black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

My writings are an exploration, and I think a lot of writers would tell you this, but in writing, you’re not simply putting down things that are already known to you. You’re actually discovering in the writing process, you’re actually creating knowledge.

Alan Lightman

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
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
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
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
Each time is true, but the truths are not the same.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Each Same Time True Truth
The relationship between science and the humanities is two-way. Science changes our view of the world and our place in it. In the other direction, the humanities provide the store of ideas and images and language available to us in understanding the world.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Between Humanity Place Relationship Science Two Way World
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
The Book of Telling tells of a woman’s journey to uncover the secret life of her father and to find herself in the process.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Father Journey Life Process Secret Tell Uncover Woman
All beliefs not in such contradiction may be considered as faith. Whether faith in a particular belief is beneficial or not is another matter.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Belief Beneficial Consider Contradiction Faith Matter
And if the present has little effect on the future, present actions need not be weighed for their consequence.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Consequence Effect Future Little Presence Present Weight
For my students who are trying to learn the craft of writing in a writing class – contemporary literature is what’s most useful.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Class Contemporary Craft Learn Literature Mist Student Try Useful Write
I was in New York and had lunch with Oliver Sachs and compared notes with him – he is someone I really like.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Compare Country Food Like Lunch Note Really Someone
Sons never escape from the shadows of their fathers. Nor do daughters of their mothers. No one ever comes into his own…Such is the cost of immortality. No person is whole. No person is free.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Escape Father Free Immortality Own Person Shadow Some Son
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
I picked such seemingly disparate essays, I thought it was important to say what was the guiding principle in the selection rather than focus on any one essay.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Disparate Essay Guide Important Pick Power Say Seemingly Thought
Except for a God who sits down after the universe begins, all other gods conflict with the assumptions of science.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Aftre Begin Down Ecept Gof Sit Universe
For me, spirituality includes the belief in things larger than ourselves, an appreciation of nature and beauty, a sensitivity to the world, a feeling of shared connection with other living things, a desire to help people less fortunate than ourselves.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Belief Include Larger Ourselves Spirituality Thing
I consider myself an essayist and a fiction writer. In the essays, I certainly have been influenced by some of the leading science essayists. Like Loren Eiseley, Stephen Jay Gould, Lewis Thomas.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Consider Essayist Fiction Myself Writer
It is true that the arts at MIT don’t have the same amount of funding or same status as the sciences or engineering.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Amount Art Engineer Fund Same Science Status True
To the point that I have to be careful that they don’t take over.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Careful Over Point Take
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
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
To that end, I believe that we should make room for both spiritual atheists and thinking believers.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Atheist Belief Both End Room Spiritual Think
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
Whenever Obama uses subtleties in discussing a complex issue, he gets creamed.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Complex Cream Discuss Issue President Subtleties
A person who cannot imagine the future is a person who cannot contemplate the results of his actions. Some are thus paralyzed into inaction.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Action Contemplate Future Imagine Person Result
What sense is there in continuing when one has seen the future?
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Continue Future See Sense

My writings are an exploration, and I think a lot of writers would tell you this, but in writing, you’re not simply putting down things that are already known to you. You’re actually discovering in the writing process, you’re actually creating knowledge.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

My writings are an exploration, and I think a lot of writers would tell you this, but in writing, you’re not simply putting down things that are already known to you. You’re actually discovering in the writing process, you’re actually creating knowledge.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Alan Lightman Quotes