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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

In a world without future, each moment is the end of the world.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Each Moment Music World
Their predictions become postdictions- Their equations become justifications, their logic, illogic.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Illogic Justification Logic Postdiction Prediction
If you over-plot your book you strangle your characters. Your characters have to have enough freedom and life to be able to surprise you.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Character Pilot Strangle
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
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

Actual Cosmo Irrational Perhaps Rational World
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
My second novel, “Good Benito”, was not finished. I wished that I had spent another year with it.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Another Finish Good Novel Second Wish Year
I reached for some principle that had been subconscious in me and lifted it into consciousness.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Lift Principle Reach Some Subconscious
The loved one will never take his arms from where they are now, will never give back the bracelet of memories, will never journey afar from his lover, will never place himself in danger of self-sacrifice.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Danger Fall Jealous Journey Love Memory Self Someone
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
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
In fiction writing ideas have to be handled extremely carefully.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Carefully Extremely Fiction Handle Idea Write
The history of science can be viewed as the recasting of phenomena that were once thought to be accidents as phenomena that can be understood in terms of fundamental causes and principles.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Accident History Phenomena Recast Science View
Sadness is no more than a bit of acid transfixed in the cerebellum.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Acid Bit Cerebellum More Sadness Transfix
A world in which time is absolute is a world of consolation. For while the movements of people are unpredictable, the movement of time is predictable.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Absolute Consolation Time World
I think it is always a long shot getting a book made into a film.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Always Book Film Long Made Think
The second squirms and wriggles like a bluefish in a bay. The first is unyielding, predetermined. The second makes up its mind as it goes along.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Along Bluefish Make Mind Predetrmine Second Squirm Unyield Wriggle
Is anything so pure? Or is love, by its nature, a reciprocity, like oceans and clouds, an evaporating of seawater and a replenishing of rain?
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Anything Cloud Evaporate Ocean Pure Rain Replenishing
The world is moving faster and faster, but where are we going?I think one of the reasons why things are getting blurry is because there is not much meaning.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Blurry Faster Get Go Hold Move Really Reason Something Thing World
A world in which time is absolute is a world of consolation.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Absolute Consolation Time World
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

Across Course Culture Cut Emotional Experience Language Music
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
All other giving is selfish. But he is being selfish a little, isn’t he, by wanting her to love him in return?
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Give Little Love Other Return Selfish Want
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
Scientists turn reckless and mutter like gamblers who cannot stop betting. Scientists are buffoons, not because they are rational but because the cosmos is irrational.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Bet Irrational Rational Scientific Stop
Children curse their parents for their wrinkled skin and hoarse voices. Those now old children also want to stop time, but at another time. They want to freeze their own children at the center of time.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Center Children Curse Parent Time Voice Wrinkle
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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