Alan Lightman quote: "I have for a long time loved fabulist, imaginative fiction, such as the writing of Italo Calvino, Jose Saramago, Michael Bulgakov, and Salman Rushdie. I also like the magic realist writers, such as Borges and Marquez, and feel that interesting truths can be learned about our world by exploring highly distorted worlds."

If I were not a writer, I would spend more time doing the things that I am already doing, which incl...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

There is a place where time stands still.
...illuminated by only the most feeble red light, for l...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Most people have learned to live in the moment. The argument goes that if the past has uncertain eff...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

In this world, artists are joyous. Unpredictability is the life of their paintings, their music, the...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

In this acausal world, scientists are helpless. Their predictions become postdictions- Their equatio...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with th...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in a time of pain or of joy. The tr...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Then there are those who think their bodies don't exist. They live by mechanical time. They rise at ...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

As both a scientist and a humanist myself, I have struggled to understand different claims to knowle...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

While people brood, time skips ahead without looking back.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

We're plugged in 24 hours a day now. We're all part of one big machine, whether we are consc...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Some make light of decisions, arguing that all possible decisions will occur. In such a world, how c...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Events, once happened, lose reality, alter with a glance, a storm, a night. In time, the past never ...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

If a person holds no ambitions in this world, he suffers unknowingly. If a person holds ambitions, h...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

I've taken a philosophical position on e-mail. Although I think it's a wonderful communicati...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Human beings consider themselves satisfied only compared to some other condition. A man who has owne...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

I consider myself a spiritual atheist. I certainly believe there are forces bigger than ourselves, a...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

We live in a highly polarized society. We need to try to understand each other in respectful ways. T...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Except for a God who sits down after the universe begins, all other gods conflict with the assumptio...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

As a scientist, I don't believe science will ever discover whether God exists. Nor do I believe ...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Novels aren't pedagogical instruments, or instructions in law or physics or any other discipline...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

For me, consciousness is the most interesting unsolved problem of science, and, in fact, we may neve...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

I still will sit down at the piano and play when I am wrestling with something emotionally or just w...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

I oppose any belief that contradicts experimental evidence as determined by the methods of science. ...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

All writers have roots they draw from - travel, work, family. My roots are in science and it is fert...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

I have always loved magic realism as a form of writing. I have also been fascinated for a long time ...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

I think e-mail is representative of our fast food mentality in the United States, where everything h...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

I have too many friends who tell me that they spend the first hour of every morning going through th...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

With a background in science I am extremely interested in the meeting ground of science, theology, a...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Music is, of course, a universal emotional experience, cutting across cultures and languages. I stud...
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Suppose time is a circle, bending back on itself. The world repeats itself, precisely, endlessly.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

We are looking forward to working in partnership with World Airwaves to develop innovative IPv6-base...
ALEX LIGHTMAN

I've driven by the port of Los Angeles and I can't imagine the whole thing is being watched for nucl...
ALEX LIGHTMAN

I predict the U.S. government won't use or accept IPv4 packets after 2017.
ALEX LIGHTMAN

He's got an incredible vision. I think he knew what he wanted before we started recording anything, ...
JAMES LIGHTMAN

Selling is simply the transfer of inthusiasm.
ALAN

No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.
ALAN WATTS

I think most people have that crazy uncle they sit at Thanksgiving dinner with: someone they disagre...
ALAN COLMES

Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
ALAN PERLIS

Even in our deep ocean, there are ecosystems at work with no light whatsoever down in the deepest po...
ALAN STERN

Cancer, like any other illness, is a bore.
ALAN BENNETT

I write plays about things that I can't resolve in my mind. I try to root things out.
ALAN BENNETT

I always feel over-appreciated but underestimated.
ALAN BENNETT

We were put to Dickens as children but it never quite took. That unremitting humanity soon had me ch...
ALAN BENNETT

I'm less genial than people think, but I'm too timid to seem nasty.
ALAN BENNETT

I can't complain that I've had a public all through my writing life, but people don't qu...
ALAN BENNETT

I didn't even have a clear idea of why I wanted to go to Oxford - apart from the fact I had fall...
ALAN BENNETT

