Diane Ackerman
Diane Ackerman
Diane Ackermanis an American poet, essayist, and naturalist known for her wide-ranging curiosity and poetic explorations of the natural world...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth7 October 1948
CountryUnited States of America
Diane Ackerman quotes about
book order ideas
So before I start work on a book, I'm like a pregnant mole - I obsessively tidy and order my closets and everything in my study. Because there's such a cascade of images and ideas that I'm grapping with mentally, I couldn't also be in a chaotic setting.
rain book fall
I think if you look at any facet of nature in enough detail, you find it fascinating. How could you not? The universe is so full of marvels. Here's an example -- rain, the shape of rain. I was minding my own business, working on my book, looking out the window, and it was raining and I was noticing that the raindrops were falling in that classic round-looking way, and I thought, 'I wonder if raindrops really are round?' So I started researching it a little, and I discovered that raindrops change shape 300 times a second.
mother hair squids
My mother always said I must be part Mongolian because of my lotus-pale complexion and squid-ink black hair.
home heart home-is-where-the-heart-is
Home is where the heart is, we say, rubbing the flint of one abstraction against another.
powerful romantic-love desire
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.
ghouls safety usual
Our sense of safety depends on predictability, so anything living outside the usual rules we suspect to be an outlaw, a ghoul.
technology hurricanes reminders
Hurricane season brings a humbling reminder that, despite our technologies, most of nature remains unpredictable.
growing-up expression mirrors
Artificial intelligence is growing up fast, as are robots whose facial expressions can elicit empathy and make your mirror neurons quiver.
garden boston house
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.
passion thug habit
habit, a particularly insidious thug who chokes passion and smothers love. Habit puts us on autopilot.
technology worry grace
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.
moving lines crystals
Nature is more like a seesaw than a crystal, a never-ending conga line of bold moves and corrections.
water miracle exile
The more we exile ourselves from nature, the more we crave its miracle waters.
memories self brain
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.