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  • Alan Lightman Quotes   148
  • I'm still happy with the way Einstein's Dreams came out. That book came out of a single inspiration. I really felt like I was not creating the words, that I was hearing the words. That someone else was speaking the words to me and I was just writing them down. It was a very strange experience. That can happen with a short book. I don't think it could happen with a long book.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , Dream Quotes , Book Quotes
  • Novels aren't pedagogical instruments, or instructions in law or physics or any other discipline. A novel has to be an emotional experience, a trip of the imagination, and because science has raised so many issues that concern and affect humans, it's a good starting place for me.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , Emotional Quotes , Law Quotes
  • In a world of fixed future, life is an infinite corridor of rooms, one room lit at each moment, the next room dark but prepared. We walk from room to room, look into the room that is lit, the present moment, then walk on. We do not know the rooms ahead, but we know we cannot change them. We are spectators of our lives.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , Dark Quotes , Looks Quotes
  • With infinite life comes an infinite list of relatives. Grandparents never die, nor do great grandparents, great-aunts…and so on, back through the generations, all alive and offering advice. 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.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , Daughter Quotes , Mother Quotes
  • 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. In the coffee houses, in the government buildings, in boats of Lake Geneva, people look at their watches and take refuge in time. Each person knows that somewhere is recorded the moment she was born, the moment she took her first step, the moment of her first passion, the moment she said goodbye to her parents.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , Goodbye Quotes , Coffee Quotes
  • Most people have learned to live in the moment. The argument goes that if the past has uncertain effect on the present, there is no need to dwell on the past. And if the present has little effect on the future, present actions need not be weighed for their consequence. Rather, each act is an island in time, to be judged on its own. ... 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.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , Learning Quotes , Past Quotes
  • 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.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , May Quotes , Matter Quotes
  • I think people all over the institution recognize that different ways of understanding are valuable. Artists may think in a different way than biologists or chemists, but you can learn something from that. It is true that the arts at MIT don't have the same amount of funding or same status as the sciences or engineering.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , Art Quotes , Thinking Quotes