Diane Ackerman Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• 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

  11 Copy quote

• Ecstasy is what everyone craves - not love or sex, but a hot-blooded, soaring intensity, in which being alive is a joy and a thrill. That enravishment doesn't give meaning to life, and yet without it life seems meaningless.

  Diane Ackerman

  Inspirational, Sex, Giving

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

  4 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

• As anyone who has received or dispensed psychotherapy knows, it's a profession whose mainspring is love. Nearly everyone who visits a therapist has a love disorder of one sort or another, and each has a story to tell - of love lost or denied, love twisted or betrayed, love perverted or shackled to violence. Broken attachments litter the office floors like pick-up sticks. People appear with frayed seams and spilling pockets.

  Diane Ackerman

  Lost Love, Attachment, People

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “A Natural History of Love: Author of the National Bestseller A Natural History of the Senses”, p.136, Vintage

  4 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

• 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.

  12 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

• 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

• [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

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

  Diane Ackerman

  Assessment, Length, Just Live

  9 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

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

  Diane Ackerman

  Men, Giving, Rope

  15 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

  7 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

• Happiness doesn't require laughter, only well-being and a sense that the world is breaking someone else's heart, not mine.

  Diane Ackerman

  Happiness, Laughter, Heart

  4 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

• Tranquillity hides in small spaces, and when found needs to be treasured, because you know it's a phantom that will slip away again.

  Diane Ackerman

  Space, Needs, Phantoms

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “One Hundred Names for Love: A Memoir”, p.180, W. W. Norton & Company

  6 Copy quote

• I don't want to be a passenger in my own life.

  Diane Ackerman

  Life, Knowing Who You Are, Want

  "On extended wings". Book by Diane Ackerman, 1985.

  22 Copy quote

• For better or worse, zoos are how most people come to know big or exotic animals. Few will ever see wild penguins sledding downhill to sea on their bellies, giant pandas holding bamboo lollipops in China or tree porcupines in the Canadian Rockies, balled up like giant pine cones.

  Diane Ackerman

  Zoos, Animal, Sea

  46 Copy quote

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