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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

Order is the law of nature, the universal trend, the cosmic direction. If time is an arrow, that arrow points toward order.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Law Nature Order
Everyone shares the same fate.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Everyone Fate Same Share
We’re plugged in 24 hours a day now. We’re all part of one big machine, whether we are conscious of that or not.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Big Conscious Machine Not Now Part Plug
As a scientist, I don’t believe science will ever discover whether God exists. Nor do I believe religion will ever prove it.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Belive Discover Ever Exist God Prove Religion Scientist
We have a house on a very tiny island in Maine. Which is really my spiritual center. We’ve been going there for ten years, and it has no ferry service, no bridges, no telephone service. It’s really isolated.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Bridge Ferry Island Really Service Spiritual Telephone
I consider myself an essayist and a fiction writer. In the essays, I certainly have been influenced by some of the leading science essayists. Like Loren Eiseley, Stephen Jay Gould, Lewis Thomas.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Consider Essayist Fiction Myself Writer
Continents of memory had been lost.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Been Continent Lost Memory
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
In the coffee houses, in the government buildings, in boats of Lake Geneva, people look at their watches and take refuge in time.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Boat Building Coffee Government House Look Refuge Time Watch
A person who cannot imagine the future is a person who cannot contemplate the results of his actions. Some are thus paralyzed into inaction.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Action Contemplate Future Imagine Person Result
In a world of fixed future, life is an infinite corridor of rooms, one room lit at each moment, the next room dark but prepared.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Corridor Dark Each Fixed Infinite Life Moment Next Prepare Room World
And since the human mind has a degree of infinity and imagination unlikely to be matched by a machine for a very, very long time, I don’t think that we will become the machines of the machines.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Human Imagination Machine Match Mind Since Technology Unlikely
Music is, of course, a universal emotional experience, cutting across cultures and languages. I studied piano for ten years as a child and consider that experience one of the most valuable in my life.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Across Course Culture Cut Emotional Experience Language Music
My second novel, “Good Benito”, was not finished. I wished that I had spent another year with it.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Another Finish Good Novel Second Wish Year
That has been the great achievement of our age: to so thoroughly flood the planet with megabits that every image and fact has become a digitized disembodied nothingness. With magnificent determination,
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Achievement Age Fact Flood Great Image Megabit Planet So Throughout
There is a cultural diversity that’s very valuable, and it’s valuable to have different ways of looking at the world.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Ay Cultural Different Diversity Look Valuable World

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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