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The Idea Of Safety Had Shrunk Into Particles - One Snug Moment, Then The Next. Meanwhile, The Brain Piped Fugues Of Worry And Staged Mind-theaters Full Of Tragedies And Triumphs, Because Unfortunately, The Fear Of Death Does Wonders To Focus The Mind, Inspire Creativity, And Heightens The Senses. Trusting One's Hunches Only Seems Gamble If One Has Time For Seem; Otherwise The Brain Goes On Autopilot And Trades The Elite Craft Of Analysis For The Best Rapid Insights That Float Up From Its Danger Files And Ancient Bag Of Tricks.
-Diane Ackerman
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The Idea Of Safety

Diane Ackerman
The Idea Of Safety Had Shrunk Into Particles - One Snug Moment, Then The Next. Meanwhile, The Brain Piped Fugues Of Worry And Staged Mind-theaters Full Of Tragedies And Triumphs, Because Unfortunately, The Fear Of Death Does Wonders To Focus The Mind, Inspire Creativity, And Heightens The Senses. Trusting One's Hunches Only Seems Gamble If One Has Time For Seem; Otherwise The Brain Goes On Autopilot And Trades The Elite Craft Of Analysis For The Best Rapid Insights That Float Up From Its Danger Files And Ancient Bag Of Tricks.
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Topic
Creativity
Ideas
Worry
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Age
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Thinking
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Latin
Vocabulary
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Balance
Human Nature
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Routine
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Twins
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Love Is
White
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Garden
Thinking
Mind
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Heart
Civilization
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Silence
Listening
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Chemicals
Humans
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Ghouls
Safety
Usual
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Sleep
Night
People
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Stupid
Ideas
Fool
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Eugenics
Shopping
Tree
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Wall
Cities
Space
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Writing
Thinking
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Love Is
Errands
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Love
Defense
Truth Is
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Poetry
Teach
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Birth
Odd
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Unrest
Logic
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Lying
Thinking
Class
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Long
Waiting
Preparation
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Inspirational
Prayer
Vacation
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Travel
Adventure
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Passion
Mean
Giving
Smell Is The Mute Sense, The One Without Words.
Smell
Mute
The Brain Is Only Three Pounds Of Blood, Dream, And Electricity, And Yet From That Mortal Stew Come Beethoven's Sonatas. Dizzie Gillespie's Jazz. Audrey Hepburn's Wish To Spend The Last Month Of Her Life In Somalia, Saving Children.
Dream
Children
Blood
The Visual Image Is A Kind Of Tripwire For The Emotions.
Design
Emotion
Kind
It's So Acceptably Easy For A Woman Not To Strive Too Hard, Not To Be Too Adventure-crazed, Not To Take Too Many Risks, Not To Enjoy Sex With Full Candor ... It Isn't Seemly For A Woman To Have That Much Zest.
Sex
Adventure
Zest
We Evolved As Creatures Knitted Into The Fabric Of Nature, And Without Its Intimate Truths, We Can Find Ourselves Unraveling.
Fabric
Unraveling
Intimate
People Search For Love As If It Were A City Lost Beneath The Desert Dunes, Where Pleasure Is The Law, The Streets Are Lined With Brocade Cushions, And The Sun Never Sets.
Law
Cities
People
If We Mammals Don't Get Something To Eat Every Day Or Two, Our Temperature Drops, All Our Signs Fall Off, And We Begin To Starve. Living At Biological Red Alert, It's Not Surprising How Obsessed We Are With Food; I'm Just Amazed We Don't Pace And Fret About It All The Time.
Fall
Two
Mammals
What A Lonely Species We Are, Searching For Signals Of Life From Other Galaxies, Adopting Companion Animals, Visiting Parks And Zoos To Commune With Other Beasts. In The Process, We Discover Our Shared Identity.
Lonely
Zoos
Animal
Which Is Crueler, An Old Man's Lost Memories Of A Life Lived, Or A Young Man's Lost Memories Of The Life He Meant To Live?
Memories
Men
Lost
Touch Seems To Be As Essential As Sunlight.
Love
Essentials
Sunlight
If Cynicism Is Inevitable As One Ages, So Is The Yearning For Innocence. To Children Heaven Is Being An Adult, And To Adults Heaven Is Being Children Again.
Children
Heaven
Age
For The Longest Time I Didn't Realize I Was Creative - I Just Thought I Was Strange.
Creativity
Creative
Strange
