It is a world of impulse. It is a world of sincerity.
ALAN LIGHTMANThe tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in atime of pain or of joy.
More Alan Lightman Quotes
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In short, the body is a machine, subject to the same laws of electricity and mechanics as an electron or clock.
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Faith is the ability to honor stillness at some moments, and at others to ride the passion and exuberance.
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Most people have learned to live in the moment.
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The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in atime of pain or of joy.
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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.
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We try to impose order, both in our minds and in our conceptions of external reality.
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Time is the clarity for seeing right and wrong.
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Except for a God who sits down after the universe begins, all other gods conflict with the assumptions of science.
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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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Others hold that each decision must be considered and committed to, that without commitment there is chaos. Such people are content to live in contradictory worlds, so long as they know the reason for each.
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I re-read a lot of books that I like a lot. There are some books that I try to reread every couple of years. A good book changes for you every few years because you are in a different place in your own life.
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We often do not see what we do not expect to see.
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In fiction writing ideas have to be handled extremely carefully.
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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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It’s the Platonic philosophy in The Republic that philosophers should lead the country.
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It is a world in which every word spoken speaks just to that moment, every glance given has only one meaning.
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I would do something and let it sit for three months… just brood about and decide I needed to slightly change something here or there. Or one character wasn’t quite right. But I think everybody goes through this.
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It’s not necessarily a large number of people that affect the culture. You don’t count the number of influential voices, you weigh them. A hundred people can affect the culture.
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My writings are an exploration, and I think a lot of writers would tell you this, but in writing, you’re not simply putting down things that are already known to you. You’re actually discovering in the writing process, you’re actually creating knowledge.
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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.
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When they are on their cell phones they are not where their bodies are…they are somewhere else in hyperspace. They are not grounded.
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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.
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They came back to the nest in the middle of April. They take separate vacations in the winter – the mother and father.
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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,
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To the point that I have to be careful that they don’t take over.
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Not only will two different readers get something different but so will a single reader at different points in his life.
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