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I would do something and let it sit for three months… just brood about and decide I needed to slightly change something here or there. Or one character wasn’t quite right. But I think everybody goes through this.

Alan Lightman

Each time is true, but the truths are not the same.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Each Same Time True Truth
In fiction writing ideas have to be handled extremely carefully.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Carefully Extremely Fiction Handle Idea Write
Sadness is no more than a bit of acid transfixed in the cerebellum.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Acid Bit Cerebellum More Sadness Transfix
I should have written books instead of reading them.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Instead Read Should Write
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
When they are on their cell phones they are not where their bodies are…they are somewhere else in hyperspace. They are not grounded.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Body Cell Ground Hyperspace Phone Somewhere
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
A world with one month is a world of equality.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Equality Month One Liner World
We’ve lost our way, we have lost our centeredness.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Centeredness Lost Way
In our constant search for meaning in this baffling and temporary existence, trapped as we are within our three pounds of neurons,
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Baffle Constant Existence Mean Neuron Proud Search Temporary Three Trap
Rather, each act is an island in time, to be judged on its own. … It is a world of impulse. It is a world of sincerity.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Act Each Impulse Island Judge Own Rather Sincerity 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
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
Not only will two different readers get something different but so will a single reader at different points in his life.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Different Life Point Reader Singer Something
All of these things can occur with or without God. I do not believe in the existence of God, but I consider myself a spiritual person in the manner I have just described. I call myself a spiritual atheist. I would imagine that many people are spiritual atheists.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Appreciation Consider Existence Larger Nature Spiritual Thing
Each future moves in a different direction of time. Each future is real.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Different Direction Each Future Move Time
But rational thoughts lead only to rational thoughts, whereas irrational thoughts lead to new experiences.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Experience Irrational Lead New Rational Thought
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
“The Diagnosis” had ten drafts of very significant changing, where I went through the whole book, wholesale and changed everything. Then the last year or so it was making small changes.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Change Diagnosis Draft Significant Ten Through Whole Wholesale
A novel has to be an emotional experience, a trip of the imagination, and because science has raised so many issues that concern and affect humans, it’s a good starting place for me.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Emotion Experience Good Imagination Novel Science Start
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
Like the air we breathe or like the passage of time, is central to our existence as intelligent beings.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Air Begin Breathe Central Existence Intelligent Like Passage Time
If a person holds no ambitions in this world, he suffers unknowingly.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Ambition Duffer Hold Person Unknowingly
Every essay – the subject matter of every essay – is ultimately about the essayist; him or herself. That ultimately, every essayist is writing about his or her view of the world.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Essay Every Him Himself Matter Subject Ultimate
As human beings, don’t we need questions without answers as well as questions with answers, questions that we might someday answer and questions that we can never answer?
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Answer Human Being might Need Question Someday Well
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
As long as God does not intervene in the contemporary universe in such a way as to violate physical laws, science has no way of knowing whether God exists or not.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Contemporary Do Intervene God Know Law Long Physical Science Universe Violate Way

I would do something and let it sit for three months… just brood about and decide I needed to slightly change something here or there. Or one character wasn’t quite right. But I think everybody goes through this.

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I would do something and let it sit for three months… just brood about and decide I needed to slightly change something here or there. Or one character wasn’t quite right. But I think everybody goes through this.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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