The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in atime of pain or of joy.
ALAN LIGHTMANIt is a world in which every word spoken speaks just to that moment, every glance given has only one meaning.
More Alan Lightman Quotes
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In this world, there are two times. There is mechanical time and there is body time.
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I value my correspondence with writers…
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All other giving is selfish. But he is being selfish a little, isn’t he, by wanting her to love him in return?
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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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I believe that we need to slow down.
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I picked such seemingly disparate essays, I thought it was important to say what was the guiding principle in the selection rather than focus on any one essay.
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I think all tragedies are best told with some humor. You have to relieve the darkness to let the reader get through it. Also, that life has happiness and sadness mixed together.
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A life is a moment in season. A life is one snowfall. A life is one autumn day. A life is the delicate, rapid edge of a closing door’s shadow. A life is a brief movement of arms and of legs.
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No one knows the nature of God, or even if God exists. In a sense, all of our religions are literary works of the imagination.
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To that end, I believe that we should make room for both spiritual atheists and thinking believers.
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The argument goes that if the past has uncertain effect on the present, there is no need to dwell on the past.
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At every point of decision, the world splits into three worlds, each with the same people, but different fates for those people. In time, there are an infinity of worlds.
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Except for a God who sits down after the universe begins, all other gods conflict with the assumptions of science.
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I would think that you are more fluent with the rational. It has its appeal. But the irrational permits a greater exercise of … shall we say, power.
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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