Diane Ackerman Quotes
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?

Quotes to Explore
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Why do we make records? Because we want to say something. Why are you in art? Because you want to say something. The second you don't have anything to say, you stop making art - you might start making product. And I'm interested in being an artist.
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If someone has failed, that is not a deficiency for me. I think that he has more motivation. I've seen many examples where someone was successful first and failed later and failed first and then succeeded. If they failed in an honest way, I don't see it as a deficiency.
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Live rich, die poor; never make the mistake of doing it the other way round.
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If you're only going to give away 50 percent of your wealth... c'mon. I'm going to do much more than that.
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I have a deep and ongoing love of Iceland, particular the landscape, and when writing 'Burial Rites,' I was constantly trying to see whether I could distill its extraordinary and ineffable qualities into a kind of poetry.
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Someone once told me I looked good in red, so I bought every piece of clothing in red and bright-red lipstick. I had huge hair, as big as I could tease it and spray it.
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I'm from Houston. I think I was thirty-seven before I ever set foot in Dallas, and that was just in the airport. So I've never really been there. Dad grew up in Port Arthur, Texas and all I can ever get out of him is, 'I wanted my first son to be named Dallas.'
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'The Outsiders' died on the vine being sold as a drugstore paperback.
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Religion is induced insanity.
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Sometimes you surf well and still don't win. It happens to everyone. You learn that one big score doesn't mean much if you don't have a backup. I guess every rookie learns that as time goes by. I took some big lessons from my losses.
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For me, acting comes straight from the heart. In that sense I don't act at all. I think that to feel the character's pain I have to be myself. Somewhere audiences see that.
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I've had many nicknames over the years: V, Nessa, Nessy Poo, Nessy Bear and Van. Only my parents call me Van, though, and I hate it. I get embarrassed.
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Hope is like one of those orchids that grows around toxic waste: lovely in itself - and an assertion, if you like, of indefatigable good - but a sure sign that something nasty lies underneath.
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I am so happy to be on a show with writing I wanted to participate in.
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There are probably more fact-finding tours of Nicaragua right now than there are facts- the country has shortages of practically everything.
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What I do on stage has utterly no purpose.
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You know that prudery is only the other side of prurience. The words are even on the same page in the dictionary.
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Most people, at a crisis, feel more loyalty to their nation than to their class.
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Scouts have always been surprised by the way I'm able to move at my size. How fast and agile I am.
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The perfect pop song is a 20th-century creation; it's not a sonnet, it's not an opera, it's something short - three and a half minutes by nature - and has this ability to travel and to defy class and economic structures.
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A bad investment is going for quantity over quality. If you're trying to be careful with your wallet, especially with the economy right now, you have to choose staple pieces.
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There are now two Syrias. One is run by men who fight for God, not democracy. The other is ruled by a secular but authoritarian regime accused of many crimes against its people. The choice between the two will not be decided at the polls.
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The faculty of self-help is that which distinguished man from animals; that it is the Godlike element, or holds within itself the Godlike element, of his constitution.
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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?