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I consider myself an essayist and a fiction writer. In the essays, I certainly have been influenced by some of the leading science essayists. Like Loren Eiseley, Stephen Jay Gould, Lewis Thomas.

Alan Lightman

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
Human beings consider themselves satisfied only compared to some other condition.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Compare Condition Consider Human Being Other Satisfy
One day I’m going to write a book about osprey. It has really gotten deep into my bloodstream. So when you ask what else I do, I feel like this is part of what I do….is to watch these birds.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Bloodstream Book Day Deep Gom Got One Osprey Real Write
Just as an object may move in three perpendicular directions, corresponding to horizontal, vertical, and longitudinal, so an object may participate in three perpendicular futures.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Correspond Direction Future Horizontal Longitudinal Object Participate Perpendicular Vertical
It is a world in which every word spoken speaks just to that moment, every glance given has only one meaning.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Glance Meaning Moment Speak Spoken World
Not only will two different readers get something different but so will a single reader at different points in his life.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Different Life Point Reader Singer Something
The future is pattern, organization, union, intensification; the past, randomness, confusion, disintegration, dissipation.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Future Order Organisation Past Pattern Point
All beliefs not in such contradiction may be considered as faith. Whether faith in a particular belief is beneficial or not is another matter.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Belief Beneficial Consider Contradiction Faith Matter
Another strand of my writing is the importance of the idea.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Another Strand Idea Importance Write
The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in atime of pain or of joy.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Happy Joy No One Pain Stuck Time Tragedy World
We have become disembodied. By being always somewhere else we are nowhere.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Always Become Disembodied Nowhere Somewhere
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
Or perhaps it is not because the cosmos is irrational but because they are rational. Who can say which, in an acausal world?
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Actual Cosmo Irrational Perhaps Rational World
The Book of Telling tells of a woman’s journey to uncover the secret life of her father and to find herself in the process.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Father Journey Life Process Secret Tell Uncover Woman
Time is visible in all places. Clock towers, wristwatches, church bells divide years into months, months into days, days into hours, hours into seconds, each increment of time marching after the other in perfect succession.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Church Clock Divide Increment March Month Succession Tower
“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.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Appointment Body Exist Morning Precisely Think

I consider myself an essayist and a fiction writer. In the essays, I certainly have been influenced by some of the leading science essayists. Like Loren Eiseley, Stephen Jay Gould, Lewis Thomas.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

I consider myself an essayist and a fiction writer. In the essays, I certainly have been influenced by some of the leading science essayists. Like Loren Eiseley, Stephen Jay Gould, Lewis Thomas.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Alan Lightman Quotes