Diane Ackerman Quotes

Quotes about:

• I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.

  Diane Ackerman

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  58 Copy quote

• The well of nature is full today. Time to go outside and take a drink.

  Diane Ackerman

  Vices, Today, Drink

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “Deep Play”, p.171, Vintage

  3 Copy quote

• I'm an Earth ecstatic, and my creed is simple: All life is sacred, life loves life, and we are capable of improving our behavior toward one another. As basic as that is, for me it's also tonic and deeply spiritual, glorifying the smallest life-form and embracing the most distant stars.

  Diane Ackerman

  Spiritual, Stars, Love Life

  Diane Ackerman (2004). “An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain”, p.60, Simon and Schuster

  3 Copy quote

• I swear I will not dishonor my soul with hatred, but offer myself humbly as a guardian of nature, as a healer of misery, as a messenger of wonder, as an architect of peace.

  Diane Ackerman

  Commitment, Compassion, Hatred

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “I Praise My Destroyer: Poems”, p.3, Vintage

  30 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

  11 Copy quote

• Wonder is a bulky emotion. When you let it fill your heart and mind, there isn't room for anxiety, distress or anything else.

  Diane Ackerman

  Heart, Anxiety, Mind

  7 Copy quote

• There is a way of beholding nature which is a form of prayer, a way of minding something with such clarity and aliveness that the rest of the world recedes. It . . . gives the brain a small vacation.

  Diane Ackerman

  Inspirational, Prayer, Vacation

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “One Hundred Names for Love: A Memoir”, p.96, W. W. Norton & Company

  3 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.

  Diane Ackerman

  Stars, Thinking, Clouds

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

  11 Copy quote

• Poetry reminds us of the truths about life and human nature that we knew all along, but forgot somehow because they weren't yet in memorable language.

  Diane Ackerman

  Memorable, Poetry, Language

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “Deep Play”, p.129, Vintage

  6 Copy quote

• If we mammals don't get something to eat every day or two, our temperature drops, all our signs fall off, and we begin to starve. Living at biological red alert, it's not surprising how obsessed we are with food; I'm just amazed we don't pace and fret about it all the time.

  Diane Ackerman

  Fall, Two, Mammals

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “Moon By Whale Light: And Other Adventures Among Bats,Penguins, Crocodilians, and Whales”, p.77, Vintage

  6 Copy quote

• Wonder is the heaviest element on the periodic table. Even a tiny fleck of it stops time.

  Diane Ackerman

  Healing, Elements, Tables

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “The Rarest of the Rare: Vanishing Animals, Timeless Worlds”, p.27, Vintage

  29 Copy quote

• We are defined by how we place our attention.

  Diane Ackerman

  Attention, Defined

  7 Copy quote

• It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.

  Diane Ackerman

  Life, Beautiful, Country

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “A Natural History of the Senses”, p.309, Vintage

  33 Copy quote

• We can't enchant the world, which makes its own magic; but we can enchant ourselves by paying deep attention

  Diane Ackerman

  Magic, Attention, World

  Diane Ackerman (2004). “An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain”, p.49, Simon and Schuster

  10 Copy quote

• Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains; another, a moonlit beach; a third, a family dinner of pot roast and sweet potatoes during a myrtle-mad August in a Midwestern town. Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years. Hit a tripwire of smell and memories explode all at once. A complex vision leaps out of the undergrowth.

  Diane Ackerman

  Love, Summer, Beach

  "A Natural History of the Senses". Book by Diane Ackerman, 1990.

  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

  6 Copy quote

• I think if you look at any facet of nature in enough detail, you find it fascinating. How could you not? The universe is so full of marvels. Here's an example -- rain, the shape of rain. I was minding my own business, working on my book, looking out the window, and it was raining and I was noticing that the raindrops were falling in that classic round-looking way, and I thought, 'I wonder if raindrops really are round?' So I started researching it a little, and I discovered that raindrops change shape 300 times a second.

  Diane Ackerman

  Rain, Book, Fall

  "Understanding writers, down to the letter / How do authors think? Interviews get behind the words to the creative process" by Steve Weinberg, www.sfgate.com. September 11, 2005.

  10 Copy quote

• The great affair, the love affair with life,
  is to live as variously as possible,
  to groom one's curiosity like a high-spirited thoroughbred,
  climb aboard, and gallop over the thick, sun-struck hills every day.
  Where there is no risk, the emotional terrain is flat and unyielding,
  and, despite all its dimensions, valleys, pinnacles, and detours,
  life will seem to have none of its magnificent geography, only a length.
  It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery,
  but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.

  Diane Ackerman

  Life, Beautiful, Country

  10 Copy quote

• The heart is a museum, filled with the exhibits of a lifetime's loves.

  Diane Ackerman

  Heart, Museums, Lifetime

  "A Natural History of Love". Book by Diane Ackerman, 1994.

  21 Copy quote

• One of the keystones of romantic love - and also of the ecstatic religion practiced by mystics - is the powerful desire to become one with the beloved.

  Diane Ackerman

  Powerful, Romantic Love, Desire

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “A Natural History of Love: Author of the National Bestseller A Natural History of the Senses”, p.95, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• American writer
  1803-1882
  Play is our brain's favorite way of learning.

  Diane Ackerman

  Play, Brain, Way

  17 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

  3 Copy quote

• Don't just live the length of your life - live the width of it as well.

  Diane Ackerman

  Assessment, Length, Just Live

  7 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

  9 Copy quote

• Nature is more like a seesaw than a crystal, a never-ending conga line of bold moves and corrections.

  Diane Ackerman

  Moving, Lines, Crystals

  14 Copy quote

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