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Despite our strongly felt kinship and oneness with nature, all the evidence suggests that nature doesn’t care one whit about us.

Alan Lightman

In this world, there are two times. There is mechanical time and there is body time.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Body Mechanical Time World
A man who has owned nothing but a bicycle all of his life feels suddenly wealthy the moment he buys an automobile…But this happy sensation wears off.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Automobile Bicycle Buy Happy Life Nothing Own Sensation Suddenly Wealthy Wear
In the coffee houses, in the government buildings, in boats of Lake Geneva, people look at their watches and take refuge in time.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Boat Building Coffee Government House Look Refuge Time Watch
Sadness is no more than a bit of acid transfixed in the cerebellum.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Acid Bit Cerebellum More Sadness Transfix
It’s a flow of chemicals and electrical currents, and it developed over millions of years in the process of evolution to aid in the procreation of the species.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Develop Evolution Million Procreation Species Write
A good book changes for you every few years because you are in a different place in your own life. That’s a sign of a good novel.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Change Different Every Few Good Life Own Place Year
Our species has advanced from Stone Age to Industrial Revolution to Digital Emptiness. We’ve become weightless, in the bad sense of the word.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Advance Imagination Revolution Sense Species World
The loved one will never take his arms from where they are now, will never give back the bracelet of memories, will never journey afar from his lover, will never place himself in danger of self-sacrifice.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Danger Fall Jealous Journey Love Memory Self Someone
A world in which time is absolute is a world of consolation.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Absolute Consolation Time World
Continents of memory had been lost.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Been Continent Lost Memory
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
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
Some say it is best not to go near the center of time.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Best Center Go Near Not Say Some Time
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
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
Every reader gets something different from a book and every reader, in a sense, completes it in a different way.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Complete Different Every Reader Sense Something Way
And beyond any particular clock, a vast scaffold of time, stretching across the universe, lays down the law of time equally for all.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Beyond Down Equally Law Particular Stretch
Body time flows at its own variable rate, oblivious to the most precise hydrogen master clocks in the laboratory. In fact, the human body contains its own exquisite time-pieces, all with their separate rhythms.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Body Contain Exquisite Fact Flow Hydrogen Laboratory Oblivious Variable
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
Illuminated by only the most feeble red light, for light is diminished to almost nothing at the center of time, its vibrations slowed to echoes in vast canyons, its intensity reduced to the faint glow of fireflies.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Canyon Chemical Diminish Faint Fireflies Glow Light More Red Sexual
In a world without future, each laugh is the last laugh. In a world without future, beyond the present lies nothingness, and people cling to the present as if hanging from a cliff.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Beyond Cliff Future Hang Laugh Nothingness Present
I have always loved magic realism as a form of writing.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Always Form Magic Realism Write
They came back to the nest in the middle of April. They take separate vacations in the winter – the mother and father.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

April Back Came Enter Father Middle Mother Separate Vacation
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
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
Another strand of my writing is the importance of the idea.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Another Strand Idea Importance Write
Suppose time is a circle, bending back on itself. The world repeats itself, precisely, endlessly.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Bak Bend Circle Itself Suppose Time

Despite our strongly felt kinship and oneness with nature, all the evidence suggests that nature doesn’t care one whit about us.

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Despite our strongly felt kinship and oneness with nature, all the evidence suggests that nature doesn’t care one whit about us.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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