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Diane Ackerman Biography

Diane Ackerman (born October 7, 1948) is an American poet, essayist, and naturalist known for her wide-ranging curiosity and poetic explorations of the natural world.

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Diane Ackerman Quotes

The more we exile ourselves from nature, the more we crave its miracle waters.

Crave, Exile, Miracle, Water, Waters

What do those of us who aren't tall, flawlessly sculpted adolescents do? Answer: Console ourselves with how relative beauty can be. . . Thank heavens for the arousing qualities of zest, intelligence, wit, curiosity, sweetness, passion, talent and grace.

Arousing, Beauty, Grace, Passion, Tall, Zest

We humans are obsessed with lights. . . Perhaps it is our way of hurling the constellations back at the sky.

Light, Lights, Obsessed, Perhaps, Sky, Way

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.

Deduce, Infant, Irises, Nature, Self, Selves

Words are small shapes in the gorgeous chaos of the world. . . . they bring the world into focus, they corral ideas, they hone thoughts, they paint watercolors of perception.

Corral, Focus, Gorgeous, Ideas, Perception, Small

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.

Desire, Mystics, Powerful, Religion, Romantic Love

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.

Long, Naturalists, Preparation, Waiting

Writing is my form of celebration and prayer.

Celebration, Prayer, Writing

Adult bats don't weigh much. They're mainly fur and appetite.

Adult, Adults, Bats, Fur, Mainly, Weigh

Nature neither gives nor expects mercy.

Expects, Gives, Giving, Mercy, Nature

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.

Brain, Change, Foster, Memories, Self

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.

Class, Fiction, Good, Lying, 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.

Listening, Live, Music, Senses, Silence, World

Smell is the mute sense, the one without words.

Mute, Sense, Smell, Words

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.

Electric, Long, Longer, Preparation, Universe, Waiting

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.

Details, Fan, Fans, Interest, Interests, Take

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.

Art, Frightening, Life, People, Self, Waste

Mystery causes a mental itch, which the brain tries to soothe with the balm of reasonable talk.

Brain, Causes, Soothe, Tries, Trying

If cynicism is inevitable as one ages, so is the yearning for innocence. To children heaven is being an adult, and to adults heaven is being children again.

Adult, Age, Ages, Children, Heaven, Innocence

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.

Absence, Age, People, Sunlight, Touching

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