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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

One cannot walk down an avenue, converse with a friend, enter a building, browse beneath the sandstone arches of an old arcade without meeting an instrument of time.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Arcade Instrument Arch Avenue Beneath Browse Build Converse Down Enter Friend Sandstone Time
Is it possible for a person to love without wanting love back? Is anything so pure? Or is love, by its nature, a reciprocity, like oceans and clouds, an evaporating of seawater and a replenishing by rain?
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Anything Love Person Possible Pure Want
A writer is someone who has a one-man tent in the desert and occasionally he sees the footprint of an other writer – in the form of a review or something.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Desert Footprint Man Occasion One Someone Something Then Writer
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.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Love Much Physical Thing
The time-deaf are unable to speak what they know. For speech needs a sequence of words, spoken in time.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Deal Know Speak Time Unable
In the coffee houses, in the government buildings, in boats of Lake Geneva, people look at their watches and take refuge in time.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Boat Building Coffee Government House Look Refuge Time Watch
Writers read essays and serious thinkers and serious readers… that is a small population.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Essay Population Raed Serious Small Thinker Writer
I have a number of vague ideas where I just have the core or kernel of the idea. I feel like I need some time for my mind to fill up again. I feel empty. Right now.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Core Idea Kernel Number Vague
That someone else was speaking the words to me and I was just writing them down. It was a very strange experience. That can happen with a short book. I don’t think it could happen with a long book.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Down Experience Happen Shor Someone Speak Strange
Human beings consider themselves satisfied only compared to some other condition.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Compare Condition Consider Human Being Other Satisfy
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
Will never fail to show his love, will never become jealous, will never fall in love with someone else, will never lose the passion of this instant of time.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Fall Instant Jealousy Love Passion Someone Time
When they are on their cell phones they are not where their bodies are…they are somewhere else in hyperspace. They are not grounded.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Body Cell Ground Hyperspace Phone Somewhere
Sexual arousal is no more than a flow of chemicals to certain nerve endings.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Arousal Chemical Ending Flow More never Sexual
Everyone shares the same fate.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Everyone Fate Same Share
But what is the past? Could it be, the firmness of the past is just illusion? Could the past be a kaleidoscope, a pattern of images that shift with each disturbance of a sudden breeze, a laugh, a thought? And if the shift is everywhere, how would we know?
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Breeze Disturbance Firmness Illusion Image Kaleidoscope Past Pattern Sudden

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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