black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

You can’t let your characters just be mouthpieces for your ideas. They have to live and breathe on their own.

Alan Lightman

The great ideas in science, like the Cro-Magnon paintings and the plays of Shakespeare, are part of our cultural heritage.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Author Great Heritage Idea Paint Science
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
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.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Exist God Know Nature Sense
And if we can’t unplug from that machine, eventually we’re going to become mindless.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Become Eventually Go Machine Mindless Unplug
Each person knows that somewhere is recorded the moment she was born, the moment she took her first step, the moment of her first passion, the moment she said goodbye to her parents.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Born Movement Parent Passion Person Record Somewhere
We feel such a strong connection to nature. But the relationship between nature and us is one-sided. There is no reciprocity. There is no mind on the other side of the wall.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Aside Connection Mind Reciprocity Relationship Strong Wall
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
The world is moving faster and faster, but where are we going?
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Go Move Sister We Where World
I re-read a lot of books that I like a lot. There are some books that I try to reread every couple of years. A good book changes for you every few years because you are in a different place in your own life.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Couple Every Like Lot Re-read Reread Some Try Year
That’s an exciting thing. In a class of fifteen there are usually two very good writers, equal to good student writers anywhere in the country. Those two make the class wonderful.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Anywhere Class Equal Good Excite Student Thing Wonderful Writer
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
You say, “Something important really happened here. I really had hold of something I was visited by the muse.” And that’s enough to make you continue the months and years to finish the whole book.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Happened Important Muse Really Something Visit
Faith is the ability to honor stillness at some moments, and at others to ride the passion and exuberance.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Ability Exuberance Honor Moment Other Passion Ride Stillness
it is sometimes hard to tell what is real. We often invent what isn’t there. Or ignore what is.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Hard Ignore Invent Real Sometimes Tell There
That has been the great achievement of our age: to so thoroughly flood the planet with megabits that every image and fact has become a digitized disembodied nothingness. With magnificent determination,
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Achievement Age Fact Flood Great Image Megabit Planet So Throughout
While people can be doubted, time cannot be doubted. While people brood, time skips ahead without looking back.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Ahead Back Brood Doubt Look People

You can’t let your characters just be mouthpieces for your ideas. They have to live and breathe on their own.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

You can’t let your characters just be mouthpieces for your ideas. They have to live and breathe on their own.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Alan Lightman Quotes