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I’m humbled and enormously grateful to be connected to [Franz] Kafka in a any way. He is one of the writers I admire. I think he has been a big influence on me.

Alan Lightman

If you over-plot your book you strangle your characters. Your characters have to have enough freedom and life to be able to surprise you.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Character Pilot Strangle
Making that book into a film is going to be quite a challenge.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Challenge Film Go Make Quiet
Sadness is no more than a bit of acid transfixed in the cerebellum.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Acid Bit Cerebellum More Sadness Transfix
So it’s really about two and a half months that I’ll feel like I can recover some silence in my life…which is so hard to find.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Feel Hard Life Month Really Silence Two
Don’t you feel something magical when you’re in love?… I do, I certainly do … but I think that feeling of magic is a hardwired psychological response. It’s a chemical thing in the brain.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Feel Love Magical Something
The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in a time of pain or joy.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Happy Joy One Pain Stuck Time Tragedy World
The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Alone Everyone Tragedy World
Time is the clarity for seeing right and wrong.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Clarity Right See Wrong
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
Nature is purposeless. Nature simply is. We may find nature beautiful or terrible, but those feelings are human constructions. Such utter and complete mindlessness is hard for us to accept.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Nature Purposeless Simply
Just as an object may move in three perpendicular directions, corresponding to horizontal, vertical, and longitudinal, so an object may participate in three perpendicular futures.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Correspond Direction Future Horizontal Longitudinal Object Participate Perpendicular Vertical
No one ever expects poetry to sell…
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Ever Expert Poetry Sell
I value my correspondence with writers…
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Correspondance Value Writer
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
I’m still happy with the way Einstein’s Dreams came out. That book came out of a single inspiration. I really felt like I was not creating the words, that I was hearing the words.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Came Dream Happy Inspiration Out Person Single Still Way
When they are on their cell phones they are not where their bodies are…they are somewhere else in hyperspace. They are not grounded.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Body Cell Ground Hyperspace Phone Somewhere

I’m humbled and enormously grateful to be connected to [Franz] Kafka in a any way. He is one of the writers I admire. I think he has been a big influence on me.

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Popular Authors

I’m humbled and enormously grateful to be connected to [Franz] Kafka in a any way. He is one of the writers I admire. I think he has been a big influence on me.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Alan Lightman Quotes