Diane Ackerman

After all, coffee is bitter, a flavor from the forbidden and dangerous realm.

— Diane Ackerman

Of all the errands life seems to be running, of all the mysteries that enchant us, love is my favorite

— Diane Ackerman

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

— Diane Ackerman

I believe consciousness is brazenly physical, a raucous mirage the brain creates to help us survive.

— Diane Ackerman

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

— Diane Ackerman

Don't just live the length of your life - live the width of it as well.

— Diane Ackerman

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

— Diane Ackerman

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

— Diane Ackerman

“It's not enough to do research from a distance. It's by living beside animals that you learn their behavior and psychology." On…

— Diane Ackerman

“[T]here is only one zot, thisness. Zot is a feminine word for "this." The word zot is itself one of the names…

— Diane Ackerman

“Although Mengele's subjects could be operated on without any painkillers at all, a remarkable example of Nazi zoophilia is that a leading…

— Diane Ackerman

“Marek Edelman in Krall, Shielding the Flame. After the war Edelman became a cardiologist, commenting that "when one knows death so well,…

— Diane Ackerman

Ecstasy is what everyone craves - not love or sex, but a hot-blooded, soaring intensity, in which being alive is a joy…

— Diane Ackerman

So before I start work on a book, I'm like a pregnant mole - I obsessively tidy and order my closets and…

— Diane Ackerman

All relationships change the brain - but most important are the intimate bonds that foster or fail us, altering the delicate circuits…

— Diane Ackerman

Poetry reminds us of the truths about life and human nature that we knew all along, but forgot somehow because they weren't…

— Diane Ackerman

“So couples relive romantic memories, families watch home movies, and friends "catch up" with each other, as if they've lagged behind on…

— Diane Ackerman

“Nearby, on the other side of the wall, life flowed on as usual, as yesterday, as always," one survivor wrote. "People, citizens…

— Diane Ackerman

“It's a funny thing," Jan went on, "she's not a child, she's not stupid, but her relationship with other people tends to…

— Diane Ackerman

“Revered as God's servants, the bees they lure provide mead and honey for the table and beeswax candles for church services, which…

— Diane Ackerman

A flower's fragrance declares to all the world that it is fertile, available, and desirable, its sex organs oozing with nectar. Its…

— Diane Ackerman

“How did he manage such feats of compassion while staying sane and creative? By stilling the mind and communing with nature: One…

— Diane Ackerman

Working from home meant we could vary snack and coffee breaks, change our desks or view, goof off, drink on the job,…

— Diane Ackerman

We think of it as a sort of traffic accident of the heart. It is an emotion that scares us more than…

— Diane Ackerman

Nature is also great fun. To pretend that nature isn't fun is to miss much of the joy of being alive.

— Diane Ackerman

In Manhattan last month I heard a woman borrowing the jargon of junkies to say to another, 'Want to do some chocolate?'

— Diane Ackerman

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

— Diane Ackerman

Home is where the heart is, we say, rubbing the flint of one abstraction against another.

— Diane Ackerman

“God may promise not to destroy creation, but it is not a promise humankind made - to our peril.”

— Diane Ackerman

“Sometimes with a flutter of agitated worry that felt like a beetle was trapped inside my ribs. p. 90”

— Diane Ackerman

Nothing reveals more about the inner life of a people than their arts.

— Diane Ackerman

“Every day our life was full of thoughts of the horrible present, and even our own death.”

— Diane Ackerman

Happiness doesn't require laughter, only well-being and a sense that the world is breaking someone else's heart, not mine.

— Diane Ackerman

“Selves will accumulate when one isn’t looking, and they don’t always act wisely or well.”

— Diane Ackerman

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

— Diane Ackerman

Violets smell like burnt sugar cubes that have been dipped in lemon and velvet.

— Diane Ackerman

The well of nature is full today. Time to go outside and take a drink.

— Diane Ackerman

The knowing, I told myself, is only a vapor of the mind, and yet it can wreck havok with one's sanity.

— Diane Ackerman

Adventure is not something you travel to find. It's something you take with you, or you're not going to find it when…

— Diane Ackerman

My mother always said I must be part Mongolian because of my lotus-pale complexion and squid-ink black hair.

— Diane Ackerman