WIST Quotations

Ackerman, Diane -- “In Praise of Bats,” The Moon by Whale Light (1991)

Dave — Fri, 28 Dec 2018 20:18:13 +0000

One of the things I like best about animals in the wild is that they’re always off on some errand. They have appointments to keep. It’s only we humans who wonder what we’re here for.

Diane Ackerman (b. 1948) American poet, author, naturalist
“In Praise of Bats,” The Moon by Whale Light (1991)

Ackerman, Diane -- A Natural History of Love, “Brain-Stem Sonata: The Neurophysiology of Love” (1994)

Dave — Fri, 12 Jun 2020 22:44:14 +0000

The brain is only three pounds of blood, dream, and electricity, and yet from that mortal stew come Beethoven’s sonatas. Dizzy Gillespie’s jazz. Audrey Hepburn’s wish to spend the last month of her life in Somalia, saving children.

Diane Ackerman (b. 1948) American poet, author, naturalist
A Natural History of Love, “Brain-Stem Sonata: The Neurophysiology of Love” (1994)

Ackerman, Diane -- Cultivating Delight; A Natural History of My Garden, ch. 6 (2001)

Dave — Fri, 01 Jul 2022 14:06:10 +0000

Living things tend to change unrecognizably as they grow. Who would deduce the dragonfly from the larva, the iris from the bud, the lawyer from the infant? Flora or fauna, we are all shape-shifters and magic reinventors. Life is really a plural noun, a caravan of selves.

Diane Ackerman (b. 1948) American poet, author, naturalist
Cultivating Delight; A Natural History of My Garden, ch. 6 (2001)

Ackerman, Diane -- Newsweek (1986-09-22)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

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 (b. 1948) American poet, author, naturalist
Newsweek (1986-09-22)

Ackerman was 37 at the time, and had already been a teacher, a cow-hand, and a pilot, as well as having two volumes of her poetry.

Ackerman, Diane -- The Moon by Whale Light, ch. 4 “White Lanterns” (1991)

Dave — Tue, 14 Apr 2020 20:15:27 +0000

I like handling newborn animals. Fallen into life from an unmappable world, they are the ultimate immigrants, full of wonder and confusion.

Diane Ackerman (b. 1948) American poet, author, naturalist
The Moon by Whale Light, ch. 4 “White Lanterns” (1991)