Despite our strongly felt kinship and oneness with nature, all the evidence suggests that nature doesn’t care one whit about us.
ALAN LIGHTMANIn a world in which time is a circle, every handshake, every kiss, every birth, every word, will be repeated precisely.
More Alan Lightman Quotes
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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.
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I think once we stop asking questions like “what is the age of the universe,” or “how are the instructions of DNA carried out on a microscopic level,” once we stop asking questions like that, we’re dead.
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A novel has to be an emotional experience, a trip of the imagination, and because science has raised so many issues that concern and affect humans, it’s a good starting place for me.
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A man who has owned nothing but a bicycle all of his life feels suddenly wealthy the moment he buys an automobile…But this happy sensation wears off.
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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.
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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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When they are on their cell phones they are not where their bodies are…they are somewhere else in hyperspace. They are not grounded.
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Continents of memory had been lost.
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In short, the body is a machine, subject to the same laws of electricity and mechanics as an electron or clock.
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Every essay – the subject matter of every essay – is ultimately about the essayist; him or herself. That ultimately, every essayist is writing about his or her view of the world.
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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.
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In fiction writing, I would say there are several different strands that have been woven through my own writing, and each influenced by a different group of writers.
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Each future moves in a different direction of time. Each future is real.
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Tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions happen without the slightest consideration for human inhabitants.
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The book is finished by the reader. A good novel should invite the reader in and let the reader participate in the creative experience and bring their own life experiences to it, interpret with their own individual life experiences.
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