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The first is as rigid and metallic as a massive pendulum of iron that swings back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

Alan Lightman

It is true that the arts at MIT don’t have the same amount of funding or same status as the sciences or engineering.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Amount Art Engineer Fund Same Science Status True
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 appreciate the idea of the individual person battling the society – which is true in all his books.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Appreciate Book Ideas Person Society
The history of science can be viewed as the recasting of phenomena that were once thought to be accidents as phenomena that can be understood in terms of fundamental causes and principles.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Accident History Phenomena Recast Science View
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
There are the alpha waves in the brain; another clock is the heart. And all the while tick the mysterious, ruthless clocks that regulate aging.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Alpha Another Brain Clock Heart Mysterious Ruthless Tick Wave
In this acausal world, scientists are helpless.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Acausal Helpless Scientist World
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
I also like the magic realist writers, such as Borges and Marquez, and feel that interesting truths can be learned about our world by exploring highly distorted worlds.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Borge Distorted Highly Interest Magic Realistic Truth Word
Sadness is no more than a bit of acid transfixed in the cerebellum.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Acid Bit Cerebellum More Sadness Transfix
People are content to live in contradictory worlds, so long as they know the reason for each.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Content Contradictory Long People Reason World
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.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Humor Some Think Told Tragedy
We often do not see what we do not expect to see.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

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

Breathe Character Idea Just Live Mouthpiece Own
“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.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Appointment Body Exist Morning Precisely Think
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

The first is as rigid and metallic as a massive pendulum of iron that swings back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

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The first is as rigid and metallic as a massive pendulum of iron that swings back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

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