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The world is moving faster and faster, but where are we going?I think one of the reasons why things are getting blurry is because there is not much meaning.

Alan Lightman

It’s the journeyto get there. It’s a way of thinking and it’s an intellectual curiosity, a desire to know how the world works, and to know what the fundamental principles of the world are, and to know our place in it.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Curiosity Fundamental Intellectual Journey Place Think
Human beings consider themselves satisfied only compared to some other condition.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Compare Condition Consider Human Being Other Satisfy
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
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
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
Each future moves in a different direction of time. Each future is real.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Different Direction Each Future Move Time
The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Alone Everyone Tragedy World
I think e-mail is representative of our fast food mentality in the United States, where everything has gotten faster and faster, and we’re required to respond to inputs more quickly with less time for thought and reflection.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

E-mail Everything Fast Faster Food Goten Mentality Representative Think
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
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
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
And if the present has little effect on the future, present actions need not be weighed for their consequence.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Consequence Effect Future Little Presence Present Weight
Children grow rapidly, forget the centuries-long embrace from their parents, which to them lasted but seconds. Children become adults, live far from their parents, live their own houses, learn ways of their own, suffer pain, grow old.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Century Children Embrace Forget Grow Last Parent Rapidly Second
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
They would rather have an eternity of contentment, even if that eternity were fixed and frozen, like a butterfly mounted in a case.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Butterfly Case Contentment Eternity Even Fix Frozen
I love the fact publishers are still publishing unprofitable material. It’s a challenge to the powers that be. It’s saying there is a real literature in this country and we will keep publishing it.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Challenge Country Literature Love Material Publish Say Still
So many little lives, amounting to nothing. I ask you: What is infinity multiplied by zero? It is hardly worth our discussion.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Amount Little Live Many Nothing So
I think it is always a long shot getting a book made into a film.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Always Book Film Long Made Think
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
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
One cannot walk down an avenue, converse with a friend, enter a building, browse beneath the sandstone arches of an old arcade without meeting an instrument of time.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Arcade Instrument Arch Avenue Beneath Browse Build Converse Down Enter Friend Sandstone Time
What I am very disturbed about is this trend of everything happening faster and faster and faster and there being more and more general noise in the world, and less and less time for quiet reflection on who we are, and where we’re going.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Disturb Everything Faster Happen Less Quiet World
Nature is purposeless. Nature simply is. We may find nature beautiful or terrible, but those feelings are human constructions. Such utter and complete mindlessness is hard for us to accept.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Nature Purposeless Simply
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
In this acausal world, scientists are helpless.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Acausal Helpless Scientist World
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
For while the movements of people are unpredictable, the movement of time is predictable. While people can be doubted, time cannot be doubted. While people brood, time skips ahead without looking back.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Back Brood Doubt Look Movement People Predictable

The world is moving faster and faster, but where are we going?I think one of the reasons why things are getting blurry is because there is not much meaning.

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The world is moving faster and faster, but where are we going?I think one of the reasons why things are getting blurry is because there is not much meaning.

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Popular Authors

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