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I love staying in written correspondence with some writers. That’s enough for me.

Alan Lightman

In a world without future, each moment is the end of the world.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Each Moment Music World
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
As long as God does not intervene in the contemporary universe in such a way as to violate physical laws, science has no way of knowing whether God exists or not.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Contemporary Do Intervene God Know Law Long Physical Science Universe Violate Way
It is a world of impulse. It is a world of sincerity.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Impulse Sincerity World
We often do not see what we do not expect to see.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Expect Often See
For while the movements of people are unpredictable, the movement of time is predictable. While people can be doubted, time cannot be doubted. While people brood, time skips ahead without looking back.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Back Brood Doubt Look Movement People Predictable
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
All of these things can occur with or without God. I do not believe in the existence of God, but I consider myself a spiritual person in the manner I have just described. I call myself a spiritual atheist. I would imagine that many people are spiritual atheists.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Appreciation Consider Existence Larger Nature Spiritual Thing
They came back to the nest in the middle of April. They take separate vacations in the winter – the mother and father.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

April Back Came Enter Father Middle Mother Separate Vacation
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
My second novel, “Good Benito”, was not finished. I wished that I had spent another year with it.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Another Finish Good Novel Second Wish Year
And if we can’t unplug from that machine, eventually we’re going to become mindless.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Become Eventually Go Machine Mindless Unplug
A person who cannot imagine the future is a person who cannot contemplate the results of his actions. Some are thus paralyzed into inaction.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Action Contemplate Future Imagine Person Result
Is it possible for a person to love without wanting love back? Is anything so pure? Or is love, by its nature, a reciprocity, like oceans and clouds, an evaporating of seawater and a replenishing by rain?
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Anything Love Person Possible Pure Want
The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Alone Everyone Tragedy World
Human beings consider themselves satisfied only compared to some other condition.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Compare Condition Consider Human Being Other Satisfy
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
With a background in science I am extremely interested in the meeting ground of science, theology, and philosophy, especially the ethical questions at the border of science and theology.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Background Border Especially Ground Meet Philosophy Question Science Theology
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
No one ever expects poetry to sell…
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Ever Expert Poetry Sell
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 LIGHTMAN

Century Children Embrace Forget Grow Last Parent Rapidly Second
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
Science is an intellectual journey, and to me, it’s not the destination.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Destination Intellectual Journey Science
I think Joe Leiberman has been one of the leaders of the country… people have such a broad respect for him as a moral force.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Been Country Leader People Think
Faith is the ability to honor stillness at some moments, and at others to ride the passion and exuberance.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Ability Exuberance Honor Moment Other Passion Ride Stillness
A writer is someone who has a one-man tent in the desert and occasionally he sees the footprint of an other writer – in the form of a review or something.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Desert Footprint Man Occasion One Someone Something Then Writer
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.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Body Fluent Time Traditional Two World

I love staying in written correspondence with some writers. That’s enough for me.

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I love staying in written correspondence with some writers. That’s enough for me.

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Popular Authors

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