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I still will sit down at the piano and play when I am wrestling with something emotionally or just want to move into the musical world.

Alan Lightman

In this world, there are two times. There is mechanical time and there is body time.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Body Mechanical Time World
After a while the car becomes just another thing that he owns. Moreover, when his neighbor next door buys two cars, in an instant our man feels wretchedly poor and deprived.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Become Buy Car Deprive Door Feel Man Moreover Neighbour Poor
Scientists will forever have to live with the fact that their product is, in the end, impersonal.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

End Fact Have Impersonal Live Product Scientist
I consider myself an essayist and a fiction writer. In the essays, I certainly have been influenced by some of the leading science essayists. Like Loren Eiseley, Stephen Jay Gould, Lewis Thomas.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Consider Essayist Fiction Myself Writer
Sexual arousal is no more than a flow of chemicals to certain nerve endings.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Arousal Chemical Ending Flow More never Sexual
Novels aren’t pedagogical instruments, or instructions in law or physics or any other discipline.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Discipline Instruction Instrument Law Novel Other Pedagogical Physics
I think what gets you through a small writing project, is just one burst of inspiration.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Burst Inspiration Project Small Think Write
We have a house on a very tiny island in Maine. Which is really my spiritual center. We’ve been going there for ten years, and it has no ferry service, no bridges, no telephone service. It’s really isolated.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Bridge Ferry Island Really Service Spiritual Telephone
I am spellbound by the plays of Shakespeare. And I am spellbound by the second law of thermodynamics.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Author Law Play Second Spellbound Thermodynamic
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
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.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Chaos Commitment Consider Contradictory Hold People Word
Each future moves in a different direction of time. Each future is real.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Different Direction Each Future Move Time
Tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions happen without the slightest consideration for human inhabitants.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Care Evidence Kinship Nature Oneness Strongly Suggest Tornadoes
I think that the scienti?c way of looking at the world, and the humanistic way of looking at the world are complementary.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Complementary Humanistic Look Scientific Think Way World
it is sometimes hard to tell what is real. We often invent what isn’t there. Or ignore what is.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Hard Ignore Invent Real Sometimes Tell There
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
And of course, that makes it frightening to start a new book because you can’t really depend upon what you’ve done with previous books.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Course Depend Done Frighten Make Previous
I certainly believe there are forces bigger than ourselves, and that we should be searching, individually, for meaning in our lives. But I don’t believe there’s a supreme being, an intelligence that created everything.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Believe Create Everything Individual Meaning Ourselves Search Supreme
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.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Character Pilot Strangle
A world in which time is absolute is a world of consolation. For while the movements of people are unpredictable, the movement of time is predictable.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Absolute Consolation Time World
The urge to discover, to invent, to know the unknown, seems so deeply human that we cannot imagine our history without it.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Dep Discover History Human Imagine Invent Know Seem Unknown Urge
Just as an object may move in three perpendicular directions, corresponding to horizontal, vertical, and longitudinal, so an object may participate in three perpendicular futures.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Correspond Direction Future Horizontal Longitudinal Object Participate Perpendicular Vertical
Rather, each act is an island in time, to be judged on its own. … It is a world of impulse. It is a world of sincerity.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Act Each Impulse Island Judge Own Rather Sincerity World
I consider myself a spiritual atheist.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Atheist Consider Myself Spiritual
I think it is always a long shot getting a book made into a film.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Always Book Film Long Made Think
In a world of fixed future, life is an infinite corridor of rooms, one room lit at each moment, the next room dark but prepared.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Corridor Dark Each Fixed Infinite Life Moment Next Prepare Room World
You say, “Something important really happened here. I really had hold of something I was visited by the muse.” And that’s enough to make you continue the months and years to finish the whole book.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Happened Important Muse Really Something Visit

I still will sit down at the piano and play when I am wrestling with something emotionally or just want to move into the musical world.

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I still will sit down at the piano and play when I am wrestling with something emotionally or just want to move into the musical world.

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Popular Authors

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