It is a world of impulse. It is a world of sincerity. It is a world in which every word spoken speaks just to that moment, every glance given has only one meaning, each touch has no past or no future, each kiss is a kiss of immediacy. Alan Lightman More Quotes by Alan Lightman More Quotes From Alan Lightman Franz Kafka is an idea person. His books begin and end in ideas. Ideas have always been important to me in my writing. To the point that I have to be careful that they don't take over. Alan Lightman writing book ideas The target of power is more interesting than its quantity. Alan Lightman quantity target interesting Where are the one billion people who lived and breathed in the year 1800, only two short centuries ago? Alan Lightman two people years People are content to live in contradictory worlds, so long as they know the reason for each. Alan Lightman long people world In fiction writing ideas have to be handled extremely carefully. You can't let your characters just be mouthpieces for your ideas. They have to live and breathe on their own. Alan Lightman writing character ideas That has been the great achievement of our age: to so thoroughly flood the planet with megabits that every image and fact has become a digitized disembodied nothingness. With magnificent determination, our species has advanced from Stone Age to Industrial Revolution to Digital Emptiness. We've become weightless, in the bad sense of the word. Alan Lightman achievement determination age 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 plot character book I should have written books instead of reading them. Alan Lightman reading should-have book 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 writing class trying 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. All of these things can occur with or without God. I do not believe in the existence of God, but I consider myself a spiritual person in the manner I have just described. I call myself a spiritual atheist. I would imagine that many people are spiritual atheists. Alan Lightman atheist spiritual appreciation Although technology is proceeding at a dizzying pace, I believe that the human mind will always have control of itself. And since the human mind has a degree of infinity and imagination unlikely to be matched by a machine for a very, very long time, I don't think that we will become the machines of the machines. Alan Lightman technology believe thinking 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. 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. We often do not see what we do not expect to see. Alan Lightman stars views ideas Human beings consider themselves satisfied only compared to some other condition. 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. After a while the car becomes just another thing that he owns. Moreover, when his neighbor next door buys two cars, in an instant our man feels wretchedly poor and deprived. Alan Lightman doors men two The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in a time of pain or joy. Alan Lightman pain joy happiness I oppose any belief that contradicts experimental evidence as determined by the methods of science. 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 determined matter may In this world, there are two times. There is mechanical time and there is body time. The first is as rigid and metallic as a massive pendulum of iron that swings back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. 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 swings time two Sadness is no more than a bit of acid transfixed in the cerebellum. Alan Lightman arousal sadness depression "The Diagnosis" is by far my most ambitious book. I such great hopes for it... there was so much I wanted to do with the book. I was extremely insecure about it for several years. Just didn't know whether I would finish the book much less for it to come close to what I intended. I think that for any novel you never know exactly how the book is going to turn out... Alan Lightman insecure book thinking In a world in which time is a circle, every handshake, every kiss, every birth, every word, will be repeated precisely. Alan Lightman circles kissing time 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. While people can be doubted, time cannot be doubted. While people brood, time skips ahead without looking back. Alan Lightman movement time people
