“I have often noticed that these things, which obsess me, neither bother nor impress other people even slightly. I am horribly apt to approach some innocent at a gathering, and like the ancient mariner, fix him with a wild, glitt’ring eye and say, “Do you know that in the head of the caterpillar of the ordinary goat moth there are two hundred twenty-eight separate muscles?” The poor wretch flees. I am not making chatter; I mean to change his life.”

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About Annie Dillard

American author

Annie Dillard is an American author known for narrative prose in fiction and nonfiction. She published poetry, essays, prose, literary criticism, two novels, and one memoir. Her 1974 book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. From 1980, she taught for 21 years in the English department of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.

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Books by Annie Dillard

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

1990

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The writing life

1998

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The Maytrees CD

2007

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Teaching a Stone to Talk

1982

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For the Time Being

1999

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