Who would fare better in this world of fitful time? Those who have seen the future and live only one life? Or those who have not seen the future and wait to live life? Or those who deny the future and live two lives?
ALAN LIGHTMANThe tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in a time of pain or joy.
More Alan Lightman Quotes
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If you told a story that was all darkness, it wouldn’t be real.
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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.
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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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If a person holds ambitions, he suffers knowingly, but very slowly.
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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.
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In 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.”
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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.
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Thoughts are no more than electrical surges in the brain.
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In a world in which time is a circle, every handshake, every kiss, every birth, every word, will be repeated precisely.
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A man who has owned nothing but a bicycle all of his life feels suddenly wealthy the moment he buys an automobile…But this happy sensation wears off.
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The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present.
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We try to impose order, both in our minds and in our conceptions of external reality.
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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.
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I certainly believe there are forces bigger than ourselves, and that we should be searching, individually, for meaning in our lives. But I don’t believe there’s a supreme being, an intelligence that created everything.
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Music is, of course, a universal emotional experience, cutting across cultures and languages. I studied piano for ten years as a child and consider that experience one of the most valuable in my life.
ALAN LIGHTMAN