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 More Quotes by Diane Ackerman More Quotes From Diane Ackerman The further we distance ourselves from the spell of the present, explored by our senses, the harder it will be to understand and protect nature's precarious balance, let alone the balance of our own human nature. Diane Ackerman distance human-nature balance History is an agreed-upon fiction. Diane Ackerman history fiction Home is where the heart is, we say, rubbing the flint of one abstraction against another. Diane Ackerman home-is-where-the-heart-is home heart Horses have made civilization possible. Diane Ackerman horse made civilization Smell is the mute sense, the one without words. Diane Ackerman mute smell 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. Diane Ackerman ingredients romance twins the biggest threat to the religious experience may well come from organized religion itself. Diane Ackerman threat religious may As anyone who has received or dispensed psychotherapy knows, it's a profession whose mainspring is love. Nearly everyone who visits a therapist has a love disorder of one sort or another, and each has a story to tell - of love lost or denied, love twisted or betrayed, love perverted or shackled to violence. Broken attachments litter the office floors like pick-up sticks. People appear with frayed seams and spilling pockets. Diane Ackerman lost-love attachment people All relationships change the brain - but most important are the intimate bonds that foster or fail us, altering the delicate circuits that shape memories, emotions and that ultimate souvenir, the self. Diane Ackerman self brain memories 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 wall space cities Our sense of safety depends on predictability, so anything living outside the usual rules we suspect to be an outlaw, a ghoul. Diane Ackerman safety usual ghouls So before I start work on a book, I'm like a pregnant mole - I obsessively tidy and order my closets and everything in my study. Because there's such a cascade of images and ideas that I'm grapping with mentally, I couldn't also be in a chaotic setting. Diane Ackerman order book ideas As the most social apes, we inhabit a mirror-world in which every important relationship, whether with spouse, friend or child, shapes the brain, which in turn shapes our relationships. Diane Ackerman important-relationships mirrors children One of the keystones of romantic love - and also of the ecstatic religion practiced by mystics - is the powerful desire to become one with the beloved. Diane Ackerman romantic-love powerful desire When you consider something like death, after which (there being no news flash to the contrary) we may well go out like a candle flame, then it probably doesn't matter if we try too hard, are awkward sometimes, care for one another too deeply, are excessively curious about nature, are too open to experience, enjoy a nonstop expense of the senses in an effort to know life intimately and lovingly. Diane Ackerman life-and-death effort flames The more we exile ourselves from nature, the more we crave its miracle waters. Diane Ackerman exile miracle water I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I have just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well. Diane Ackerman Just as our ancient ancestors drew animals on cave walls and carved animals from wood and bone, we decorate our homes with animal prints and motifs, give our children stuffed animals to clutch, cartoon animals to watch, animal stories to read. Diane Ackerman walls cartoon animal children I've always loved scuba diving and the cell-tickling feel of being underwater, though it poses unique frustrations. Alone, but with others, you may share the same sights and feelings, but you can't communicate well. Diane Ackerman loved alone feel you Gardeners may create order briefly out of chaos, but nature always gets the last word, and what it says is usually untidy by human standards. But I find all states of nature beautiful, and because I want to delight in my garden, not rule it, I just accept my yen to tame the chaos on one day and let the Japanese beetles run riot on the next. Diane Ackerman day garden nature beautiful
