I reached for some principle that had been subconscious in me and lifted it into consciousness.
ALAN LIGHTMANIt’s exciting having a student who is not used to expressing their emotional side and bringing that out in them and see that developing and helping to nurture that.
More Alan Lightman Quotes
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Life is a vessel of sadness, but is noble to live life and without time there is no life. Others disagree.
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Order is the law of nature, the universal trend, the cosmic direction. If time is an arrow, that arrow points toward order.
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Time is the clarity for seeing right and wrong.
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And at the place where time stands still, one sees lovers kissing in the shadows of buildings, in a frozen embrace that will never let go.
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The relationship between science and the humanities is two-way. Science changes our view of the world and our place in it. In the other direction, the humanities provide the store of ideas and images and language available to us in understanding the world.
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But rational thoughts lead only to rational thoughts, whereas irrational thoughts lead to new experiences.
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In fiction writing, I would say there are several different strands that have been woven through my own writing, and each influenced by a different group of writers.
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There is a place where time stands still.
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A good book changes for you every few years because you are in a different place in your own life. That’s a sign of a good novel.
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“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.
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Writers are a loosely knit community – community is an overstated word. Writers don’t see each other very much.
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I have a family and you know very well the time that that takes. That’s good time. I have a couple hobbies. I’m a runner and play tennis. In the summer my family and I uproot ourselves and go live in Maine for the summer.
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But what is the past? Could it be, the firmness of the past is just illusion? Could the past be a kaleidoscope, a pattern of images that shift with each disturbance of a sudden breeze, a laugh, a thought? And if the shift is everywhere, how would we know?
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When they are on their cell phones they are not where their bodies are…they are somewhere else in hyperspace. They are not grounded.
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In this world, there are two times. There is mechanical time and there is body time.” “They do not keep clocks in their houses. Instead, they listen to their heartbeats. They feel the rhythms of their moods and desires.”
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