Diane Ackerman Quotes - Page 7

Quotes about:

• habit, a particularly insidious thug who chokes passion and smothers love. Habit puts us on autopilot.

  Diane Ackerman

  Passion, Thug, Habit

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “A Natural History of Love: Author of the National Bestseller A Natural History of the Senses”, p.119, Vintage

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• Part of the irony of environmentalism is questing for solutions when you know you're part of the problem.

  Diane Ackerman

  Irony, Problem, Knows

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “The Rarest of the Rare: Vanishing Animals, Timeless Worlds”, p.156, Vintage

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• Love is the white light of emotion.

  Diane Ackerman

  Love, Light, White

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

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• What do those of us who aren't tall, flawlessly sculpted adolescents do?
  Answer: Console ourselves with how relative beauty can be...
  Thank heavens for the arousing qualities of zest, intelligence,
  wit, curiosity, sweetness, passion, talent and grace.

  Diane Ackerman

  Beauty, Passion, Zest

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• Love is the great intangible. ... Frantic and serene, vigilant and calm, wrung-out and fortified, explosive and sedate -- love commands a vast army of moods. Hoping for victory, limping from the latest skirmish, lovers enter the arena once again. ... Love is the white light of emotion. ... Everyone admits that love is wonderful and necessary, yet no one can agree on what it is.

  Diane Ackerman

  Army, Love Is, White

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• Habitats keep evolving new pageants of species, and we shouldn't interfere.

  Diane Ackerman

  Habitat, Pageant, Evolve

  Diane Ackerman (2014). “The Human Age: The World Shaped By Us”, p.92, W. W. Norton & Company

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• There is a furnace in our cells, and when we breathe we pass the world through our bodies, brew it lightly, and turn it loose again, gently altered for having known us.

  Diane Ackerman

  Cells, World, Body

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “A Natural History of the Senses”, p.20, Vintage

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• I consider fiction a very high-class form of lying. I enjoy and admire it enormously, but I don't think I'm very good at it.

  Diane Ackerman

  Lying, Thinking, Class

  "Author Diane Ackerman: 'One Hundred Names for Love'". Interview with Jennifer Haupt, www.psychologytoday.com. May 17, 2012.

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• Our relationship with nature has changed radically, irreversibly, but by no means all for the bad. Our new epoch is laced with invention. Our mistakes are legion, but our talent is immeasurable.

  Diane Ackerman

  Mistake, Mean, Talent

  "The Human Age: The World Shaped By Us". Book by Diane Ackerman, September 14, 2015.

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• ...for most people in the [Jewish] Ghetto [of Warsaw] nature lived only in memory -- no parks, birds, or greenery existed in the Ghetto -- and they suffered the loss of nature like a phantom-limb pain, an amputation that scrambled the body's rhythms, starved the senses, and made basic ideas about the world impossible for children to fathom.

  Diane Ackerman

  Children, Pain, Memories

  7 Copy quote

• There are well-dressed foolish ideas just as there are well-dressed fools.

  Diane Ackerman

  Stupid, Ideas, Fool

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• Violets smell like burnt sugar cubes that have been dipped in lemon and velvet.

  Diane Ackerman

  Garden, Smell, Sugar

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “A Natural History of the Senses”, p.9, Vintage

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• A self is a frightening thing to waste, it's the lens through which one's whole life is viewed, and few people are willing to part with it, in death, or even imaginatively, in art.

  Diane Ackerman

  Art, Self, People

  Diane Ackerman (2004). “An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain”, p.225, Simon and Schuster

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• The idea of safety had shrunk into particles - one snug moment, then the next. Meanwhile, the brain piped fugues of worry and staged mind-theaters full of tragedies and triumphs, because unfortunately, the fear of death does wonders to focus the mind, inspire creativity, and heightens the senses. Trusting one's hunches only seems gamble if one has time for seem; otherwise the brain goes on autopilot and trades the elite craft of analysis for the best rapid insights that float up from its danger files and ancient bag of tricks.

  Diane Ackerman

  Creativity, Ideas, Worry

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• Love, like truth, is the unassailable defense.

  Diane Ackerman

  Love, Defense, Truth Is

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “A Natural History of Love: Author of the National Bestseller A Natural History of the Senses”, p.17, Vintage

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• Artificial intelligence is growing up fast, as are robots whose facial expressions can elicit empathy and make your mirror neurons quiver.

  Diane Ackerman

  Growing Up, Mirrors, Expression

  "The growing, feeling house of the future" by Diane Ackerman, archive.thedailystar.net. August 25, 2012.

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• After all, coffee is bitter, a flavor from the forbidden and dangerous realm.

  Diane Ackerman

  Coffee, Flavor, Bitter

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “A Natural History of the Senses”, p.141, Vintage

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• Writing is my form of celebration and prayer.

  Diane Ackerman

  Prayer, Writing, Celebration

  Diane Ackerman (2004). “An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain”, p.160, Simon and Schuster

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• Living with anyone for many years takes skill. To keep peace in the household, couples learn to adapt to one another, hopefully in positive ways.

  Diane Ackerman

  Couple, Years, Skills

  "Author Diane Ackerman: 'One Hundred Names for Love'". Interview with Jennifer Haupt, www.psychologytoday.com. May 17, 2012.

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• Flying has changed how we imagine our planet, which we have seen whole from space, so that even the farthest nations are ecological neighbors. It has changed our ideas about time. When you can gird the earth at 1,000 m.p.h., how can you endure the tardiness of a plumber? Most of all, flying has changed our sense of our body, the personal space in which we live, now elastic and swift. I could be in Bombay for afternoon tea if I wished. My body isn't limited by its own weaknesses; it can rush through space.

  Diane Ackerman

  Ideas, Space, Flying

  7 Copy quote

• Because IQ tests favor memory skills and logic, overlooking artistic creativity, insight, resiliency, emotional reserves, sensory gifts, and life experience, they can't really predict success, let alone satisfaction.

  Diane Ackerman

  Memories, Creativity, Emotional

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• Which is crueler, an old man's lost memories of a life lived, or a young man's lost memories of the life he meant to live?

  Diane Ackerman

  Memories, Men, Lost

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “One Hundred Names for Love: A Memoir”, p.54, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Writer's block is a luxury most people with deadlines don't have.

  Diane Ackerman

  Block, Luxury, People

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• Couples are jigsaw puzzles that hang together by touching in just enough points.

  Diane Ackerman

  Couple, Jigsaw Puzzles, Touching

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “One Hundred Names for Love: A Memoir”, p.15, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Fear is danger to your body, but disgust is danger to your soul.

  Diane Ackerman

  Soul, Body, Danger

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “A Slender Thread: Rediscovering Hope at the Heart of Crisis”, p.267, Vintage

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