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When the first mechanical clocks were invented, marking off time in crisp, regular intervals, it must have surprised people to discover that time flowed outside their own mental and physiological processes.

Alan Lightman

If a person holds no ambitions in this world, he suffers unknowingly.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Ambition Duffer Hold Person Unknowingly
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 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
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.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Affect Culture Large Necessary Number People
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
We’re plugged in 24 hours a day now. We’re all part of one big machine, whether we are conscious of that or not.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Big Conscious Machine Not Now Part Plug
When I used to play golf. It’s a terrible miserable game. It’s incredibly frustrating. In 18 holes you make 150 horrible shots off in the woods, in the water…
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Game Golf Play Terrible Use
Like the air we breathe or like the passage of time, is central to our existence as intelligent beings.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Air Begin Breathe Central Existence Intelligent Like Passage Time
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
Although technology is proceeding at a dizzying pace, I believe that the human mind will always have control of itself.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Dixxle Pace Proceed Technology
I have always loved magic realism as a form of writing.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Always Form Magic Realism Write
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
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.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Dead Microscopic Question Stop Universe
As a scientist, I don’t believe science will ever discover whether God exists. Nor do I believe religion will ever prove it.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Belive Discover Ever Exist God Prove Religion Scientist
Music is, of course, a universal emotional experience, cutting across cultures and languages. I studied piano for ten years as a child and consider that experience one of the most valuable in my life.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Across Course Culture Cut Emotional Experience Language Music
The argument goes that if the past has uncertain effect on the present, there is no need to dwell on the past.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Action Argument Consequence Future Need Uncertain

When the first mechanical clocks were invented, marking off time in crisp, regular intervals, it must have surprised people to discover that time flowed outside their own mental and physiological processes.

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When the first mechanical clocks were invented, marking off time in crisp, regular intervals, it must have surprised people to discover that time flowed outside their own mental and physiological processes.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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