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If I were not a writer, I would spend more time doing the things that I am already doing, which include doing research in physics, teaching, and running a nonprofit organization with a mission to empower women in Cambodia.

Alan Lightman

In fiction writing, I would say there are several different strands that have been woven through my own writing, and each influenced by a different group of writers.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Different Each Fiction Group Influence Several Stand Woven Write
We have a house on a very tiny island in Maine. Which is really my spiritual center. We’ve been going there for ten years, and it has no ferry service, no bridges, no telephone service. It’s really isolated.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Bridge Ferry Island Really Service Spiritual Telephone
The great ideas in science, like the Cro-Magnon paintings and the plays of Shakespeare, are part of our cultural heritage.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Author Great Heritage Idea Paint Science
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
The exploding star of A.D. 1054, the Crab Nebula, was sighted and documented by the Chinese, but nowhere mentioned in the West, where the Aristotelian notion of the immortality of stars still held sway.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Document Explode Held Immortality Mentioned Slight
Some say it is best not to go near the center of time.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Best Center Go Near Not Say Some Time
Each time is true, but the truths are not the same.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Each Same Time True Truth
Novels aren’t pedagogical instruments, or instructions in law or physics or any other discipline.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Discipline Instruction Instrument Law Novel Other Pedagogical Physics
I should have written books instead of reading them.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Instead Read Should Write
As long as God does not intervene in the contemporary universe in such a way as to violate physical laws, science has no way of knowing whether God exists or not.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Contemporary Do Intervene God Know Law Long Physical Science Universe Violate Way
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.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Chaos Commitment Consider Contradictory Hold People Word
We often do not see what we do not expect to see.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Expect Often See
Every reader gets something different from a book and every reader, in a sense, completes it in a different way.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Complete Different Reader Sense Something Way
I think what gets you through a small writing project, is just one burst of inspiration.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Burst Inspiration Project Small Think Write
For while the movements of people are unpredictable, the movement of time is predictable. While people can be doubted, time cannot be doubted. While people brood, time skips ahead without looking back.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Back Brood Doubt Look Movement People Predictable
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.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Body Fluent Time Traditional Two World

If I were not a writer, I would spend more time doing the things that I am already doing, which include doing research in physics, teaching, and running a nonprofit organization with a mission to empower women in Cambodia.

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If I were not a writer, I would spend more time doing the things that I am already doing, which include doing research in physics, teaching, and running a nonprofit organization with a mission to empower women in Cambodia.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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