Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters

by Annie Dillard

A weasel doesn’t “attack” anything; a weasel lives as he’s meant to, yielding at every moment to the perfect freedom of single necessity.

Nature’s silence is its one remark, and every flake of world is a chip off that old mute and immutable block.

What is the difference between a cathedral and a physics lab? Are not they both saying: Hello?

What if we the people had the sense or grace to live as cooled islands in an archipelago live, with dignity, passion, and no comment?

tumult

the rocks shape life, and then life shapes life, and the rocks are moving. The completed picture needs one more element: life shapes the rocks.

God-blasted, paralyzed day.

deriving from knowledge I could just as well stop at the gate.