Saturday, December 23, 2006

Annie Dillard quote from Duane Kaiser

I love this quote. I've read Annie Dillard's books and enjoyed them very much. I found this quote on Duane Kaiser's blog. www.duanekaiser.blogspot.com He's an amazing painter and very technologically savvy. His mastery of the web and web sales is phenomenal (enough so that he has been highlighted in USA today.) On his site you can click and be directed to his videos on youtube and watch him do little paintings start to finish! Very instructive.

There are many things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside by a generous hand. But- and this is the point- who gets excited by a mere penny? If you follow one arrow, if you crouch motionless on a bank to watch a tremulous ripple thrill on the water and are rewarded by the sight of a muskrat paddling from its den, will you count that sight a chip of copper only, and go on your rueful way? It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won't stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It is that simple. What you see is what you get.


Annie Dillard
from "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek."

2 comments:

Lindsay said...

Thanks so much for this beautiful quote. I'm going to get this from the library today!

Veedubya said...

She has another book called "Teaching a Stone to Talk" that is also amazing. Actually, all the books of hers I've read are terrific.