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.
Inspirational
Life
Motivational
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.
Morning
Dawn
Bones
Like Love, Travel Makes You Innocent Again.
Like Love
Innocent
When I Set A Glass Prism On A Windowsill And Allow The Sun To Flood Through It, A Spectrum Of Colors Dances On The Floor. What We Call "white" Is A Rainbow Of Colored Rays Packed Into A Small Space. The Prism Sets Them Free. Love Is The White Light Of Emotion.
Love Is
Space
Glasses
Because Poets Feel What We're Afraid To Feel, Venture Where We're Reluctant To Go, We Learn From Their Journeys Without Taking The Same Dramatic Risks.
Journey
Risk
Venture
No Matter How Politely One Says It, We Owe Our Existence To The Farts Of Blue-green Algae.
Blue
Algae
Green
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.
People
Touching
Age
For If I Do Something, I Never Do It Thoughtlessly.
Ifs
Shaped A Little Like A Loaf Of French Country Bread, Our Brain Is A Crowded Chemistry Lab, Bustling With Nonstop Neural Conversations.
Country
Brain
Neurons
One Of The Things I Like Best About Animals In The Wild Is That They're Always Off On Some Errand. They Have Appointments To Keep. It's Only We Humans Who Wonder What We're Here For.
Animal
Errands
Wonder
One Of The Keystones Of Romantic Love - And Also Of The Ecstatic Religion Practiced By Mystics - Is The Powerful Desire To Become One With The Beloved.
Powerful
Romantic Love
Desire
As Fleeting Emotions Stalk It, A Face Can Leak Fear Or The Guilt Of A Forming Lie.
Lying
Guilt
Fleeting
A Poem Records Emotions And Moods That Lie Beyond Normal Language, That Can Only Be Patched Together And Hinted At Metaphorically.
Lying
Together
Records
Look At Your Feet. You Are Standing In The Sky. When We Think Of The Sky, We Tend To Look Up, But The Sky Actually Begins At The Earth. We Walk Through It, Yell Into It, Rake Leaves, Wash The Dog, And Drive Cars In It. We Breathe It Deep Within Us. With Every Breath, We Inhale Millions Of Molecules Of Sky, Heat Them Briefly, And Then Exhale Them Back Into The World.
Dog
Thinking
Sky
A Life Like An Intricately Woven Basket, Frayed, Worn, Broken, Unraveled, Reworked, Reknit From Many Of Its Original Pieces... Life Can Survive In The Constant Shadow Of Illness, And Even Rise To Moments Of Rampant Joy, But The Shadow Remains, And One Has To Make Space For It.
Space
Broken
Joy
In Manhattan Last Month I Heard A Woman Borrowing The Jargon Of Junkies To Say To Another, 'want To Do Some Chocolate?'
Chocolate
Lasts
Months
Words Are Small Shapes In The Gorgeous Chaos Of The World. ... They Bring The World Into Focus, They Corral Ideas, They Hone Thoughts, They Paint Watercolors Of Perception.
Ideas
Focus
Perception
It Began In Mystery, And It Will End In Mystery, But What A Savage And Beautiful Country Lies In Between.
Life
Beautiful
Country
So Often Loneliness Comes From Being Out Of Touch With Parts Of Oneself. We Go Searching For Those Parts In Other People, But There's A Difference Between Feeling Separate From Others And Separate From Oneself.
Loneliness
Differences
People
Success Produces Success, Just As Money Produces Money.
Success
Positive Attitude
Produce
Habitats Keep Evolving New Pageants Of Species, And We Shouldn't Interfere.
Habitat
Pageant
Evolve
Much Of Life Becomes Background, But It Is The Province Of Art To Throw Buckets Of Light Into The Shadows And Make Life New Again.
Art
Light
Shadow
...for Most People In The [jewish] Ghetto [of Warsaw] Nature Lived Only In Memory -- No Parks, Birds, Or Greenery Existed In The Ghetto -- And They Suffered The Loss Of Nature Like A Phantom-limb Pain, An Amputation That Scrambled The Body's Rhythms, Starved The Senses, And Made Basic Ideas About The World Impossible For Children To Fathom.
Children
Pain
Memories
One Can Live At A Low Flame. Most People Do. For Some, Life Is An Exercise In Moderation (best China Saved For Special Occasions), But Given Something Like Death, What Does It Matter If One Looks Foolish Now And Then, Or Tries Too Hard, Or Cares Too Deeply?
Exercise
Flames
People
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.
Sex
Spring
Flower
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 Sea On Their Bellies, Giant Pandas Holding Bamboo Lollipops In China Or Tree Porcupines In The Canadian Rockies, Balled Up Like Giant Pine Cones.
Zoos
Animal
Sea
We Try To Exile Ourselves More And More From Nature - Not Always Consciously: We Build Houses; We Dismiss Nature; Nature Has To Be Outside, Because We're Inside. God Forbid Something Like A Cockroach Comes Inside, Or Some Dust.
Dust
House
Trying
We're Losing Biodiversity Globally At An Alarming Rate, And We Need A Cornucopia Of Different Plants And Animals, For The Planet's Health And Our Own.
Animal
Different
Needs
Fear Is Danger To Your Body, But Disgust Is Danger To Your Soul.
Soul
Body
Danger
It's Animal By Animal That You Save A Species.
Animal
Animal Rights
Species
... Love Is An Act Of Sedition, A Revolt Against Reason, An Uprising In The Body Politic, A Private Mutiny.
Love Is
Uprising
Mutiny
Happiness Doesn't Require Laughter, Only Well-being And A Sense That The World Is Breaking Someone Else's Heart, Not Mine.
