black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

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
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
Another strand of my writing is the importance of the idea.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Another Strand Idea Importance Write
In this acausal world, scientists are helpless.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Acausal Helpless Scientist World
Everyone shares the same fate.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Everyone Fate Same Share
We feel such a strong connection to nature. But the relationship between nature and us is one-sided. There is no reciprocity. There is no mind on the other side of the wall.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Aside Connection Mind Reciprocity Relationship Strong Wall
There is a cultural diversity that’s very valuable, and it’s valuable to have different ways of looking at the world.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Ay Cultural Different Diversity Look Valuable World
That has been the great achievement of our age: to so thoroughly flood the planet with megabits that every image and fact has become a digitized disembodied nothingness. With magnificent determination,
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Achievement Age Fact Flood Great Image Megabit Planet So Throughout
Human beings consider themselves satisfied only compared to some other condition.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Compare Condition Consider Human Being Other Satisfy
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
Oh, love is very much a physical thing…. I realize that it’s very complicated, and I’m sure it can’t be traced to individual neurons and hormones, but I think it’s very much a physiological sensation that takes place in the brain.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Love Much Physical Thing
Such is the cost of immortality. No person is whole. No person is free. Over time, some have determined that the only way to live is to die. In death, a man or a woman is free of the weight of the past [and the future].
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Cost Determine Free Future Immortality No Person Such Whole Woman
The target of power is more interesting than its quantity.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Interest More Power Quantity Target
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
I have for a long time loved fabulist, imaginative fiction, such as the writing of Italo Calvino, Jose Saramago, Michael Bulgakov, and Salman Rushdie.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Author Fabulist Fiction Imagination Long Love People Such Write Time
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

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Alan Lightman Quotes