Variety is the pledge that matter makes to living things. Diane Ackerman More Quotes by Diane Ackerman More Quotes From Diane Ackerman Like love, travel makes you innocent again. Diane Ackerman like-love innocent We are defined by how we place our attention. Diane Ackerman defined attention We live on the leash of our senses. Diane Ackerman medicine perception philosophy An animal on a leash is not tamed by the owner. The owner is extending himself through the leash to that part of his personality which is pure dog, that part of him which just wants to eat, sleep, bark, hump chairs, wet the floor in joy, and drink out of a toilet bowl. Diane Ackerman dog sleep animal Things that live by night live outside the realm of 'normal' time and so suggest living outside the realm of good and evil, since we have moralistic feelings about time. Chauvinistic about our human need to wake by day and sleep by night, we come to associate night dwellers with people up to no good at a time when they have the jump on the rest of us and are defying nature, defying their circadian rhythms. Diane Ackerman sleep night people In Manhattan last month I heard a woman borrowing the jargon of junkies to say to another, 'Want to do some chocolate?' Diane Ackerman lasts chocolate months Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains; another, a moonlit beach; a third, 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. Hit a tripwire of smell and memories explode all at once. A complex vision leaps out of the undergrowth. Diane Ackerman summer love beach Above all, we ask the poet to teach us a way of seeing. Diane Ackerman teach poet way 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 language poetry memorable If we mammals don't get something to eat every day or two, our temperature drops, all our signs fall off, and we begin to starve. Living at biological red alert, it's not surprising how obsessed we are with food; I'm just amazed we don't pace and fret about it all the time. Diane Ackerman mammals two fall poetry had everything to teach me about life. Diane Ackerman teach poetry People search for love as if it were a city lost beneath the desert dunes, where pleasure is the law, the streets are lined with brocade cushions, and the sun never sets. Diane Ackerman cities law people 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 venture risk journey Give a man enough rope and he'll wrap himself around your little finger. Diane Ackerman rope giving men Nature is also great fun. To pretend that nature isn't fun is to miss much of the joy of being alive. Diane Ackerman nature joy fun [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 garden mind thinking We tend to think of memories as monuments we once forged and may find intact beneath the weedy growth of years. But, in a real sense, memories are tied to and describe the present. Formed in an idiosyncratic way when they happened, they're also true to the moment of recall, including how you feel, all you've experienced, and new values, passions, and vulnerability. One never steps into the same stream of consciousness twice. Diane Ackerman passion real memories Love is the most important thing in our lives, a passion for which we would fight or die, and yet we're reluctant to linger over its names. Without a supple vocabulary, we can't even talk or think about it directly. Diane Ackerman passion fighting love-is Happiness doesn't require laughter, only well-being and a sense that the world is breaking someone else's heart, not mine. Diane Ackerman laughter heart happiness I'm an Earth ecstatic, and my creed is simple: All life is sacred, life loves life, and we are capable of improving our behavior toward one another. As basic as that is, for me it's also tonic and deeply spiritual, glorifying the smallest life-form and embracing the most distant stars. Diane Ackerman love-life stars spiritual
