Quote

Wonder is the heaviest element on the periodic table. Even a tiny fleck of it stops time.

Diane Ackerman

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Diane Ackerman
Age: 75
Born: 1948
Born: October 7
Author
Naturalist
Non-Fiction Writer
Poet
Screenwriter
Writer
Waukegan
Illinois
Tables
Tiny
Healing
Elements
Periodic
Wonder
Heaviest
Even
Stops
Time
Element
Table

More quotes by Diane Ackerman

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We can't enchant the world, which makes its own magic but we can enchant ourselves by paying deep attention
Diane Ackerman
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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
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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.
Diane Ackerman
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Nature is more like a seesaw than a crystal, a never-ending conga line of bold moves and corrections.
Diane Ackerman
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Choice is a signature of our species.
Diane Ackerman
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The daftest logic brings such sweet unrest.
Diane Ackerman
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I swear I will not dishonor my soul with hatred, but offer myself humbly as a guardian of nature, as a healer of misery, as a messenger of wonder, as an architect of peace.
Diane Ackerman
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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
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What an odd, ruminating, noisy, self-interrupting conversation we conduct with ourselves from birth to death.
Diane Ackerman
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Habitats keep evolving new pageants of species, and we shouldn't interfere.
Diane Ackerman
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[On gardens:] I think they're sanctuaries for the mind and spirit. ... It's easy to feel wonder-struck in a garden, especially if you cultivate delight.
Diane Ackerman
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Of all the errands life seems to be running, of all the mysteries that enchant us, love is my favorite
Diane Ackerman
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Smell brings to mind... a family dinner of pot roast and sweet potatoes during a myrtle-mad August in a Midwestern town. Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years.
Diane Ackerman
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Writer's block is a luxury most people with deadlines don't have.
Diane Ackerman
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We evolved as creatures knitted into the fabric of nature, and without its intimate truths, we can find ourselves unraveling.
Diane Ackerman
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Humans are the most successful invasives of all time.
Diane Ackerman
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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.
Diane Ackerman
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habit, a particularly insidious thug who chokes passion and smothers love. Habit puts us on autopilot.
Diane Ackerman
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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.
Diane Ackerman
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In the early years of the Uprising, we survived on one meal a day of horse meat and soup, but by the end we ate only dried peas, dogs, cats and birds.
Diane Ackerman