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Writers read essays and serious thinkers and serious readers… that is a small population.

Alan Lightman

When the first mechanical clocks were invented, marking off time in crisp, regular intervals, it must have surprised people to discover that time flowed outside their own mental and physiological processes.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Clock Crisp First Interval Invent Make Mechanical Time
Despite our strongly felt kinship and oneness with nature, all the evidence suggests that nature doesn’t care one whit about us.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Care Despite Felt Kinship Nature Oneness Strongly Us
Thoughts are no more than electrical surges in the brain.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Brain Electrical More Surge
All of these things can occur with or without God. I do not believe in the existence of God, but I consider myself a spiritual person in the manner I have just described. I call myself a spiritual atheist. I would imagine that many people are spiritual atheists.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Appreciation Consider Existence Larger Nature Spiritual Thing
I spend a lot of time just listening to the ospreys. I watch them go through their life cycle. They spend the winter in South America.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Cycle Life Listen Lot Osprey Spend Time Watch
We often do not see what we do not expect to see.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Expect Often See
Every reader gets something different from a book and every reader, in a sense, completes it in a different way.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Complete Different Every Reader Sense Something Way
We have become disembodied. By being always somewhere else we are nowhere.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Always Become Disembodied Nowhere Somewhere
The target of power is more interesting than its quantity.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Interest More Power Quantity Target
I have a number of vague ideas where I just have the core or kernel of the idea. I feel like I need some time for my mind to fill up again. I feel empty. Right now.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Core Idea Kernel Number Vague
Faith is the ability to honor stillness at some moments, and at others to ride the passion and exuberance.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Ability Exuberance Honor Moment Other Passion Ride Stillness
Children curse their parents for their wrinkled skin and hoarse voices. Those now old children also want to stop time, but at another time. They want to freeze their own children at the center of time.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Center Children Curse Parent Time Voice Wrinkle
Authenticity and sincerity were the most important unifying principles of all these apparently different essays.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Authenticity Consciousness Essay Lift Sincerity
I was in New York and had lunch with Oliver Sachs and compared notes with him – he is someone I really like.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Compare Country Food Like Lunch Note Really Someone
“Then there are those who think their bodies don’t exist. They live by mechanical time. They rise at seven o’clock in the morning. They eat their lunch at noon and their supper at six. They arrive at their appointments on time, precisely by the clock.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Appointment Body Exist Morning Precisely Think
Suppose time is a circle, bending back on itself. The world repeats itself, precisely, endlessly.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Bak Bend Circle Itself Suppose Time

Writers read essays and serious thinkers and serious readers… that is a small population.

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Writers read essays and serious thinkers and serious readers… that is a small population.

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Popular Authors

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