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 LIGHTMANWhen they are on their cell phones they are not where their bodies are…they are somewhere else in hyperspace. They are not grounded.
More Alan Lightman Quotes
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The world is moving faster and faster, but where are we going?
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As I understand it, a universe is a … well, a totality. A universe is everything that is, as far as the inside of the thing.
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Unconditional love. That’s what he wants to give her and what he wants from her. People should give without wanting anything in return.
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We often do not see what we do not expect to see.
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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?
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I wouldn’t overall say that “The Diagnosis” is a funny book. I would say that it has comic moments. It’s a modern tragedy.
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People are content to live in contradictory worlds, so long as they know the reason for each.
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And beyond any particular clock, a vast scaffold of time, stretching across the universe, lays down the law of time equally for all.
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Whenever Obama uses subtleties in discussing a complex issue, he gets creamed.
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And at the place where time stands still, one sees lovers kissing in the shadows of buildings, in a frozen embrace that will never let go.
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I would think that you are more fluent with the rational. It has its appeal. But the irrational permits a greater exercise of … shall we say, power.
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In fiction writing, I would say there are several different strands that have been woven through my own writing, and each influenced by a different group of writers.
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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.
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A world in which time is absolute is a world of consolation.
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I think once we stop asking questions like “what is the age of the universe,” or “how are the instructions of DNA carried out on a microscopic level,” once we stop asking questions like that, we’re dead.
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For my students who are trying to learn the craft of writing in a writing class – contemporary literature is what’s most useful.
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I think what gets you through a small writing project, is just one burst of inspiration.
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Time is visible in all places. Clock towers, wristwatches, church bells divide years into months, months into days, days into hours, hours into seconds, each increment of time marching after the other in perfect succession.
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At every point of decision, the world splits into three worlds, each with the same people, but different fates for those people. In time, there are an infinity of worlds.
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Although technology is proceeding at a dizzying pace, I believe that the human mind will always have control of itself.
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But rational thoughts lead only to rational thoughts, whereas irrational thoughts lead to new experiences.
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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.
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In this world, there are two times. There is mechanical time and there is body time.” “They do not keep clocks in their houses. Instead, they listen to their heartbeats. They feel the rhythms of their moods and desires.”
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If you over-plot your book you strangle your characters. Your characters have to have enough freedom and life to be able to surprise you.
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A person who cannot imagine the future is a person who cannot contemplate the results of his actions. Some are thus paralyzed into inaction.
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And if the present has little effect on the future, present actions need not be weighed for their consequence.
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