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No one here but us fanatics

There was no one here but us fanatics: bird-watchers, infielders, detectives, poets, rock collectors, and, I inferred, specialists in things I had not looked intoβ€”violin makers, fisherman, Islamic scholars, opera composers, people who studied Bali, vials of air, bats. It seemed to take all these people working full time to extract the interest from everything and articulate it for the rest of us.

β€”Annie Dillard, An American Childhood

May 1, 2009, updated Apr 10, 2025