Diane Ackerman Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• I am a great fan of the universe, which I take literally: as one. All of it interests me, and it interests me in detail.

  Diane Ackerman

  Fans, Details, Interest

  15 Copy quote

• In the absence of touching and being touched, people of all ages can sicken and grow touched starved. Touch seems to be as essential as sunlight.

  Diane Ackerman

  People, Touching, Age

  9 Copy quote

• Words are small shapes in the gorgeous chaos of the world.

  Diane Ackerman

  World, Shapes, Chaos

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “Deep Play”, p.127, Vintage

  8 Copy quote

• We live on the leash of our senses. There is no way in which to understand the world without first detecting it through the radar-net of our senses.

  Diane Ackerman

  Music, Silence, Listening

  22 Copy quote

• And yet, words are the passkeys to our souls. Without them, we can't really share the enormity of our lives.

  Diane Ackerman

  Soul, Share, Our Lives

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “One Hundred Names for Love: A Memoir”, p.150, W. W. Norton & Company

  5 Copy quote

• One of the things I like best about animals in the wild is that they're always off on some errand. They have appointments to keep. It's only we humans who wonder what we're here for.

  Diane Ackerman

  Animal, Errands, Wonder

  4 Copy quote

• Everyone admits that love is wonderful and necessary, yet no one agrees on just what it is.

  Diane Ackerman

  Missing You, Sweet, Falling In Love

  12 Copy quote

• When I set a glass prism on a windowsill and allow the sun to flood through it, a spectrum of colors dances on the floor. What we call "white" is a rainbow of colored rays packed into a small space. The prism sets them free. Love is the white light of emotion.

  Diane Ackerman

  Love Is, Space, Glasses

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “A Natural History of Love: Author of the National Bestseller A Natural History of the Senses”, p.16, Vintage

  23 Copy quote

• Look at your feet. You are standing in the sky. When we think of the sky, we tend to look up, but the sky actually begins at the earth. We walk through it, yell into it, rake leaves, wash the dog, and drive cars in it. We breathe it deep within us. With every breath, we inhale millions of molecules of sky, heat them briefly, and then exhale them back into the world.

  Diane Ackerman

  Dog, Thinking, Sky

  Diane Ackerman, Dave Thurlow, C. Ralph Adler (1999). “Soul of the Sky: Exploring the Human Side of Weather”

  24 Copy quote

• If a mind is just a few pounds of blood, urea, and electricity, how does it manage to contemplate itself, worry about its soul, do time-and-motion studies, admire the shy hooves of a goat, know that it will die, enjoy all the grand and lesser mayhems of the heart ?

  Diane Ackerman

  Heart, Blood, Worry

  22 Copy quote

• Who would deduce the dragonfly from the larva, the iris from the bud, the lawyer from the infant? ...We are all shape-shifters and magical reinventors. Life is really a plural noun, a caravan of selves.

  Diane Ackerman

  Nature, Self, Irises

  Diane Ackerman (2002). “Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of My Garden”, G K Hall & Company

  53 Copy quote

• Touch seems to be as essential as sunlight.

  Diane Ackerman

  Love, Essentials, Sunlight

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “A Natural History of the Senses”, p.80, Vintage

  11 Copy quote

• In rare moments of deep play, we can lay aside our sense of self, shed time's continuum, ignore pain, and sit quietly in the absolute present, watching the world's ordinary miracles. No mind or heart hobbles. No analyzing or explaining. No questing for logic. No promises. No goals. No relationships. No worry. One is completely open to whatever drama may unfold.

  Diane Ackerman

  Fun, Pain, Drama

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “Deep Play”, p.23, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• No matter how politely one says it, we owe our existence to the farts of blue-green algae.

  Diane Ackerman

  Blue, Algae, Green

  Diane Ackerman (2004). “An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain”, p.232, Simon and Schuster

  29 Copy quote

• To begin to understand the gorgeous fever that is consciousness, we must try to understand the senses and what they can tell us about the ravishing world we have the privilege to inhabit.

  Diane Ackerman

  Trying, Fever, World

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “A Natural History of the Senses”, p.19, Vintage

  10 Copy quote

• Words are such small things, like confetti in the brain, and yet they are color and clarify everything, they can stain the mind or warp the feelings.

  Diane Ackerman

  Color, Feelings, Brain

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “One Hundred Names for Love: A Memoir”, p.149, W. W. Norton & Company

  27 Copy quote

• [On gardens:] I think they're sanctuaries for the mind and spirit. ... It's easy to feel wonder-struck in a garden, especially if you cultivate delight.

  Diane Ackerman

  Garden, Thinking, Mind

  12 Copy quote

• When I go biking, I repeat a mantra of the day's sensations: bright sun, blue sky, warm breeze, blue jay's call, ice melting and so on. This helps me transcend the traffic, ignore the clamorings of work, leave all the mind theaters behind and focus on nature instead. I still must abide by the rules of the road, of biking, of gravity. But I am mentally far away from civilization. The world is breaking someone else's heart.

  Diane Ackerman

  Heart, Blue, Ice

  17 Copy quote

• We would lie on coral sand, below sugary stars, watching Cassiopeia mount her throne and the Great Bear wash its paws in the South. I would say, "I have a secret to tell you." And, folding me in your arms, boyish and sly, you would answer: "Whisper it into my mouth.

  Diane Ackerman

  Stars, Lying, Secret

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “Jaguar of Sweet Laughter: New and Selected Poems”, p.102, Vintage

  10 Copy quote

• Above all, we ask the poet to teach us a way of seeing.

  Diane Ackerman

  Way, Poet, Teach

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “Deep Play”, p.127, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• Give a man enough rope and he'll wrap himself around your little finger.

  Diane Ackerman

  Men, Giving, Rope

  15 Copy quote

• A flower's fragrance declares to all the world that it is fertile, available, and desirable, its sex organs oozing with nectar. Its smell reminds us in vestigial ways of fertility, vigor, life-force, all the optimism, expectancy, and passionate bloom of youth. We inhale its ardent aroma and, no matter what our ages, we feel young and nubile in a world aflame with desire.

  Diane Ackerman

  Sex, Spring, Flower

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “A Natural History of the Senses”, p.13, Vintage

  8 Copy quote

• Hit a tripwire of smell and memories explode all at once. A complex vision leaps out of the undergrowth.

  Diane Ackerman

  Memories, Smell, Vision

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “A Natural History of the Senses”, p.5, Vintage

  20 Copy quote

• We evolved as creatures knitted into the fabric of nature, and without its intimate truths, we can find ourselves unraveling.

  Diane Ackerman

  Fabric, Unraveling, Intimate

  12 Copy quote

• For the longest time I didn't realize I was creative - I just thought I was strange.

  Diane Ackerman

  Creativity, Creative, Strange

  11 Copy quote

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