Quote

In the winter, I enjoy cross-country skiing and raising orchids and amaryllises. If I could grow tropical flowers as perennials, I would, especially hibiscus and mandavilla.

Diane Ackerman

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Diane Ackerman
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: October 7
Author
Naturalist
Non-Fiction Writer
Poet
Screenwriter
Writer
Waukegan
Illinois
Winter
Flower
Orchids
Especially
Tropical
Grow
Skiing
Grows
Raising
Enjoy
Flowers
Country
Cross
Would
Crosses

More quotes by Diane Ackerman

Image
We would lie on coral sand, below sugary stars, watching Cassiopeia mount her throne and the Great Bear wash its paws in the South. I would say, I have a secret to tell you. And, folding me in your arms, boyish and sly, you would answer: Whisper it into my mouth.
Diane Ackerman
Image
Of all the errands life seems to be running, of all the mysteries that enchant us, love is my favorite
Diane Ackerman
Image
Our skin is what stands between us and the world.
Diane Ackerman
Image
Love is the best school, but the tuition is high and the homework can be painful.
Diane Ackerman
Image
There was nothing to do but wait. It is always like this for naturalists, and for poets--the long hours of travel and preparation, and then the longer hours of waiting. All for that one electric, pulse-revving vision when the universe suddenly declares itself.
Diane Ackerman
Image
When I set a glass prism on a windowsill and allow the sun to flood through it, a spectrum of colors dances on the floor. What we call white is a rainbow of colored rays packed into a small space. The prism sets them free. Love is the white light of emotion.
Diane Ackerman
Image
Nature is also great fun. To pretend that nature isn't fun is to miss much of the joy of being alive.
Diane Ackerman
Image
Human beings are sloshing sacks of chemicals on the move.
Diane Ackerman
Image
habit, a particularly insidious thug who chokes passion and smothers love. Habit puts us on autopilot.
Diane Ackerman
Image
It's essential to tailor rehab to what impassions someone. The brain gradually learns by riveting its attention-through endless repetitions.
Diane Ackerman
Image
No matter how politely one says it, we owe our existence to the farts of blue-green algae.
Diane Ackerman
Image
An animal on a leash is not tamed by the owner. The owner is extending himself through the leash to that part of his personality which is pure dog, that part of him which just wants to eat, sleep, bark, hump chairs, wet the floor in joy, and drink out of a toilet bowl.
Diane Ackerman
Image
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 turn our precisely laid-out cities into a weed-way.
Diane Ackerman
Image
I don't want to be a passenger in my own life.
Diane Ackerman
Image
Part of the irony of environmentalism is questing for solutions when you know you're part of the problem.
Diane Ackerman
Image
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.
Diane Ackerman
Image
After all, coffee is bitter, a flavor from the forbidden and dangerous realm.
Diane Ackerman
Image
Because we can't escape our ancient hunger to live close to nature, we encircle the house with lawns and gardens, install picture windows, adopt pets and Boston ferns, and scent everything that touches our lives.
Diane Ackerman
Image
If a mind is just a few pounds of blood, urea, and electricity, how does it manage to contemplate itself, worry about its soul, do time-and-motion studies, admire the shy hooves of a goat, know that it will die, enjoy all the grand and lesser mayhems of the heart ?
Diane Ackerman
Image
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