black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Every reader gets something different from a book and every reader, in a sense, completes it in a different way.

Alan Lightman

We often do not see what we do not expect to see.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Expect Often See
Each person knows that somewhere is recorded the moment she was born, the moment she took her first step, the moment of her first passion, the moment she said goodbye to her parents.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Born Movement Parent Passion Person Record Somewhere
Novels aren’t pedagogical instruments, or instructions in law or physics or any other discipline.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Discipline Instruction Instrument Law Novel Other Pedagogical Physics
A book, especially a longer book, it’s a different kind of force that pushes you through it. It’s a vision of the whole thing.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Different Especially Force Kind Longer Push Vision
“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
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
In our constant search for meaning in this baffling and temporary existence, trapped as we are within our three pounds of neurons,
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Baffle Constant Existence Mean Neuron Proud Search Temporary Three Trap
It is a world of impulse. It is a world of sincerity.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Impulse Sincerity World
We live in a highly polarized society. We need to try to understand each other in respectful ways.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Highly Live Need Polarized Respectful Society Try Understand Way
In this acausal world, scientists are helpless.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Acausal Helpless Scientist World
I think that the scienti?c way of looking at the world, and the humanistic way of looking at the world are complementary.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Complementary Humanistic Look Scientific Think Way World
And if the present has little effect on the future, present actions need not be weighed for their consequence.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Consequence Effect Future Little Presence Present Weight
A life is a moment in season. A life is one snowfall. A life is one autumn day. A life is the delicate, rapid edge of a closing door’s shadow. A life is a brief movement of arms and of legs.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Autumn Day Life Moment One Season Snowfall
For it is only habit and memory that dulls the physical passion. Without memory, each night is the first night, each morning is the first morning, each kiss and touch are the first.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Dull Habit Memory Only Passion Physical
Writers read essays and serious thinkers and serious readers… that is a small population.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Essay Population Raed Serious Small Thinker Writer
I appreciate the idea of the individual person battling the society – which is true in all his books.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Appreciate Book Ideas Person Society

Every reader gets something different from a book and every reader, in a sense, completes it in a different way.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Every reader gets something different from a book and every reader, in a sense, completes it in a different way.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Alan Lightman Quotes