Annie Dillard: I Mean to Change His Life

One day I'll get back to writing. Until then, here is a nice passage from Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, a book I highly recommend for both clarity of expression and depth of thought.

"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."