Diane Ackerman

What do those of us who aren't tall, flawlessly sculpted adolescents do?
 Answer: Console ourselves with how relative beauty can be...
Thank heavens for the arousing qualities of zest, intelligence,
wit, curiosity, sweetness, passion, talent and grace.

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

Look into the mirror. The face that pins you with its double gaze reveals a chastening secret: You are looking into a predator's eyes.

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

There is no way in which to understand the world without first detecting it through the radar-net of our senses.

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

We live on the leash of our senses.

A flower's fragrance declares to all the world that it is fertile, available, and desirable, its sex organs oozing with nectar. Its smell reminds us in vestigial ways of fertility, vigor, life-force, all the optimism, expectancy, and passionate bloom of youth. We inhale its ardent aroma and, no matter what our ages, we feel young and nubile in a world aflame with desire.

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.