Happiness
Laughter
Heart
Nature Neither Gives Nor Expects Mercy.
Nature
Giving
Mercy
Part Of The Irony Of Environmentalism Is Questing For Solutions When You Know You're Part Of The Problem.
Irony
Problem
Knows
Because We Can't Escape Our Ancient Hunger To Live Close To Nature, We Encircle The House With Lawns And Gardens, Install Picture Windows, Adopt Pets And Boston Ferns, And Scent Everything That Touches Our Lives.
Garden
Boston
House
For Me, Life Offers So Many Complexly Appealing Moments That Two Beautiful Objects May Be Equally Beautiful For Different Reasons And At Different Times. How Can One Choose?
Beautiful
Two
Different
Give A Man Enough Rope And He'll Wrap Himself Around Your Little Finger.
Men
Giving
Rope
I'm Sure Civilizations Will Still Evolve Through Play, Or Rather As Play, Since That Seems To Be A Fundamental Mechanism Of Our Humanity.
Civilization
Play
Humanity
The Senses Don't Just Make Sense Of Life In Bold Or Subtle Acts Of Clarity, They Tear Reality Apart Into Vibrant Morsels And Reassemble Them Into A Meaningful Pattern.
Meaningful
Reality
Tears
Tranquillity Hides In Small Spaces, And When Found Needs To Be Treasured, Because You Know It's A Phantom That Will Slip Away Again.
Space
Needs
Phantoms
There's No Place You Can Go On The Prairie That You Don't Hear The White Noise Of The Wind, Steady And Rough As Surf Curling Along A Non-existant Shore.
Wind
White
Goes On
Poetry Reminds Us Of The Truths About Life And Human Nature That We Knew All Along, But Forgot Somehow Because They Weren't Yet In Memorable Language.
Memorable
Poetry
Language
Writer's Block Is A Luxury Most People With Deadlines Don't Have.
Block
Luxury
People
Artificial Intelligence Is Growing Up Fast, As Are Robots Whose Facial Expressions Can Elicit Empathy And Make Your Mirror Neurons Quiver.
Growing Up
Mirrors
Expression
Symbolic Of Life, Hair Bolts From Our Head[s]. Like The Earth, It Can Be Harvested, But It Will Rise Again. We Can Change Its Color And Texture When The Mood Strikes Us, But In Time It Will Return To Its Original Form, Just As Nature Will In Time Turn Our Precisely Laid-out Cities Into A Weed-way.
Weed
Hair
Color
Because Iq Tests Favor Memory Skills And Logic, Overlooking Artistic Creativity, Insight, Resiliency, Emotional Reserves, Sensory Gifts, And Life Experience, They Can't Really Predict Success, Let Alone Satisfaction.
Memories
Creativity
Emotional
On Some Summer Days In New York City, The Air Hangs Thickly Visible, Like The Combined Exhalations Of Eight Million Souls. Steam Rising From Vents Underground Makes You Wonder If There Isn't One Giant Sweat Gland Lodged Beneath The City.
Summer
New York
Eight
Hurricane Season Brings A Humbling Reminder That, Despite Our Technologies, Most Of Nature Remains Unpredictable.
Technology
Hurricanes
Reminders
As A Species, We've Somehow Survived Large And Small Ice Ages, Genetic Bottlenecks, Plagues, World Wars And All Manner Of Natural Disasters, But I Sometimes Wonder If We'll Survive Our Own Ingenuity.
War
Ice
Age
My Mother Always Said I Must Be Part Mongolian Because Of My Lotus-pale Complexion And Squid-ink Black Hair.
Mother
Hair
Squids
Nature Is Also Great Fun. To Pretend That Nature Isn't Fun Is To Miss Much Of The Joy Of Being Alive.
Nature
Fun
Joy
The Great Affair, The Love Affair With Life, Is To Live As Variously As Possible, To Groom One's Curiosity Like A High-spirited Thoroughbred, Climb Aboard, And Gallop Over The Thick, Sunstruck Hills Every Day.
Curiosity
Life Is
Hills
Everyone Admits That Love Is Wonderful And Necessary, Yet No One Agrees On Just What It Is.
Missing You
Sweet
Falling In Love
Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.


2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.


2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.


2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.


3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.


3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.


3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.



4. Proper Usage of Quotes


4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.


4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.


4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).


5. Common Mistakes to Avoid


5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.


5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.


5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.



6. Quotes in Different Contexts


6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.


6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.


6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.



7. Punctuation and Formatting


Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:


Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.


Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.


Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.



8. Ethical Considerations


Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes


Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.



Conclusion


Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.


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