Quote

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.

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
Interests
Details
Fans
Interest
Universe
Take
Great
Detail
Literally

More quotes by Diane Ackerman

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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
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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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Not much is known about alligators. They don't train well. And they're unwieldy and rowdy to work with in laboratories.
Diane Ackerman
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Artificial intelligence is growing up fast, as are robots whose facial expressions can elicit empathy and make your mirror neurons quiver.
Diane Ackerman
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Culture is what people invent when they have lost nature.
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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I consider fiction a very high-class form of lying. I enjoy and admire it enormously, but I don't think I'm very good at it.
Diane Ackerman
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As people flock to urban centers where ground space is limited, cities with green walls and roofs and skyscraper farms offer improved health and well-being, renewable resources, reliable food supply, and relief to the environment.
Diane Ackerman
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Who would drink from a cup when they can drink from the source?
Diane Ackerman
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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.
Diane Ackerman
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Wonder is the heaviest element on the periodic table. Even a tiny fleck of it stops time.
Diane Ackerman
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Look in the mirror. The face that pins you with its double gaze reveals a chastening secret.
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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We live on the leash of our senses.
Diane Ackerman
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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.
Diane Ackerman
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We humans are obsessed with lights...Perhaps it is our way of hurling the constellations back at the sky.
Diane Ackerman
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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.
Diane Ackerman
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I hate the fearful trimming of possibilities that age brings.
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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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