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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.

Diane Ackerman

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Diane Ackerman
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: October 7
Author
Naturalist
Non-Fiction Writer
Poet
Screenwriter
Writer
Waukegan
Illinois
Sometimes
Somehow
Plague
World
Species
Survived
Large
Ice
Wonder
Ages
Bottlenecks
Small
Manner
Plagues
Age
Wars
Disasters
Natural
Survive
Genetic
War
Disaster
Ingenuity

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We humans are obsessed with lights...Perhaps it is our way of hurling the constellations back at the sky.
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For if I do something, I never do it thoughtlessly.
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I don't want to be a passenger in my own life.
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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.
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My mother always said I must be part Mongolian because of my lotus-pale complexion and squid-ink black hair.
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Humans are the most successful invasives of all time.
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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.
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Of all the errands life seems to be running, of all the mysteries that enchant us, love is my favorite
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...for most people in the [Jewish] Ghetto [of Warsaw] nature lived only in memory -- no parks, birds, or greenery existed in the Ghetto -- and they suffered the loss of nature like a phantom-limb pain, an amputation that scrambled the body's rhythms, starved the senses, and made basic ideas about the world impossible for children to fathom.
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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 could not defend by reason melts into a jungle of sweet temptations.
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Human beings are sloshing sacks of chemicals on the move.
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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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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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Not much is known about alligators. They don't train well. And they're unwieldy and rowdy to work with in laboratories.
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Life is a thing that mutates without warning, not always in enviable ways. All part of the improbable adventure of being alive, of being a brainy biped with giant dreams on a crazy blue planet.
Diane Ackerman
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Variety is the pledge that matter makes to living things.
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The only and absolute perfect union of two is when a baby hangs suspended in its mother's womb, like a tiny madman in a padded cell, attached to her, feeling her blood and hormones, and moods play through its body, feeling her feelings.
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Hurricane season brings a humbling reminder that, despite our technologies, most of nature remains unpredictable.
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It's essential to tailor rehab to what impassions someone. The brain gradually learns by riveting its attention-through endless repetitions.
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I'm an Earth ecstatic, and my creed is simple: All life is sacred, life loves life, and we are capable of improving our behavior toward one another. As basic as that is, for me it's also tonic and deeply spiritual, glorifying the smallest life-form and embracing the most distant stars.
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