How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
I am absolutely alone. There are no other customers. The road is vacant, the interstate is out of sight and earshot. I have hazarded into a new corner of the world, an unknown spot, a Brigadoon. (6.4)
Even when Dillard goes on a road trip, she's alone—and when she stops at the gas station, it's deserted except for the attendant. There might have been times during the year when she was with people, but those aren't the stories she chooses to tell—they aren't what she's interested in.
Quote #2
What if I fell in a forest: would a tree hear? (6.41)
This is a play on the old question, "If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there, does it make a sound?" (We know it would, because we know how sound waves work—human acknowledgment is unnecessary for nature to operate according to science.)
Quote #3
If you want to find a species wholly new to science and have your name inscribed Latinly in some secular version of an eternal rollbook, then your best bet is to come to the southern Appalachians, climb some obscure and snakey mountain where, as the saying goes, "the hand of man has never set foot," and start turning over rocks. (7.10)
This is another way man uses nature for his own purposes—specifically, his own glorification.
Quote #4
I am as passionately interested in where I am as is a lone sailor sans sextant in a ketch on the open ocean. What else is he supposed to be thinking about? (8.12)
The less outside stimulus you have, the greater your awareness of your environment. How long has it been since you saw someone so distracted by their phone they ran into someone?
Quote #5
Imperceptibly at first, and now consciously, I shy away from the arts, from the human emotional stew… I drive myself deeper and deeper into exile from my own kind. (10.65)
Dillard prefers the brutality of nature to the brutality of humans. Nature's brutality isn't driven by cruelty.
Quote #6
One day I was talking about snakes to Mrs. Mildred Sink, who operates a switchboard. A large pane separated us, and we were talking through a circular hole in the glass. (13.7)
Dillard mentions the physical barrier between her and another human to illustrate the emotional barrier she's chosen.
Quote #7
Quickly I looked around to see if I could find anyone—any hunter going to practice shooting beer cans, any boy on a motorbike—to whom I could show this remarkable sight while it lasted. (13.14)
When Dillard sees a mosquito land on a snake's head and start sucking its blood, she finally reaches a point where she wants to share the seeing. What is it about this moment, among all the other things she's witnessed, that makes her want to show someone else?
Quote #8
I wonder how many bites I have taken, parasite and predator, from family and friends; I wonder how long I will be permitted the luxury of this relative solitude. (13.50)
Solitude, the time to observe, is indeed a luxury. It requires one of two things (that we can think of, anyway): money, or jail time.
Quote #9
Abba Moses said to a disciple, "Go and sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything." (14.47)
Dillard strips away everything, pretty much, except herself and her natural surroundings. And from this limited space, she's able to see how vast it all truly is. Cool trick, right?
Quote #10
I stood, alone, and the world swayed. I am a fugitive and a vagabond, a sojourner seeking signs. (15.21)
To choose exile from the world is indeed the act of a fugitive. She's chosen to see a larger world than most people ever even contemplate, and all through the lens of a much smaller one. Dillard needs a microscope to understand the universe.