I may enter a zone of transcendence, in which I marvel at all the accidents of fate, since the beginning of life on earth, that led to my genes being created and my standing in this particular garden in a contemplative and imagining mind. I’ve been reading recently how reflection evolved. What a fascinating solution to the rigors of survival…how amazing that a few basic ingredients- the same ones that form the mountains, plants, and rivers-when arranged differently and stressed could result in us. More and more of late, I find myself standing outside of life, with a sense of the human saga laid out before me. It is a private vision, balanced between youth and old age, a vision in which I understand how caught up in striving we humans get, and a little of why, and how difficult it is even to recognize, since it feels integral to our nature and is. but I find it interesting that, according to many religions, life and begins and ends in a garden.

— Diane Ackerman

I'm fascinated how often and with what wholeheartedness people will risk their lives to perform acts of courage, sacrifice, and compassion for total strangers.

— Diane Ackerman

In our heart we know that life loves life. Yet we feast on some of the other life-forms with which we share our planet; we kill to live. Taste is what carries us across that rocky moral terrain, what makes the horror palatable, and the paradox we could not defend by reason melts into a jungle of sweet temptations.

— Diane Ackerman

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

— Diane Ackerman

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

— Diane Ackerman

I've always loved scuba diving and the cell-tickling feel of being underwater, though it poses unique frustrations. Alone, but with others, you may share the same sights and feelings, but you can't communicate well.

— Diane Ackerman

I was moving in a narrow range between busy abstractedness and a pervasive sadness whose granules seemed to enter each cell, weighing it down... I ghosted between islands of anxiety... a fatigue that dulled my zest, decanted it. Sorrow felt like a marble coat I couldn’t shed.

— Diane Ackerman

Knee-deep in the cosmic overwhelm, I’m stricken by the ricochet wonder of it all: the plaineverythingness of everything, in cahoots with the everythingness of everything else.- From Diffraction (for Carl Sagan)

— Diane Ackerman

Listen, I'd rather lie naked in a plowed field under an incontinent horse for a week than have to read that paragraph again!

— Diane Ackerman

Living with anyone for many years takes skill. To keep peace in the household, couples learn to adapt to one another, hopefully in positive ways.

— Diane Ackerman