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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

I think people all over the institution recognize that different ways of understanding are valuable. Artists may think in a different way than biologists or chemists, but you can learn something from that.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Different Institute Over People Recognize Think Understanding Valuable
While people brood, time skips ahead without looking back.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Ahead Back Broot Look People Skip Time
People are content to live in contradictory worlds, so long as they know the reason for each.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Content Contradictory Long People Reason World
Just didn’t know whether I would finish the book much less for it to come close to what I intended. I think that for any novel you never know exactly how the book is going to turn out…
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Close Come Exact Intend Novel Think
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
Their predictions become postdictions- Their equations become justifications, their logic, illogic.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Illogic Justification Logic Postdiction Prediction
One cannot walk down an avenue, converse with a friend, enter a building, browse beneath the sandstone arches of an old arcade without meeting an instrument of time.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Arcade Instrument Arch Avenue Beneath Browse Build Converse Down Enter Friend Sandstone Time
We often do not see what we do not expect to see.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Expect Often See
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
At every point of decision, the world splits into three worlds, each with the same people, but different fates for those people. In time, there are an infinity of worlds.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Decision Every Fate Infinity Point World
For it is only habit and memory that dulls the physical passion. Without memory, each night is the first night, each morning is the first morning, each kiss and touch are the first.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Dull Habit Memory Only Passion Physical
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.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Challenge Country Literature Love Material Publish Say Still
Illuminated by only the most feeble red light, for light is diminished to almost nothing at the center of time, its vibrations slowed to echoes in vast canyons, its intensity reduced to the faint glow of fireflies.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Canyon Chemical Diminish Faint Fireflies Glow Light More Red Sexual
Each time is true, but the truths are not the same.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Each Same Time True Truth
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 think it is always a long shot getting a book made into a film.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Always Book Film Long Made Think
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
You’ve made something grand, but it will be grander if it has feeling and beauty and harmony.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Beauty Feel Grand Grander Harmony Something
Each person knows that somewhere is recorded the moment she was born, the moment she took her first step, the moment of her first passion, the moment she said goodbye to her parents.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Born Movement Parent Passion Person Record Somewhere
In this world, there are two times. There is mechanical time and there is body time.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Body Mechanical Time World
He hopes that she loves him in return. Is it possible for a person to love without wanting love back?
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Back Hope Love Person Possible Return Want
The future is pattern, organization, union, intensification; the past, randomness, confusion, disintegration, dissipation.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Future Order Organisation Past Pattern Point
If I were not a writer, I would spend more time doing the things that I am already doing, which include doing research in physics, teaching, and running a nonprofit organization with a mission to empower women in Cambodia.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Already Doing Done Money More Spend Thing Time Water
It is true that the arts at MIT don’t have the same amount of funding or same status as the sciences or engineering.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Amount Art Engineer Fund Same Science Status True
Despite our strongly felt kinship and oneness with nature, all the evidence suggests that nature doesn’t care one whit about us.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Care Despite Felt Kinship Nature Oneness Strongly Us
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
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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