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And if the present has little effect on the future, present actions need not be weighed for their consequence.

Alan Lightman

All beliefs not in such contradiction may be considered as faith. Whether faith in a particular belief is beneficial or not is another matter.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Belief Beneficial Consider Contradiction Faith Matter
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.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Change Different Every Few Good Life Own Place Year
One cannot walk down an avenue, converse with a friend, enter a building, browse beneath the sandstone arches of an old arcade without meeting an instrument of time.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Arcade Instrument Arch Avenue Beneath Browse Build Converse Down Enter Friend Sandstone Time
Events, once happened, lose reality, alter with a glance, a storm, a night. In time, the past never happened. But who could know? Who could know that the past is not as solid as this instant.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Decision Event Glance Happen Lose Occur Reality
It’s not necessarily a large number of people that affect the culture. You don’t count the number of influential voices, you weigh them. A hundred people can affect the culture.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Affect Culture Large Necessary Number People
Suppose time is a circle, bending back on itself. The world repeats itself, precisely, endlessly.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Bak Bend Circle Itself Suppose Time
Just didn’t know whether I would finish the book much less for it to come close to what I intended. I think that for any novel you never know exactly how the book is going to turn out…
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Close Come Exact Intend Novel Think
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.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Believe Create Everything Individual Meaning Ourselves Search Supreme
Rather, each act is an island in time, to be judged on its own. … It is a world of impulse. It is a world of sincerity.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Act Each Impulse Island Judge Own Rather Sincerity World
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.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Danger Fall Jealous Journey Love Memory Self Someone
Writers are a loosely knit community – community is an overstated word. Writers don’t see each other very much.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Community Lose Overstate Word Writer
That’s the fine balance of a fiction writer…to be able to give your characters enough freedom to surprise you and yet still maintain some kind of artistic control.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Artistic Balance Character Control Fiction Fine Freedom Maintain Surprise Writer
It’s the Platonic philosophy in The Republic that philosophers should lead the country.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Country Lead Philosophy Republic
The second squirms and wriggles like a bluefish in a bay. The first is unyielding, predetermined. The second makes up its mind as it goes along.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Along Bluefish Make Mind Predetrmine Second Squirm Unyield Wriggle
In short, the body is a machine, subject to the same laws of electricity and mechanics as an electron or clock.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Body Clock Electricity Future Law Machine Person Same Short
If you think about fiction writing as a spectrum, where at one end of the spectrum in the infrared, are the story tellers, and the people for whom creation of wonderful characters and telling a good story is the most important thing.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Character Creation Fiction Infrared Tell Think Wonderful

And if the present has little effect on the future, present actions need not be weighed for their consequence.

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And if the present has little effect on the future, present actions need not be weighed for their consequence.

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