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Imagine a world in which there is no time. Only images.

Alan Lightman

Don’t you feel something magical when you’re in love?… I do, I certainly do … but I think that feeling of magic is a hardwired psychological response. It’s a chemical thing in the brain.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Feel Love Magical Something
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
You make one good shot and it brings you back the next time. With writing a long book there has to be at least one bit that has some magic in it that you can go back to.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Back Bring Good Least Magic Next One Some Time
Imagine a world in which there is no time. Only images.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Image Imagine Nom Time World
Writers are a loosely knit community – community is an overstated word. Writers don’t see each other very much.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Community Lose Overstate Word Writer
An unusual counterpoint between personal history and the history of a young nation. Haunting, powerful, and beautifully written.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Counterpoint Haunt Personal Powerful Unusual Written
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
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
We often do not see what we do not expect to see.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Expect Not Often See
A man who has owned nothing but a bicycle all of his life feels suddenly wealthy the moment he buys an automobile…But this happy sensation wears off.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Automobile Bicycle Buy Happy Life Nothing Own Sensation Suddenly Wealthy Wear
A world in which time is absolute is a world of consolation.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Absolute Consolation Time World
Human beings consider themselves satisfied only compared to some other condition.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Compare Condition Consider Human Being Other Satisfy
At every point of decision, the world splits into three worlds, each with the same people, but different fates for those people. In time, there are an infinity of worlds.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Decision Every Fate Infinity Point World
In short, the body is a machine, subject to the same laws of electricity and mechanics as an electron or clock.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Body Clock Electricity Future Law Machine Person Same Short
Time is visible in all places. Clock towers, wristwatches, church bells divide years into months, months into days, days into hours, hours into seconds, each increment of time marching after the other in perfect succession.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Church Clock Divide Increment March Month Succession Tower
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

Imagine a world in which there is no time. Only images.

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Imagine a world in which there is no time. Only images.

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