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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

We walk from room to room, look into the room that is lit, the present moment, then walk on. We do not know the rooms ahead, but we know we cannot change them. We are spectators of our lives.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Ahead Moment Room Spectator Walk
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
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
In this acausal world, scientists are helpless.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Acausal Helpless Scientist World
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
If you told a story that was all darkness, it wouldn’t be real.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Darkness Real Story Told
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
No one knows the nature of God, or even if God exists. In a sense, all of our religions are literary works of the imagination.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Exist God Know Nature Sense
If you think about fiction writing as a spectrum, where at one end of the spectrum in the infrared, are the story tellers, and the people for whom creation of wonderful characters and telling a good story is the most important thing.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Character Creation Fiction Infrared Tell Think Wonderful
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
As human beings, don’t we need questions without answers as well as questions with answers, questions that we might someday answer and questions that we can never answer?
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Answer Human Being might Need Question Someday Well
I also like the magic realist writers, such as Borges and Marquez, and feel that interesting truths can be learned about our world by exploring highly distorted worlds.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Borge Distorted Highly Interest Magic Realistic Truth Word
I have too many friends who tell me that they spend the first hour of every morning going through their e-mail messages. I’d like to use my time more carefully.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

E-mail First Friend Gone Hours Every Many Message Moring Spend Tell Through Too
And beyond any particular clock, a vast scaffold of time, stretching across the universe, lays down the law of time equally for all.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Beyond Down Equally Law Particular Stretch
The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in a time of pain or joy.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Happy Joy One Pain Stuck Time Tragedy World
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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