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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

Events, once happened, lose reality, alter with a glance, a storm, a night. In time, the past never happened. But who could know? Who could know that the past is not as solid as this instant.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Decision Event Glance Happen Lose Occur Reality
I appreciate the idea of the individual person battling the society – which is true in all his books.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Appreciate Book Ideas Person Society
Suppose time is a circle, bending back on itself. The world repeats itself, precisely, endlessly.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Bak Bend Circle Itself Suppose Time
Scientists will forever have to live with the fact that their product is, in the end, impersonal.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

End Fact Have Impersonal Live Product Scientist
Although technology is proceeding at a dizzying pace, I believe that the human mind will always have control of itself.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Dixxle Pace Proceed Technology
Some say it is best not to go near the center of time.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Best Center Go Near Not Say Some Time
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
And at the place where time stands still, one sees lovers kissing in the shadows of buildings, in a frozen embrace that will never let go.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Build Embrace Frozen Go Kiss Let Lover Place See Shadow Stand
The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in atime of pain or of joy.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Happy Joy No One Pain Stuck Time Tragedy World
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
Writers read essays and serious thinkers and serious readers… that is a small population.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Essay Population Raed Serious Small Thinker Writer
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.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Couple Every Like Lot Re-read Reread Some Try Year
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
So many little lives, amounting to nothing. I ask you: What is infinity multiplied by zero? It is hardly worth our discussion.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Amount Little Live Many Nothing So
The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Alone Everyone Tragedy World
Such is the cost of immortality. No person is whole. No person is free. Over time, some have determined that the only way to live is to die. In death, a man or a woman is free of the weight of the past [and the future].
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Cost Determine Free Future Immortality No Person Such Whole Woman
I still will sit down at the piano and play when I am wrestling with something emotionally or just want to move into the musical world.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Down Emotion Move Musical Piano Something World Wrestling
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
Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Alone Each Get Person Stuck Time
Science is an intellectual journey, and to me, it’s not the destination.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Destination Intellectual Journey Science
Time is visible in all places. Clock towers, wristwatches, church bells divide years into months, months into days, days into hours, hours into seconds, each increment of time marching after the other in perfect succession.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Church Clock Divide Increment March Month Succession Tower
“The Diagnosis” had ten drafts of very significant changing, where I went through the whole book, wholesale and changed everything. Then the last year or so it was making small changes.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Change Diagnosis Draft Significant Ten Through Whole Wholesale
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
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’ve taken a philosophical position on e-mail. Although I think it’s a wonderful communication technology, and it has a lot of good uses, it is abused quite a lot.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

E-mail Philosophy Position Taken
Unconditional love. That’s what he wants to give her and what he wants from her. People should give without wanting anything in return.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Anything Give Love People Return Unconditional Want
I have too many friends who tell me that they spend the first hour of every morning going through their e-mail messages. I’d like to use my time more carefully.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

E-mail First Friend Gone Hours Every Many Message Moring Spend Tell Through Too

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Alan Lightman Quotes