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Or perhaps it is not because the cosmos is irrational but because they are rational. Who can say which, in an acausal world?

Alan Lightman

I value my correspondence with writers…
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Correspondance Value Writer
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
While people can be doubted, time cannot be doubted. While people brood, time skips ahead without looking back.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Ahead Back Brood Doubt Look People
The first is as rigid and metallic as a massive pendulum of iron that swings back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Back First Forth Iron Massive Metallic Pendulum Rigid Swing
It’s the Platonic philosophy in The Republic that philosophers should lead the country.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Country Lead Philosophy Republic
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.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Bring Develop Emotional Excite Express Nurture Side Student Use
Tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions happen without the slightest consideration for human inhabitants.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Care Evidence Kinship Nature Oneness Strongly Suggest Tornadoes
That’s an exciting thing. In a class of fifteen there are usually two very good writers, equal to good student writers anywhere in the country. Those two make the class wonderful.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Anywhere Class Equal Good Excite Student Thing Wonderful Writer
Illuminated by only the most feeble red light, for light is diminished to almost nothing at the center of time, its vibrations slowed to echoes in vast canyons, its intensity reduced to the faint glow of fireflies.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Canyon Chemical Diminish Faint Fireflies Glow Light More Red Sexual
And if we can’t unplug from that machine, eventually we’re going to become mindless.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Become Eventually Go Machine Mindless Unplug
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
As both a scientist and a humanist myself, I have struggled to understand different claims to knowledge, and I have eventually come to a formulation of the kind of religious belief that would, in my view, be compatible with science.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Humanist Myself Scientific
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 LIGHTMAN

Better Fulfil Future Libe Life One Seen Time World
Like the air we breathe or like the passage of time, is central to our existence as intelligent beings.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Air Begin Breathe Central Existence Intelligent Like Passage Time
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
I have also been fascinated for a long time with the intersection of science and religion.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Fascinate Intersection Long Religion Science Time
“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
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

Already Doing Done Money More Spend Thing Time Water
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.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Believe Create Everything Individual Meaning Ourselves Search Supreme
Some make light of decisions, arguing that all possible decisions will occur. In such a world, how could one be responsible for his actions?
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Argue Decision Light Make Occur Possible Some
They came back to the nest in the middle of April. They take separate vacations in the winter – the mother and father.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

April Back Came Enter Father Middle Mother Separate Vacation
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
We walk from room to room, look into the room that is lit, the present moment, then walk on. We do not know the rooms ahead, but we know we cannot change them. We are spectators of our lives.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Ahead Moment Room Spectator Walk
Life is a vessel of sadness, but is noble to live life and without time there is no life. Others disagree.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Continent Disagree Eternal Fix Frozen Life
Whenever Obama uses subtleties in discussing a complex issue, he gets creamed.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Complex Cream Discuss Issue President Subtleties
One metaphor for how we are living is that you see so may people with cell phones.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Cell How Live Metaphor One People Phone
I believe that we need to slow down.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Believe Down Need Slow

Or perhaps it is not because the cosmos is irrational but because they are rational. Who can say which, in an acausal world?

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Or perhaps it is not because the cosmos is irrational but because they are rational. Who can say which, in an acausal world?

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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