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For my students who are trying to learn the craft of writing in a writing class – contemporary literature is what’s most useful.

Alan Lightman

I’m humbled and enormously grateful to be connected to [Franz] Kafka in a any way. He is one of the writers I admire. I think he has been a big influence on me.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Connect Enormous Grateful Humble Kafka Way
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.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Feel Hard Life Month Really Silence Two
The target of power is more interesting than its quantity.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Interest More Power Quantity Target
The world is moving faster and faster, but where are we going?I think one of the reasons why things are getting blurry is because there is not much meaning.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Blurry Faster Get Go Hold Move Really Reason Something Thing World
Despite our strongly felt kinship and oneness with nature, all the evidence suggests that nature doesn’t care one whit about us.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Care Despite Felt Kinship Nature Oneness Strongly Us
I think that the scienti?c way of looking at the world, and the humanistic way of looking at the world are complementary.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Complementary Humanistic Look Scientific Think Way World
In a world without future, each laugh is the last laugh. In a world without future, beyond the present lies nothingness, and people cling to the present as if hanging from a cliff.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Beyond Cliff Future Hang Laugh Nothingness Present
With infinite life comes an infinite list of relatives. Grandparents never die, nor do great grandparents, great-aunts…and so on, back through the generations, all alive and offering advice.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Advice Alive All Aunt Come Die Generation Grandparent Great Infinite Offer Relative
In a world without future, each moment is the end of the world.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Each Moment Music World
It’s the journeyto get there. It’s a way of thinking and it’s an intellectual curiosity, a desire to know how the world works, and to know what the fundamental principles of the world are, and to know our place in it.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Curiosity Fundamental Intellectual Journey Place Think
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
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 consider myself a spiritual atheist.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Atheist Consider Myself Spiritual
You make one good shot and it brings you back the next time. With writing a long book there has to be at least one bit that has some magic in it that you can go back to.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Back Bring Good Least Magic Next One Some Time
Whenever Obama uses subtleties in discussing a complex issue, he gets creamed.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Complex Cream Discuss Issue President Subtleties
“The Diagnosis” is by far my most ambitious book. I such great hopes for it… there was so much I wanted to do with the book. I was extremely insecure about it for several years.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Ambitious Book Diagnosis Far Great Hope Most

For my students who are trying to learn the craft of writing in a writing class – contemporary literature is what’s most useful.

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For my students who are trying to learn the craft of writing in a writing class – contemporary literature is what’s most useful.

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