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

• 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

• Smell is the mute sense, the one without words.

  Diane Ackerman

  Smell, Mute

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

  4 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

• 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

• We are defined by how we place our attention.

  Diane Ackerman

  Attention, Defined

  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

• 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

  30 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

• 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

• 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

  7 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

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

  Diane Ackerman

  Play, Brain, Way

  17 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

  9 Copy quote

• What is erotic? The acrobatic play of the imagination. The sea of memories in which we bathe. The way we caress and worship things with our eyes. Our willingness to be stirred by the sight of the voluptuous. What is erotic is our passion for the liveliness of life.

  Diane Ackerman

  Memories, Passion, Eye

  Diane Ackerman (1994). “A Natural History of Love”, Vintage

  3 Copy quote

• When you consider something like death, after which (there being no news flash to the contrary) we may well go out like a candle flame, then it probably doesn't matter if we try too hard, are awkward sometimes, care for one another too deeply, are excessively curious about nature, are too open to experience, enjoy a nonstop expense of the senses in an effort to know life intimately and lovingly.

  Diane Ackerman

  Flames, Life And Death, Effort

  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. 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”

  23 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

  20 Copy quote

• Knee-deep in the cosmic overwhelm, I’m stricken by the ricochet wonder of it all: the plain everythingness of everything, in cahoots with the everythingness of everything else.

  Diane Ackerman

  Knees, Wonder, Ricochet

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “Jaguar of Sweet Laughter: New and Selected Poems”, p.111, Vintage

  17 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

• Nature is also great fun. To pretend that nature isn't fun is to miss much of the joy of being alive.

  Diane Ackerman

  Nature, Fun, Joy

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “The Rarest of the Rare: Vanishing Animals, Timeless Worlds”, p.20, Vintage

  10 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

  11 Copy quote

• Libraries change lives. They are the soul of a people.

  Diane Ackerman

  Life Changing, People, Soul

  6 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

• A kiss is like singing into someone's mouth.

  Diane Ackerman

  Best Love, Kissing, Singing

  7 Copy quote

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