A book, especially a longer book, it’s a different kind of force that pushes you through it. It’s a vision of the whole thing.
ALAN LIGHTMANIn this world, there are two times. There is mechanical time and there is body time.” “They do not keep clocks in their houses. Instead, they listen to their heartbeats. They feel the rhythms of their moods and desires.”
More Alan Lightman Quotes
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Others hold that each decision must be considered and committed to, that without commitment there is chaos. Such people are content to live in contradictory worlds, so long as they know the reason for each.
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Oh, love is very much a physical thing…. I realize that it’s very complicated, and I’m sure it can’t be traced to individual neurons and hormones, but I think it’s very much a physiological sensation that takes place in the brain.
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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.
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We often do not see what we do not expect to see.
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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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I have no opposition at all to technology. I think technology is a wonderful thing that has to be used thoughtfully, and we can’t just assume that every bit of new technology improvesthe quality of life; it’s really in how the technology is used.
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I re-read a lot of books that I like a lot. There are some books that I try to reread every couple of years. A good book changes for you every few years because you are in a different place in your own life.
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Rather, each act is an island in time, to be judged on its own. … It is a world of impulse. It is a world of sincerity.
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It is a world of impulse. It is a world of sincerity.
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No one knows the nature of God, or even if God exists. In a sense, all of our religions are literary works of the imagination.
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The history of science can be viewed as the recasting of phenomena that were once thought to be accidents as phenomena that can be understood in terms of fundamental causes and principles.
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It’s exciting having a student who is not used to expressing their emotional side and bringing that out in them and see that developing and helping to nurture that.
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It is a world in which every word spoken speaks just to that moment, every glance given has only one meaning.
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Although technology is proceeding at a dizzying pace, I believe that the human mind will always have control of itself.
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I have a family and you know very well the time that that takes. That’s good time. I have a couple hobbies. I’m a runner and play tennis. In the summer my family and I uproot ourselves and go live in Maine for the summer.
ALAN LIGHTMAN






