Diane Ackerman Quotes
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We tend to think of heroes only in terms of violent combat, whether it's against enemies or a natural disaster. But human beings also perform radical acts of compassion; we just don't talk about them, or we don't talk about them as much.
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Words are small shapes in the gorgeous chaos of the world.
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We ogle plants and animals up close on television, the Internet and in the movies. We may not worship the animals we see, but we still regard them as necessary physical and spiritual companions. Technological nature can't completely satisfy that yearning.
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Though we marry as adults, we don't marry adults. We marry children who have grown up and still rejoice in being children, especially if we're creative.
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Flight is nothing but an attitude in motion.
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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.
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For the longest time I didn't realize I was creative - I just thought I was strange.
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The daftest logic brings such sweet unrest.
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It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.
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Success produces success, just as money produces money.
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What an odd, ruminating, noisy, self-interrupting conversation we conduct with ourselves from birth to death.
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The well of nature is full today. Time to go outside and take a drink.
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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.
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Shaped a little like a loaf of French country bread, our brain is a crowded chemistry lab, bustling with nonstop neural conversations.
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Horses have made civilization possible.
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Choice is a signature of our species.
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A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language, that can only be patched together and hinted at metaphorically.
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I watched her face switch among the radio stations of memory
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Who would drink from a cup when they can drink from the source?
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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.
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The biggest threat to the religious experience may well come from organized religion itself.
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Things that live by night live outside the realm of 'normal' time and so suggest living outside the realm of good and evil, since we have moralistic feelings about time. Chauvinistic about our human need to wake by day and sleep by night, we come to associate night dwellers with people up to no good at a time when they have the jump on the rest of us and are defying nature, defying their circadian rhythms.
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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.
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I'm certainly not opposed to digital technology, whose graces I daily enjoy and rely on in so many ways. But I worry about our virtual blinders.