Quotes by Diane Ackerman

About Diane Ackerman:

Diane Ackerman is an American poet, essayist, and naturalist known for her wide-ranging curiosity and poetic explorations of the natural world.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The sensory misers will inherit the earth, but first they will make it not worth living on. When you consider something like death, after which we may well go out like a candle flame, then it probably won’t matter if we try too hard, are awkward so...

Diane Ackerman

In our heart we know that life loves life. Yet we feast on some of the other life-forms with which we share our planet; we kill to live. Taste is what carries us across that rocky moral terrain, what makes the horror palatable, and the paradox we cou...

Diane Ackerman

Symbolic of life, hair bolts from our head[s]. Like the earth, it can be harvested, but it will rise again. We can change its color and texture when the mood strikes us, but in time it will return to its original form, just as Nature will in time tur...

Diane Ackerman

I was moving in a narrow range between busy distractedness and a pervasive sadness whose granules seemed to enter each cell, weighing it down... I ghosted between islands of anxiety... a fatigue that dulled my zest, decanted it. Sorrow felt like a ma...

Diane Ackerman

The faint pink coating the treetops promised rippling buds, a sure sign of spring hastening in, right on schedule, and the animal world getting ready for its fiesta of courting and mating, dueling and dancing, suckling and grubbing, costume-making an...

Diane Ackerman

For if I do something, I never do it thoughtlessly.

Diane Ackerman

As fleeting emotions stalk it, a face can leak fear or the guilt of a forming lie.

Diane Ackerman

Suffering took hold of me like a magic spell abolishing all differences between friends and strangers.

Diane Ackerman

Love is the best school, but the tuition is high and the homework can be painful.

Diane Ackerman

I've always found it best to have a routine. I go to my study at the same time every day and climb into my bay window. I may not be inspired every day, but on the days I am, I need to be in place to write. If I'm not particularly inspired, I'll revis...

Diane Ackerman

I'd suffered many losses in recent years after my father mother uncle aunt and cousin had all passed away. In her final years my mother often lamented that there was no one alive who had known her as a girl and I was starting to understand how spooke...

Diane Ackerman

Listen, I'd rather lie naked in a plowed field under an incontinent horse for a week than have to read that paragraph again!

Diane Ackerman

So much in a relationship changes when a partner is seriously ill, helpless yet blameless, and indefatigably needy. I felt old. [p. 99] The animal part of him in pain accepted my caring. But the part of himself in that pain didn't believe I could eve...

Diane Ackerman

Sometimes with a flutter of agitated worry that felt like a beetle was trapped inside my ribs. p. 90

Diane Ackerman

Five weeks in the hospital fled as if down a sinkhole into the middle of the earth. ... Can waiting by definition slow, flash by? ... Time becomes even more elastic than usual--minutes can stretch for ages and days suddenly snap together. [p. 97]

Diane Ackerman

Couples are jigsaw puzzles that hang together by touching in just enough points. They're never total fits or misfits. ... We marry children who have grown up and still rejoice in being children .... [p. 15]

Diane Ackerman

We marry children who have grown up and still rejoice in being children, especially if we're creative. Imaginative people fidget with ideas, including the idea of a relationship. If they're wordsmiths like us, they fidget a lot in words.

Diane Ackerman

Much more. We're joined at the heart." "Bad luck for you, I'm afraid. My ticker's pretty wonky." "Too much boozing." His eyes twinkled, and he drew me close. "Not enough kissling.

Diane Ackerman

As people flock to urban centers where ground space is limited, cities with green walls and roofs and skyscraper farms offer improved health and well-being, renewable resources, reliable food supply, and relief to the environment.

Diane Ackerman

I'm fascinated how often and with what whole-heartedness people will risk their lives to perform acts of courage, sacrifice, and compassion for total strangers.

Diane Ackerman

Cicadas, buckling and unbuckling their stomach muscles, yield the sound of someone sharpening scissors. Fall field crickets, the thermometer hounds, add high-pitched tinkling chirps to the jazz, and their call quickens with warm weather, slows again ...

Diane Ackerman

Author Bio

  • NameDiane Ackerman
  • DescriptionAuthor, poet, naturalist
  • BornOctober 7, 1948
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionPoet; Author
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship