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We Tend To Think Of Memories As Monuments We Once Forged And May Find Intact Beneath The Weedy Growth Of Years. But, In A Real Sense, Memories Are Tied To And Describe The Present. Formed In An Idiosyncratic Way When They Happened, They're Also True To The Moment Of Recall, Including How You Feel, All You've Experienced, And New Values, Passions, And Vulnerability. One Never Steps Into The Same Stream Of Consciousness Twice.
-Diane Ackerman
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We Tend To Think

Diane Ackerman
We Tend To Think Of Memories As Monuments We Once Forged And May Find Intact Beneath The Weedy Growth Of Years. But, In A Real Sense, Memories Are Tied To And Describe The Present. Formed In An Idiosyncratic Way When They Happened, They're Also True To The Moment Of Recall, Including How You Feel, All You've Experienced, And New Values, Passions, And Vulnerability. One Never Steps Into The Same Stream Of Consciousness Twice.
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Memories
Real
Passion
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Mammals
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Self
Mindfulness
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Elements
Tables
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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
For The Longest Time I Didn't Realize I Was Creative - I Just Thought I Was Strange.
Creativity
Creative
Strange
The Further We Distance Ourselves From The Spell Of The Present, Explored By Our Senses, The Harder It Will Be To Understand And Protect Nature's Precarious Balance, Let Alone The Balance Of Our Own Human Nature.
Distance
Balance
Human Nature
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.
Stars
Thinking
Clouds
The Visual Image Is A Kind Of Tripwire For The Emotions.
Design
Emotion
Kind
Who You Are Isn't Tied Solely To What You Say, Even Though It May Feel That Way To You Now.
Philosophy
May
Way
What Is Erotic? The Acrobatic Play Of The Imagination. The Sea Of Memories In Which We Bathe. The Way We Caress And Worship Things With Our Eyes. Our Willingness To Be Stirred By The Sight Of The Voluptuous. What Is Erotic Is Our Passion For The Liveliness Of Life.
Memories
Passion
Eye
We Think Of It As A Sort Of Traffic Accident Of The Heart. It Is An Emotion That Scares Us More Than Cruelty, More Than Violence, More Than Hatred. We Allow Ourselves To Be Foiled By The Vagueness Of The Word. After All, Love Requires The Utmost Vulnerability. We Equip Someone With Freshly Sharpened Knives; Strip Naked; Then Invite Him To Stand Close. What Could Be Scarier?
Heart
Thinking
Knives
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.
Sweet
Heart
Love Life
Life Is A Thing That Mutates Without Warning, Not Always In Enviable Ways. All Part Of The Improbable Adventure Of Being Alive, Of Being A Brainy Biped With Giant Dreams On A Crazy Blue Planet.
Life
Dream
Crazy
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
No Matter How Politely One Says It, We Owe Our Existence To The Farts Of Blue-green Algae.
Blue
Algae
Green
Mystery Causes A Mental Itch, Which The Brain Tries To Soothe With The Balm Of Reasonable Talk.
Brain
Trying
Causes
Devising A Vocabulary For Gardening Is Like Devising A Vocabulary For Sex. There Are The Correct Latin Names, But Most People Invent Euphemisms. Those Who Refer To Plants By Latin Name Are Considered More Expert, If A Little Pedantic.
Sex
Latin
Vocabulary
I Believe Consciousness Is Brazenly Physical, A Raucous Mirage The Brain Creates To Help Us Survive.
Believe
Brain
Mirages
As People Flock To Urban Centers Where Ground Space Is Limited, Cities With Green Walls And Roofs And Skyscraper Farms Offer Improved Health And Well-being, Renewable Resources, Reliable Food Supply, And Relief To The Environment.
Wall
Cities
Space
We Would Lie On Coral Sand, Below Sugary Stars, Watching Cassiopeia Mount Her Throne And The Great Bear Wash Its Paws In The South. I Would Say, "i Have A Secret To Tell You." And, Folding Me In Your Arms, Boyish And Sly, You Would Answer: "whisper It Into My Mouth.
Stars
Lying
Secret
The More We Exile Ourselves From Nature, The More We Crave Its Miracle Waters.
Water
Miracle
Exile
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
So Before I Start Work On A Book, I'm Like A Pregnant Mole - I Obsessively Tidy And Order My Closets And Everything In My Study. Because There's Such A Cascade Of Images And Ideas That I'm Grapping With Mentally, I Couldn't Also Be In A Chaotic Setting.
Book
Order
Ideas
I Think If You Look At Any Facet Of Nature In Enough Detail, You Find It Fascinating. How Could You Not? The Universe Is So Full Of Marvels. Here's An Example -- Rain, The Shape Of Rain. I Was Minding My Own Business, Working On My Book, Looking Out The Window, And It Was Raining And I Was Noticing That The Raindrops Were Falling In That Classic Round-looking Way, And I Thought, 'i Wonder If Raindrops Really Are Round?' So I Started Researching It A Little, And I Discovered That Raindrops Change Shape 300 Times A Second.
Rain
Book
Fall
Hope And Uncertainty [are] The Twin Ingredients Necessary For Romance To Thrive. ... Nothing Begins With So Much Excitement And Hope, Or Fails As Often, As Love.
Romance
Ingredients
Twins
We Have Vexed And Bothered Every Plant And Every Animal On Every Continent.
Animal
Evolution
Plant
Everyone Admits That Love Is Wonderful And Necessary, Yet No One Agrees On Just What It Is.
Missing You
Sweet
Falling In Love
Adventure Is Not Something You Travel To Find. It's Something You Take With You, Or You're Not Going To Find It When You Arrive.
