"The Natural History of the Senses" is non-fiction, yet the way Diane Ackerman writes about the world creates such a pleasant, novel outlook that the book seems like it could be fiction. Ackerman focuses upon, not only the senses themselves, but also the thoughts we have, conscious or unconscious, as we go about our lives. However the times that have stood out most to her audience have been when she takes something plainly obvious and strings those thoughts into a fixture of extraordinary elegance and simplicity, making you think, "That's how you explain it."
“‘Smells are surer than sights and sounds to make your heart-strings crack’” (11).
“My heart is broken, we answer … Intellectually, we know that love, passion, and devotion all do not lie in any one organ … Yet when we speak of love, we use the robust metaphor of the heart, and everyone understands it … (Extra:) The heart measures our lives and our loves. ” (179).
“Words are small shapes in the gorgeous chaos of the world. But [smells] are shapes, they bring the world into focus, they corral ideas, they hone thoughts, they paint watercolors of perception” (7).
“What a strange lot writers are, we questers after the perfect word, the glorious phrase that will somehow make the exquisite avalanche of consciousness sayable” (293).
“What we hear occupies quite a large range of intensities –– from the sound of a ladybug landing … to a launch at Cape Canaveral –– but we rarely hear the internal workings of our body …” (178).
“When people need a fresh vocabulary to deal with new challenges, terrain, or social climate, a dialect emerges” (184).
“Touch is the oldest sense, and the most urgent” (80).
"It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.”
Out of over 5,000 people, Goodreads rates the book 4.1 stars out of 5.
Ackerman, Diane. A Natural History of the Senses. New York: Random House, 1990. Print.
