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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

As I understand it, a universe is a … well, a totality. A universe is everything that is, as far as the inside of the thing.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Inside Out Thing Total Understand Universe
I’m still happy with the way Einstein’s Dreams came out. That book came out of a single inspiration. I really felt like I was not creating the words, that I was hearing the words.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Came Dream Happy Inspiration Out Person Single Still Way
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
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
And if we can’t unplug from that machine, eventually we’re going to become mindless.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Become Eventually Go Machine Mindless Unplug
Don’t you feel something magical when you’re in love?… I do, I certainly do … but I think that feeling of magic is a hardwired psychological response. It’s a chemical thing in the brain.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Feel Love Magical Something
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
The belief or disbelief in such a Being is therefore a matter of faith.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Being Belief Disbelief Faith Matter
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

Bridge Ferry Island Really Service Spiritual Telephone
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.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Humor Some Think Told Tragedy
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
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
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
All of these things can occur with or without God. I do not believe in the existence of God, but I consider myself a spiritual person in the manner I have just described. I call myself a spiritual atheist. I would imagine that many people are spiritual atheists.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Appreciation Consider Existence Larger Nature Spiritual Thing
Children curse their parents for their wrinkled skin and hoarse voices. Those now old children also want to stop time, but at another time. They want to freeze their own children at the center of time.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Center Children Curse Parent Time Voice Wrinkle
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

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…

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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…

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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