Travel
Adventure
Our Sense Of Safety Depends On Predictability, So Anything Living Outside The Usual Rules We Suspect To Be An Outlaw, A Ghoul.
Ghouls
Safety
Usual
Love Is The Best School, But The Tuition Is High And The Homework Can Be Painful.
Love
School
Tuition
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.
Creativity
Ideas
Worry
We Are Defined By How We Place Our Attention.
Attention
Defined
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
Hit A Tripwire Of Smell And Memories Explode All At Once. A Complex Vision Leaps Out Of The Undergrowth.
Memories
Smell
Vision
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
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
We Tend To Think Of Memories As Monuments We Once Forged And May Find Intact Beneath The Weedy Growth Of Years. But, In A Real Sense, Memories Are Tied To And Describe The Present. Formed In An Idiosyncratic Way When They Happened, They're Also True To The Moment Of Recall, Including How You Feel, All You've Experienced, And New Values, Passions, And Vulnerability. One Never Steps Into The Same Stream Of Consciousness Twice.
Memories
Real
Passion
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
Nothing Reveals More About The Inner Life Of A People Than Their Arts.
Art
People
Inner Life
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
Love Is The Most Important Thing In Our Lives, A Passion For Which We Would Fight Or Die, And Yet We're Reluctant To Linger Over Its Names. Without A Supple Vocabulary, We Can't Even Talk Or Think About It Directly.
Passion
Fighting
Love Is
Part Of The Irony Of Environmentalism Is Questing For Solutions When You Know You're Part Of The Problem.
Irony
Problem
Knows
When You Consider Something Like Death, After Which (there Being No News Flash To The Contrary) We May Well Go Out Like A Candle Flame, Then It Probably Doesn't Matter If We Try Too Hard, Are Awkward Sometimes, Care For One Another Too Deeply, Are Excessively Curious About Nature, Are Too Open To Experience, Enjoy A Nonstop Expense Of The Senses In An Effort To Know Life Intimately And Lovingly.
Flames
Life And Death
Effort
Writing Is My Form Of Celebration And Prayer.
Prayer
Writing
Celebration
Complexity Excites The Mind, And Order Rewards It. In The Garden, One Finds Both, Including Vanishingly Small Orders Too Complex To Spot, And Orders So Vast The Mind Struggles To Embrace Them.
Struggle
Journey
Garden
Habitats Keep Evolving New Pageants Of Species, And We Shouldn't Interfere.
Habitat
Pageant
Evolve
Fear Is Danger To Your Body, But Disgust Is Danger To Your Soul.
Soul
Body
Danger
The Only And Absolute Perfect Union Of Two Is When A Baby Hangs Suspended In Its Mother's Womb, Like A Tiny Madman In A Padded Cell, Attached To Her, Feeling Her Blood And Hormones, And Moods Play Through Its Body, Feeling Her Feelings.
Mother
Baby
Cells
In Rare Moments Of Deep Play, We Can Lay Aside Our Sense Of Self, Shed Time's Continuum, Ignore Pain, And Sit Quietly In The Absolute Present, Watching The World's Ordinary Miracles. No Mind Or Heart Hobbles. No Analyzing Or Explaining. No Questing For Logic. No Promises. No Goals. No Relationships. No Worry. One Is Completely Open To Whatever Drama May Unfold.
Fun
Pain
Drama
Our Relationship With Nature Has Changed Radically, Irreversibly, But By No Means All For The Bad. Our New Epoch Is Laced With Invention. Our Mistakes Are Legion, But Our Talent Is Immeasurable.
Mistake
Mean
Talent
The Knowing, I Told Myself, Is Only A Vapor Of The Mind, And Yet It Can Wreck Havok With One's Sanity.
Knowing
Mind
Wrecks
Working From Home Meant We Could Vary Snack And Coffee Breaks, Change Our Desks Or View, Goof Off, Drink On The Job, Even Spend The Day In Pajamas, And Often Meet To Gossip Or Share Ideas. On The Other Hand, We Bossed Ourselves Around, Set Impossible Goals, And Demanded Longer Hours Than Office Jobs Usually Entail. It Was The Ultimate "flextime," In That It Depended On How Flexible We Felt Each Day, Given Deadlines, Distractions, And Workaholic Crescendos.
Jobs
Work
Coffee
Look In The Mirror. The Face That Pins You With Its Double Gaze Reveals A Chastening Secret.
Mirrors
Knowing Who You Are
Keeping Secrets
We Ogle Plants And Animals Up Close On Television, The Internet And In The Movies. We May Not Worship The Animals We See, But We Still Regard Them As Necessary Physical And Spiritual Companions. Technological Nature Can't Completely Satisfy That Yearning.
Spiritual
Animal
May
Habit, A Particularly Insidious Thug Who Chokes Passion And Smothers Love. Habit Puts Us On Autopilot.
Passion
Thug
Habit
Give A Man Enough Rope And He'll Wrap Himself Around Your Little Finger.
Men
Giving
Rope
We Can't Enchant The World, Which Makes Its Own Magic; But We Can Enchant Ourselves By Paying Deep Attention
Magic
Attention
World
Despite Not Knowing If What He Felt From Moment To Moment Would Pass Or Last Forever, He Entered Fully Into His Shifting States Of Violent Rage, Self-pity, Longing, Heartbreak, Cynicism, Without Losing The Ability To Think About What Was Happening To Him. That Took Courage, I Thought, Living With The Suffering In A Mindful Way, As An Artifact Of Being, Neither Good Nor Bad.
Inspirational
Thinking
Self
For If I Do Something, I Never Do It Thoughtlessly.
Ifs
When I Go Biking, I Am Mentally Far Far Away From Civilization. The World Is Breaking Someone Else's Heart.
Heart
Civilization
World
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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