Alan Lightman Quotes

No one knows the nature of God, or even if God exists. In a sense, all of our religions are literary works of the imagination.

A world in which time is absolute is a world of consolation.

In a world in which time is a circle, every handshake, every kiss, every birth, every word, will be repeated precisely.

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.

That’s the fine balance of a fiction writer…to be able to give your characters enough freedom to surprise you and yet still maintain some kind of artistic control.

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.

I am spellbound by the plays of Shakespeare. And I am spellbound by the second law of thermodynamics.

The great ideas in science, like the Cro-Magnon paintings and the plays of Shakespeare, are part of our cultural heritage.

We’re plugged in 24 hours a day now. We’re all part of one big machine, whether we are conscious of that or not.

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.