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A man who has owned nothing but a bicycle all of his life feels suddenly wealthy the moment he buys an automobile…But this happy sensation wears off.

Alan Lightman

I should have written books instead of reading them.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Instead Read Should Write
For while the movements of people are unpredictable, the movement of time is predictable. While people can be doubted, time cannot be doubted. While people brood, time skips ahead without looking back.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Back Brood Doubt Look Movement People Predictable
Making that book into a film is going to be quite a challenge.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Challenge Film Go Make Quiet
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
With infinite life comes an infinite list of relatives. Grandparents never die, nor do great grandparents, great-aunts…and so on, back through the generations, all alive and offering advice.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Advice Alive All Aunt Come Die Generation Grandparent Great Infinite Offer Relative
In a world in which time is a circle, every handshake, every kiss, every birth, every word, will be repeated precisely.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Birth Circle Every Handshake Kiss Precise Repeat Time Word World
I spend a lot of time just listening to the ospreys. I watch them go through their life cycle. They spend the winter in South America.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Cycle Life Listen Lot Osprey Spend Time Watch
Will never fail to show his love, will never become jealous, will never fall in love with someone else, will never lose the passion of this instant of time.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Fall Instant Jealousy Love Passion Someone Time
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
The argument goes that if the past has uncertain effect on the present, there is no need to dwell on the past.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Action Argument Consequence Future Need Uncertain
In fiction writing ideas have to be handled extremely carefully.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Carefully Extremely Fiction Handle Idea Write
When I used to play golf. It’s a terrible miserable game. It’s incredibly frustrating. In 18 holes you make 150 horrible shots off in the woods, in the water…
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Game Golf Play Terrible Use
It’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.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Bring Develop Emotional Excite Express Nurture Side Student Use
I still will sit down at the piano and play when I am wrestling with something emotionally or just want to move into the musical world.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Down Emotion Move Musical Piano Something World Wrestling
As both a scientist and a humanist myself, I have struggled to understand different claims to knowledge, and I have eventually come to a formulation of the kind of religious belief that would, in my view, be compatible with science.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Humanist Myself Scientific
When the first mechanical clocks were invented, marking off time in crisp, regular intervals, it must have surprised people to discover that time flowed outside their own mental and physiological processes.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Clock Crisp First Interval Invent Make Mechanical Time

A man who has owned nothing but a bicycle all of his life feels suddenly wealthy the moment he buys an automobile…But this happy sensation wears off.

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A man who has owned nothing but a bicycle all of his life feels suddenly wealthy the moment he buys an automobile…But this happy sensation wears off.

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Popular Authors

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