Diane Ackerman quotes

I don't want to be a passenger in my own life. (Diane Ackerman)
It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between. View quote
Diane Ackerman
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. View quote
Diane Ackerman
Human beings are sloshing sacks of chemicals on the move. View quote
Diane Ackerman
All relationships change the brain - but most important are the intimate bonds that foster or fail us, altering the delicate circuits that shape memories, emotions and that ultimate souvenir, the self. View quote
Diane Ackerman
Look in the mirror. The face that pins you with its double gaze reveals a chastening secret. View quote
Diane Ackerman
As a species, we've somehow survived large and small ice ages, genetic bottlenecks, plagues, world wars and all manner of natural disasters, but I sometimes wonder if we'll survive our own ingenuity. View quote
Diane Ackerman
What would dawn have been like, had you awakened? It would have sung through your bones. All I can do this morning is let it sing through mine. View quote
Diane Ackerman
Artificial intelligence is growing up fast, as are robots whose facial expressions can elicit empathy and make your mirror neurons quiver. View quote
Diane Ackerman
We think of it as a sort of traffic accident of the heart. It is an emotion that scares us more than cruelty, more than violence, more than hatred. We allow ourselves to be foiled by the vagueness of the word. After all, love requires the utmost vulnerability. We equip someone with freshly sharpened knives; strip naked; then invite him to stand close. What could be scarier? View quote
Diane Ackerman
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. (Diane Ackerman)
We're losing biodiversity globally at an alarming rate, and we need a cornucopia of different plants and animals, for the planet's health and our own. View quote
Diane Ackerman
Look in the mirror. The face that pins you with its double gaze reveals a chastening secret: You are looking into a predator's eyes. Most predators have eyes set right on the front of their heads, so they can use binocular vision to sight and track their prey. View quote
Diane Ackerman
Wonder is the heaviest element on the periodic table. Even a tiny fleck of it stops time. View quote
Diane Ackerman
Nature is more like a seesaw than a crystal, a never-ending conga line of bold moves and corrections. View quote
Diane Ackerman
Words are small shapes in the gorgeous chaos of the world. View quote
Diane Ackerman
Who would deduce the dragonfly from the larva, the iris from the bud, the lawyer from the infant? ...We are all shape-shifters and magical reinventors. Life is really a plural noun, a caravan of selves. View quote
Diane Ackerman
Touch seems to be as essential as sunlight. View quote
Diane Ackerman
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. View quote
Diane Ackerman
Tranquillity hides in small spaces, and when found needs to be treasured, because you know it's a phantom that will slip away again. View quote
Diane Ackerman
Libraries change lives. They are the soul of a people. (Diane Ackerman)
Love is the best school, but the tuition is high and the homework can be painful. View quote
Diane Ackerman
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. View quote
Diane Ackerman
A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language, that can only be patched together and hinted at metaphorically. View quote
Diane Ackerman
Success produces success, just as money produces money. View quote
Diane Ackerman