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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

The second squirms and wriggles like a bluefish in a bay. The first is unyielding, predetermined. The second makes up its mind as it goes along.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Along Bluefish Make Mind Predetrmine Second Squirm Unyield Wriggle
Is it possible for a person to love without wanting love back? Is anything so pure? Or is love, by its nature, a reciprocity, like oceans and clouds, an evaporating of seawater and a replenishing by rain?
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Anything Love Person Possible Pure Want
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
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
We try to connect. We try to find truth. We dream and we hope. And underneath all of these strivings, we are haunted by the suspicion that what we see and understand of the world is only a tiny piece of the whole.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Connect Dream Haunt Hope Thing Tiny Try Underneath Understand Whole World
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
Sons never escape from the shadows of their fathers. Nor do daughters of their mothers. No one ever comes into his own…Such is the cost of immortality. No person is whole. No person is free.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Escape Father Free Immortality Own Person Shadow Some Son
It’s the Platonic philosophy in The Republic that philosophers should lead the country.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Country Lead Philosophy Republic
Except for a God who sits down after the universe begins, all other gods conflict with the assumptions of science.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Aftre Begin Down Ecept Gof Sit Universe
But rational thoughts lead only to rational thoughts, whereas irrational thoughts lead to new experiences.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Experience Irrational Lead New Rational Thought
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 think that the scienti?c way of looking at the world, and the humanistic way of looking at the world are complementary.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Complementary Humanistic Look Scientific Think Way World
In this acausal world, scientists are helpless.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Acausal Helpless Scientist World
In this world, artists are joyous. Unpredictability is the life of their paintings, their music, their novels. They delight in events not forecasted, happenings without explanation, retrospective.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Artist Joyful Life Music Novel Paint Unpredictability World
Where are the one billion people who lived and breathed in the year 1800, only two short centuries ago?
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Ago Billion Breathed Century Live Only People Two Year
Each time is true, but the truths are not the same.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Each Same Time True Truth
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
Tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions happen without the slightest consideration for human inhabitants.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Care Evidence Kinship Nature Oneness Strongly Suggest Tornadoes
The world is moving faster and faster, but where are we going?
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Go Move Sister We Where World
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
Suppose time is a circle, bending back on itself. The world repeats itself, precisely, endlessly.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Bak Bend Circle Itself Suppose Time
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
The exploding star of A.D. 1054, the Crab Nebula, was sighted and documented by the Chinese, but nowhere mentioned in the West, where the Aristotelian notion of the immortality of stars still held sway.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Document Explode Held Immortality Mentioned Slight
Unfortunately, public debates do not have much room for subtlety. The audience wants a quick thrust at your opponent, not a slow and convoluted series of moves.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Debate Much Public Room Subtitle Unfortunately
Writers read essays and serious thinkers and serious readers… that is a small population.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Essay Population Raed Serious Small Thinker Writer
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
Human beings consider themselves satisfied only compared to some other condition.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Compare Condition Consider Human Being Other Satisfy

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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