21 quotes
It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.
A Natural History of the Senses (1990)
But, as sages have long said, the sexiest part of the body and the best aphrodisiac in the world is the imagination.
A Natural History of the Senses (1990)
Human beings are sloshing sacks of chemicals on the move.
An Alchemy of Mind : The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain (2004)
My muse is male, has the silvery complexion of the moon, and never speaks to me directly.
A Natural History of the Senses (1990)
Artificial intelligence is growing up fast, as are robots whose facial expressions can elicit empathy and make your mirror neurons quiver.
Consciousness, the great poem of matter, seems so unlikely, so impossible, and yet here we are with our loneliness and our giant dreams.
A Natural History of the Senses (1990)
I don't want to be a passenger in my own life.
On Extended Wings (1985)
Out-of-body experiences aim to shed the senses, but they cannot. One may see from a new perspective, but it’s still an experience of vision.
A Natural History of the Senses (1990)
What I’m really wondering is why notices were posted and invitations sent out at all: If it’s a psychics’ convention, shouldn’t everyone just know where and when to meet?
A Natural History of the Senses (1990)
I plan my garden as I wish I could plan my life, with islands of surprise, color, and scent. A seductive aspect of gardening is how many rituals it requires.
When art separates this thick tangle of feelings, love bares its bones.
A Natural History of Love (1994)
The color we see is always the one being reflected, the one that doesn’t stay put and get absorbed. We see the rejected color, and say “an apple is red.” But in truth an apple is everything but red.
A Natural History of the Senses (1990)
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.
Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much (1991)
For better or worse, zoos are how most people come to know big or exotic animals. Few will ever see wild penguins sledding downhill to see on their bellies, giant pandas holding bamboo lollipops in China or tree porcupines in the Canadian Rockies, balled up like giant pine cones.
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?
A Natural History of the Senses (1990)
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.
A Natural History of the Senses (1990)
What would dawn have been like, had you awakened? It would have sung through your bones. All I can do this morning is let it sing through mine.
The Inevitable: Contemporary Writer Confront Death (2011)
That evening, as I watched the sunset’s pinwheels of apricot and mauve slowly explode into red ribbons, I thought: The sensory misers will inherit the earth, but first they will make it not worth living on.
A Natural History of the Senses (1990)
Look in the mirror. The face that pins you with its double gaze reveals a chastening secret: You are looking into a predator’s eyes. Most predators have eyes set right on the front of their heads, so they can use binocular vision to sight and track their prey.
A Natural History of the Senses (1990)
We hallucinate sounds more often than sights. There are auditory mirages, which vanish without trace; auditory illusions that turn out to be something other than they seemed; and, of course, voices that speak to saints, seers, and psychotics, telling them how to act and what to believe.
A Natural History of the Senses (1990)