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To begin to understand the gorgeous fever that is consciousness, we must try to understand the senses and what they can tell us about the ravishing world we have the privilege to inhabit.

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
Trying
Gorgeous
World
Senses
Privilege
Begin
Consciousness
Understand
Ravishing
Tell
Inhabit
Must
Fever

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I hate the fearful trimming of possibilities that age brings.
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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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The knowing, I told myself, is only a vapor of the mind, and yet it can wreck havok with one's sanity.
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Who would drink from a cup when they can drink from the source?
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I'm sure civilizations will still evolve through play, or rather as play, since that seems to be a fundamental mechanism of our humanity.
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Smell is the mute sense, the one without words.
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There is a way of beholding nature which is a form of prayer, a way of minding something with such clarity and aliveness that the rest of the world recedes. It . . . gives the brain a small vacation.
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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.
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After all, coffee is bitter, a flavor from the forbidden and dangerous realm.
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Nature neither gives nor expects mercy.
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Hurricane season brings a humbling reminder that, despite our technologies, most of nature remains unpredictable.
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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.
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Love is the best school, but the tuition is high and the homework can be painful.
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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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Tranquillity hides in small spaces, and when found needs to be treasured, because you know it's a phantom that will slip away again.
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I am a great fan of the universe, which I take literally: as one. All of it interests me, and it interests me in detail.
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On some summer days in New York City, the air hangs thickly visible, like the combined exhalations of eight million souls. Steam rising from vents underground makes you wonder if there isn't one giant sweat gland lodged beneath the city.
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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.
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Our relationship with nature has changed radically, irreversibly, but by no means all for the bad. Our new epoch is laced with invention. Our mistakes are legion, but our talent is immeasurable.
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Look in the mirror. The face that pins you with its double gaze reveals a chastening secret.
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