy you were there- with your eyes open- and lived to see it.