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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

We have become disembodied. By being always somewhere else we are nowhere.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Always Become Disembodied Nowhere Somewhere
I would do something and let it sit for three months… just brood about and decide I needed to slightly change something here or there. Or one character wasn’t quite right. But I think everybody goes through this.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Brood Character Direct Everybody Month Need Slight Something
I picked such seemingly disparate essays, I thought it was important to say what was the guiding principle in the selection rather than focus on any one essay.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Disparate Essay Guide Important Pick Power Say Seemingly Thought
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
That’s the fine balance of a fiction writer…to be able to give your characters enough freedom to surprise you and yet still maintain some kind of artistic control.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Artistic Balance Character Control Fiction Fine Freedom Maintain Surprise Writer
The urge to discover, to invent, to know the unknown, seems so deeply human that we cannot imagine our history without it.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Dep Discover History Human Imagine Invent Know Seem Unknown Urge
We try to connect. We try to find truth. We dream and we hope. And underneath all of these strivings, we are haunted by the suspicion that what we see and understand of the world is only a tiny piece of the whole.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Connect Dream Haunt Hope Thing Tiny Try Underneath Understand Whole World
Every reader gets something different from a book and every reader, in a sense, completes it in a different way.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Complete Different Reader Sense Something Way
Where are the one billion people who lived and breathed in the year 1800, only two short centuries ago?
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Ago Billion Breathed Century Live Only People Two Year
Human beings consider themselves satisfied only compared to some other condition.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Compare Condition Consider Human Being Other Satisfy
And if we can’t unplug from that machine, eventually we’re going to become mindless.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Become Eventually Go Machine Mindless Unplug
The future is pattern, organization, union, intensification; the past, randomness, confusion, disintegration, dissipation.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Future Order Organisation Past Pattern Point
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.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Dead Microscopic Question Stop Universe
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 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
I love staying in written correspondence with some writers. That’s enough for me.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Correspondance Enough Some Stay Writer Written
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
Sadness is no more than a bit of acid transfixed in the cerebellum.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Acid Bit Cerebellum More Sadness Transfix
And of course, that makes it frightening to start a new book because you can’t really depend upon what you’ve done with previous books.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Course Depend Done Frighten Make Previous
Time is the clarity for seeing right and wrong.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Clarity Right See Wrong
We often do not see what we do not expect to see.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Expect Often See
That’s an exciting thing. In a class of fifteen there are usually two very good writers, equal to good student writers anywhere in the country. Those two make the class wonderful.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Anywhere Class Equal Good Excite Student Thing Wonderful Writer
In short, the body is a machine, subject to the same laws of electricity and mechanics as an electron or clock.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Body Clock Electricity Future Law Machine Person Same Short
Science is an intellectual journey, and to me, it’s not the destination.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Destination Intellectual Journey Science
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
While people can be doubted, time cannot be doubted. While people brood, time skips ahead without looking back.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Ahead Back Brood Doubt Look People
I reached for some principle that had been subconscious in me and lifted it into consciousness.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Lift Principle Reach Some Subconscious

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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Popular Authors

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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