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

Categorized in : Long Waiting Preparation

I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.

Diane Ackerman

motivational inspirational life

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

hatred compassion commitment

It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.

Diane Ackerman

beautiful life country

For the longest time I didn't realize I was creative - I just thought I was strange.

Diane Ackerman

creativity strange creative

Who would deduce the dragonfly from the larva, the iris from the bud, the lawyer from the infant? ...We are all shape-shifters and magical reinventors. Life is really a plural noun, a caravan of selves.

Diane Ackerman

irises nature self

If a mind is just a few pounds of blood, urea, and electricity, how does it manage to contemplate itself, worry about its soul, do time-and-motion studies, admire the shy hooves of a goat, know that it will die, enjoy all the grand and lesser mayhems of the heart ?

Diane Ackerman

worry heart blood

The heart is a museum, filled with the exhibits of a lifetime's loves.

Diane Ackerman

lifetime heart museums

No matter how politely one says it, we owe our existence to the farts of blue-green algae.

Diane Ackerman

algae green blue

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

Diane Ackerman

elements tables healing

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

color brain feelings

American writer

Diane Ackerman

play brain way

We can't enchant the world, which makes its own magic; but we can enchant ourselves by paying deep attention

Diane Ackerman

magic attention world

Look at your feet. You are standing in the sky. When we think of the sky, we tend to look up, but the sky actually begins at the earth. We walk through it, yell into it, rake leaves, wash the dog, and drive cars in it. We breathe it deep within us. With every breath, we inhale millions of molecules of sky, heat them briefly, and then exhale them back into the world.

Diane Ackerman

dog sky thinking

We live on the leash of our senses. There is no way in which to understand the world without first detecting it through the radar-net of our senses.

Diane Ackerman

music silence listening

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

glasses space love-is

I don't want to be a passenger in my own life.

Diane Ackerman

knowing-who-you-are want life

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

details interest fans

Look in the mirror. The face that pins you with its double gaze reveals a chastening secret. You are looking into a predator's eyes. Most predators have eyes set right on the front of their heads, so they can use binocular vision to sight and track their prey.

Diane Ackerman

mirrors eye sight

When I go biking, I repeat a mantra of the day's sensations: bright sun, blue sky, warm breeze, blue jay's call, ice melting and so on. This helps me transcend the traffic, ignore the clamorings of work, leave all the mind theaters behind and focus on nature instead. I still must abide by the rules of the road, of biking, of gravity. But I am mentally far away from civilization. The world is breaking someone else's heart.

Diane Ackerman

ice blue heart

In the absence of touching and being touched, people of all ages can sicken and grow touched starved. Touch seems to be as essential as sunlight.

Diane Ackerman

touching age people