For my students who are trying to learn the craft of writing in a writing class – contemporary literature is what’s most useful.
ALAN LIGHTMANI am spellbound by the plays of Shakespeare. And I am spellbound by the second law of thermodynamics.
More Alan Lightman Quotes
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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.
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I spend a lot of time just listening to the ospreys. I watch them go through their life cycle. They spend the winter in South America.
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I have always loved magic realism as a form of writing.
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Continents of memory had been lost.
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I consider myself a spiritual atheist.
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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.
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“Then there are those who think their bodies don’t exist. They live by mechanical time. They rise at seven o’clock in the morning. They eat their lunch at noon and their supper at six. They arrive at their appointments on time, precisely by the clock.
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The mother and father osprey stay together. It’s a monogamous relationship. And every summer they raise a new brood of children.
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I think all tragedies are best told with some humor. You have to relieve the darkness to let the reader get through it. Also, that life has happiness and sadness mixed together.
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For me, spirituality includes the belief in things larger than ourselves, an appreciation of nature and beauty, a sensitivity to the world, a feeling of shared connection with other living things, a desire to help people less fortunate than ourselves.
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The belief or disbelief in such a Being is therefore a matter of faith.
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As a scientist, I don’t believe science will ever discover whether God exists. Nor do I believe religion will ever prove it.
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My writings are an exploration, and I think a lot of writers would tell you this, but in writing, you’re not simply putting down things that are already known to you. You’re actually discovering in the writing process, you’re actually creating knowledge.
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So it’s really about two and a half months that I’ll feel like I can recover some silence in my life…which is so hard to find.
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I oppose any belief that contradicts experimental evidence as determined by the methods of science.
ALAN LIGHTMAN