Diane Ackerman Quotes

"Love is a luxury." "No. Love is an element." An element. Like air to breathe, earth to stand on.

I will not live without love.

Love is the ultimate expression of the will to live.

Nearly everyone underestimates how powerful the touch of another person's hand can be. The need to be touched is something so primal, so fundamentally a part of our existence as human beings that its true impact upon us can be difficult to put into words. That power doesn't necessarily have anything to do with sex, either. From the time we are infants, we learn to associate the touch of a human hand with safety, with comfort, with love.

Yes, I do touch. I believe that everyone needs that

Touch is the alpha and omega of affection.

Love is an actual need, an urgent requirement of the heart, he read aloud from an old essay on marriage that he found in his files.Every properly constituted human being who entertains an appreciation of loneliness...and looks forward to happiness and content feels the necessity of loving. Without it, life is unfinished.

We touch heaven when we lay our hand on a human body!

In the absence of touching and being touched, people of all ages can sicken and grow touched starved. Touch seems to be as essential as sunlight.

There is a primal reassurance in being touched, in knowing that someone else, someone close to you, wants to be touching you. There is a bone-deep security that goes with the brush of a human hand, a silent, reflex-level affirmation that someone is near, that someone cares.

You should go," I breathed. "You should definitely go." "Go here?" His mouth was on my shoulder. "Or here?" It moved up my neck.

I think sex is completely absurdly demonized in our culture. But in the end, however much sex you want to have, with however many people in how many ways, to be loved and to love is what human beings really want.

Devils can be driven out of the heart by the touch of a hand on a hand, or a mouth on a mouth.

One of the important qualities that I think is often overlooked is just energy. It's vitality, and sort of a life force that some people have and others don't. Probably that is connected to a love of whatever it is that they're doing. Another quality that I think is central is confidence. Again, some people are more blessed with that than others.

Whatever a human being makes and makes live, it lives because of the life he puts into it.

Love is the spirit of life, and makes all things live.

To be sure, theory is useful. But without warmth of heart and without love it bruises the very ones it claims to save.

Ay, but hearken, sir; though the chameleon Love can feed on the air, I am one that am nourished by my victuals, and would fain have meat.

Energy is not only the basis of our existence, it is the fuel that makes everything in our lives real and possible.

I put my hand on him. Touching him has always been important to me, it was something I lived for. I never could explain why. Little, nothing touches, my fingers against his shoulder, the outsides of our thighs touching as we squeeled together on the bus. I couldnt explain it, but I needed it. Sometimes I imagined stiching all of our little touches together. How many hundreds of thousands of fingers brushing against each other does it take to make love?

There was sex, of course. Nakedness. Wall to wall, in and out of my thoughts. But when it was over it was her whispering voice I craved, and a human curled up in my arms.

Oh, a friend! How true is that old saying, that the enjoyment of one is sweeter and more necessary than that of the elements of water and fire!

It's true that nothing in this world makes us so necessary to others as the affection we have for them.

Words are a wonderful form of communication, but they will never replace kisses and punches.