Skip to content

Even such sophisticated mammals as the great predator cats occasionally eat their cubs. A mother cat will be observed licking the area around the umbilical cord of the helpless newborn. She licks, she licks, she licks until something snaps in her brain, and she begins eating, starting there, at the vulnerable belly.

— Annie Dillard Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1976)

Another quote →

More quotes by Annie Dillard

There are no events but thoughts and the heart's hard turning, the heart's slow learning where to love and whom. The rest is merely gossip, and tales for other times.

Holy the Firm (1977)

For most creatures, being parasitized is a way of life—if you call that living.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1976)

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

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1976)

Whenever a work's structure is intentionally one of its own themes, another of its themes is art.

Ted Nelson in Literary Machines (1982)

The intricacy of Ellery and aphids multiplied mindlessly into tons and light-years is more than extravagance; it is holocaust, parody, glut.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974)

All Annie Dillard quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Annie Dillard (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.