Diane Ackerman: Quotes about life

Diane Ackerman is Author, poet, naturalist. Explore interesting quotes on life.

Diane Ackerman: 60 quotes6 likes

“I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived the length of it. I want to live the width of it as well.”

As quoted in Meditations for Women Who Do Too (1991) by Anne Wilson Schaef

“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.”

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

On Extended Wings (1985)

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

Source: A Natural History of Love

“Which is crueler, an old man's lost memories of a life lived, or a young man's lost memories of the life he meant to live?”

“So much of our life passes in a comfortable blur. Living on the senses requires an easily triggered sense of marvel, a little extra energy, and most people are lazy about life. Life is something that happens to them while they wait for death.”

Diane Ackerman book A Natural History of the Senses

Postscript (p. 305)
A Natural History of the Senses (1990)

“For large minds, the Earth is a small place. Not small enough to exhaust in one lifetime, but a compact home, cozy, buoyant, a place to cherish, the spectral center of our life. But how could we stay at home forever?”

Diane Ackerman book A Natural History of the Senses

Source: A Natural History of the Senses (1990), Chapter 5 “Vision” (p. 281)