Quotes by Diane Ackerman

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.

— Diane Ackerman

Wisdom

Love is the best school, but the tuition is high and the homework can be painful.

— Diane Ackerman

Love

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

Wisdom

Artificial intelligence is growing up fast, as are robots whose facial expressions can elicit empathy and make your mirror neurons quiver.

— Diane Ackerman

Wisdom

Touch seems to be as essential as sunlight.

— Diane Ackerman

Wisdom

Hurricane season brings a humbling reminder that, despite our technologies, most of nature remains unpredictable.

— Diane Ackerman

Wisdom

On some summer days in New York City, the air hangs thickly visible, like the combined exhalations of eight million souls. Steam rising from vents underground makes you wonder if there isn't one giant sweat gland lodged beneath the city.

— Diane Ackerman

Wisdom

We're losing biodiversity globally at an alarming rate, and we need a cornucopia of different plants and animals, for the planet's health and our own.

— Diane Ackerman

Wisdom

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

Wisdom

As a species, we've somehow survived large and small ice ages, genetic bottlenecks, plagues, world wars and all manner of natural disasters, but I sometimes wonder if we'll survive our own ingenuity.

— Diane Ackerman

Life

I like knowing that the further back one traces any lineage, the narrower the path grows, to the haunt of just a few shaggy ancestors, with luck on their side, little gizmos in their cells and a future storied with impulses and choices that will ultimately define them.

— Diane Ackerman

Hope

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

Wisdom

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

Life

A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language, that can only be patched together and hinted at metaphorically.

— Diane Ackerman

Truth

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

— Diane Ackerman

Wisdom

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

— Diane Ackerman

Life

I'm certainly not opposed to digital technology, whose graces I daily enjoy and rely on in so many ways. But I worry about our virtual blinders.

— Diane Ackerman

Happiness

Because we can't escape our ancient hunger to live close to nature, we encircle the house with lawns and gardens, install picture windows, adopt pets and Boston ferns, and scent everything that touches our lives.

— Diane Ackerman

Wisdom

For better or worse, zoos are how most people come to know big or exotic animals. Few will ever see wild penguins sledding downhill to sea on their bellies, giant pandas holding bamboo lollipops in China or tree porcupines in the Canadian Rockies, balled up like giant pine cones.

— Diane Ackerman

Wisdom

We're dabbling in eugenics all the time, breeding ideal crops to replace less aesthetic or nutritious or hardy varieties; leveling forests to graze cattle or erect shopping malls and condos; planting groves of a few familiar trees that homeowners and industries prefer.

— Diane Ackerman

Wisdom

Look in the mirror. The face that pins you with its double gaze reveals a chastening secret.

— Diane Ackerman

Wisdom

Nature is more like a seesaw than a crystal, a never-ending conga line of bold moves and corrections.

— Diane Ackerman

Wisdom

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

Wisdom

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

Wisdom