We walk from room to room, look into the room that is lit, the present moment, then walk on. We do not know the rooms ahead, but we know we cannot change them. We are spectators of our lives.
ALAN LIGHTMANDespite our strongly felt kinship and oneness with nature, all the evidence suggests that nature doesn’t care one whit about us.
More Alan Lightman Quotes
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It’s a flow of chemicals and electrical currents, and it developed over millions of years in the process of evolution to aid in the procreation of the species.
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Where are the one billion people who lived and breathed in the year 1800, only two short centuries ago?
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In this world, time has three dimensions, like space.
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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.
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I have no opposition at all to technology. I think technology is a wonderful thing that has to be used thoughtfully, and we can’t just assume that every bit of new technology improvesthe quality of life; it’s really in how the technology is used.
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The loved one will never take his arms from where they are now, will never give back the bracelet of memories, will never journey afar from his lover, will never place himself in danger of self-sacrifice.
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Whenever Obama uses subtleties in discussing a complex issue, he gets creamed.
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Authenticity and sincerity were the most important unifying principles of all these apparently different essays.
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Not only will two different readers get something different but so will a single reader at different points in his life.
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Or perhaps it is not because the cosmos is irrational but because they are rational. Who can say which, in an acausal world?
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The time-deaf are unable to speak what they know. For speech needs a sequence of words, spoken in time.
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Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone.
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I certainly believe there are forces bigger than ourselves, and that we should be searching, individually, for meaning in our lives. But I don’t believe there’s a supreme being, an intelligence that created everything.
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What sense is there in continuing when one has seen the future?
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The book is finished by the reader. A good novel should invite the reader in and let the reader participate in the creative experience and bring their own life experiences to it, interpret with their own individual life experiences.
ALAN LIGHTMAN