My mother always said I must be part Mongolian because of my lotus-pale complexion and squid-ink black hair. Diane Ackerman More Quotes by Diane Ackerman More Quotes From Diane Ackerman Complexity excites the mind, and order rewards it. In the garden, one finds both, including vanishingly small orders too complex to spot, and orders so vast the mind struggles to embrace them. Diane Ackerman garden journey struggle 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 horse cat dog A life like an intricately woven basket, frayed, worn, broken, unraveled, reworked, reknit from many of its original pieces... Life can survive in the constant shadow of illness, and even rise to moments of rampant joy, but the shadow remains, and one has to make space for it. Diane Ackerman space broken joy Ecstasy is what everyone craves - not love or sex, but a hot-blooded, soaring intensity, in which being alive is a joy and a thrill. That enravishment doesn't give meaning to life, and yet without it life seems meaningless. Diane Ackerman inspirational giving sex There's no place you can go on the prairie that you don't hear the white noise of the wind, steady and rough as surf curling along a non-existant shore. Diane Ackerman white goes-on wind Though most of us don't hunt, our eyes are still the great monopolists of our senses. To taste or touch your enemy or your food, you have to be unnervingly close to it. To smell or hear it, you can risk being further off. But vision can rush through the fields and up the mountains, travel across time, country, and parsecs of outer space, and collect bushel baskets of information as it goes. Animals that hear high frequencies better than we do Diane Ackerman eye animal country Couples are jigsaw puzzles that hang together by touching in just enough points. Diane Ackerman jigsaw-puzzles touching couple Love is the white light of emotion. Diane Ackerman light white love What do those of us who aren't tall, flawlessly sculpted adolescents do? Diane Ackerman zest passion beauty 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. Diane Ackerman jigsaw-puzzles couple inspirational 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 vacation prayer inspirational Violets smell like burnt sugar cubes that have been dipped in lemon and velvet. Diane Ackerman smell sugar garden Humans are the most successful invasives of all time. Diane Ackerman all-time environment successful Flying has changed how we imagine our planet, which we have seen whole from space, so that even the farthest nations are ecological neighbors. It has changed our ideas about time. When you can gird the earth at 1,000 m.p.h., how can you endure the tardiness of a plumber? Most of all, flying has changed our sense of our body, the personal space in which we live, now elastic and swift. I could be in Bombay for afternoon tea if I wished. My body isn't limited by its own weaknesses; it can rush through space. Diane Ackerman flying space ideas There is that unique moment when one confronts something new and astonishment begins. Diane Ackerman astonishment weekend unique After all, coffee is bitter, a flavor from the forbidden and dangerous realm. Diane Ackerman bitter flavor coffee A self is a frightening thing to waste, it's the lens through which one's whole life is viewed, and few people are willing to part with it, in death, or even imaginatively, in art. Diane Ackerman self people art We think of it as a sort of traffic accident of the heart. It is an emotion that scares us more than cruelty, more than violence, more than hatred. We allow ourselves to be foiled by the vagueness of the word. After all, love requires the utmost vulnerability. We equip someone with freshly sharpened knives; strip naked; then invite him to stand close. What could be scarier? Diane Ackerman knives heart thinking 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. Diane Ackerman talent mistake mean There are well-dressed foolish ideas just as there are well-dressed fools. Diane Ackerman fool stupid ideas
