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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.

Alan Lightman

I go to live in Maine for the summer. Without computer, and without the telephone service we are mercifully without the faxes and e-mails.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Computer E-mail Live Merciful Service Summer Talk Telephone
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
But rational thoughts lead only to rational thoughts, whereas irrational thoughts lead to new experiences.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Experience Irrational Lead New Rational Thought
Time is the clarity for seeing right and wrong.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Clarity Right See Wrong
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
I have also been fascinated for a long time with the intersection of science and religion.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Fascinate Intersection Long Religion Science Time
The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in atime of pain or of joy.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Happy Joy No One Pain Stuck Time Tragedy World
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.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Body Fluent Time Traditional Two World
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
We live in a highly polarized society. We need to try to understand each other in respectful ways.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Highly Live Need Polarized Respectful Society Try Understand Way
All writers have roots they draw from – travel, work, family. My roots are in science and it is fertile ground for fiction.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Draw Family Root Travel Work Writer
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
For me, spirituality includes the belief in things larger than ourselves, an appreciation of nature and beauty, a sensitivity to the world, a feeling of shared connection with other living things, a desire to help people less fortunate than ourselves.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Belief Include Larger Ourselves Spirituality Thing
I am spellbound by the plays of Shakespeare. And I am spellbound by the second law of thermodynamics.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Author Law Play Second Spellbound Thermodynamic
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.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Decision Every Fate Infinity Point World
What sense is there in continuing when one has seen the future?
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Continue Future See Sense

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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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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Popular Authors

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