Quote

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.

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
Something
Rest
Way
Prayer
Recedes
World
Small
Beholding
Brain
Aliveness
Inspirational
Minding
Nature
Vacation
Form
Clarity
Giving
Gives

More quotes by 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.
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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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Smell is the mute sense, the one without words.
Diane Ackerman
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It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.
Diane Ackerman
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It's animal by animal that you save a species.
Diane Ackerman
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Couples are jigsaw puzzles that hang together by touching in just enough points. They're never total fits or misfits. In time, a pair invents its own commonwealth, complete with anthems, rituals, and lingos-a cult of two with fallible gods.
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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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Libraries change lives. They are the soul of a people.
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hope and uncertainty [are] the twin ingredients necessary for romance to thrive. ... Nothing begins with so much excitement and hope, or fails as often, as love.
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Nature is more like a seesaw than a crystal, a never-ending conga line of bold moves and corrections.
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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.
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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.
Diane Ackerman
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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.
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Adult bats don't weigh much. They're mainly fur and appetite.
Diane Ackerman
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We have vexed and bothered every plant and every animal on every continent.
Diane Ackerman
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And yet, words are the passkeys to our souls. Without them, we can't really share the enormity of our lives.
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Flight is nothing but an attitude in motion.
Diane Ackerman
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After all, coffee is bitter, a flavor from the forbidden and dangerous realm.
Diane Ackerman
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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.
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Because poets feel what we're afraid to feel, venture where we're reluctant to go, we learn from their journeys without taking the same dramatic risks.
Diane Ackerman