I'm all in favour of free expression provided it's kept rigidly under control.
ALAN BENNETT

I do not long for the world as it was when I was a child. I do not long for the person I was in that...
ALAN BENNETT

All knowledge is precious whether or not it serves the slightest human use.
ALAN BENNETT

We were all miners in our family. My father was a miner. My mother is a miner. These are miner's...
ALAN BENNETT

Life is generally something that happens elsewhere.
ALAN BENNETT

I've never seen the point of the sea, except where it meets the land. The shore has a point. The...
ALAN BENNETT

Were we closer to the ground as children, or is the grass emptier now?
ALAN BENNETT

Your whole life is on the other side of the glass. And there is nobody watching.
ALAN BENNETT

Children always assume the sexual lives of their parents come to a grinding halt at their conception...
ALAN BENNETT

Life is like a box of sardines and we are all looking for the key.
ALAN BENNETT

Teachers need to feel they are trusted. They must be allowed some leeway to use their imagination; o...
ALAN BENNETT

Closing a public library is child abuse, really, because it hinders child development.
ALAN BENNETT

If you keep yourself alive and current, funny is funny.
ALAN KING

I have such a stressful job that the only way I can get it out of my mind is by running hard.
ALAN TURING

I have had a dream indicating rather clearly that I am on the way to being hetero, though I don'...
ALAN TURING

I want a permanent relationship, and I might feel inclined to reject anything which of its nature co...
ALAN TURING

Mathematical reasoning may be regarded rather schematically as the exercise of a combination of two ...
ALAN TURING

No, I'm not interested in developing a powerful brain. All I'm after is just a mediocre brai...
ALAN TURING

I want to enjoy not getting recognised while it lasts. But the mask is a symbol of unity. Anyone can...
ALAN WALKER

Hitler's dictatorship rested on the constitutional foundation of a single law, the Enabling Law.
ALAN BULLOCK

The ego is nothing other than the focus of conscious attention.
ALAN WATTS

In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
ALAN PERLIS

People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.
ALAN KAY

I'll work overtime to open the doors of opportunity to industry and commerce.
ALAN AUTRY

Life is a lot more interesting if you are interested in the people and the places around you. So, il...
ALAN MOORE

I like Jacques Derrida; I think he's funny. I like my philosophy with a few jokes and puns. I kn...
ALAN MOORE

We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.
ALAN WATTS

Hypocrisy is not a way of getting back to the moral high ground. Pretending you're moral, saying...
ALAN DERSHOWITZ

Being offended by freedom of speech should never be regarded as a justification for violence.
ALAN DERSHOWITZ

When a deep injury is done us, we never recover until we forgive.
ALAN PATON

You have to really stretch your imagination to infer what the intrinsic value of Bitcoin is. I haven...
ALAN GREENSPAN

I was conveniently bisexual for a long time, and then I went, 'Come on, who am I kidding?' A...
ALAN BALL

Period recreation is very difficult unless you make a black-and-white movie.
ALAN PARKER

I'm a Buddhist, so one of my biggest beliefs is, 'Everything changes, don't take it pers...
ALAN BALL

Fear and euphoria are dominant forces, and fear is many multiples the size of euphoria. Bubbles go u...
ALAN GREENSPAN

And although our bodies are bounded with skin, and we can differentiate between outside and inside, ...
ALAN WATTS

There are two worlds we live in: a material world, bound by the laws of physics, and the world insid...
ALAN MOORE

Most software today is very much like an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of ea...
ALAN KAY

If we don't re-charge the American Brand, all future challenges - economic, social and political...
ALAN SIEGEL

On the screen were some flashback shots of Daniel, Emma and Rupert from ten years ago. They were 12....
ALAN RICKMAN

So then, the relationship of self to other is the complete realization that loving yourself is impos...
ALAN WATTS

Buddhism has in it no idea of there being a moral law laid down by somekind of cosmic lawgiver.
ALAN WATTS

So the bodhisattva saves all beings, not by preaching sermons to them, but by showing them that they...
ALAN WATTS

Wars based on principle are far more destructive... the attacker will not destroy that which he is a...
ALAN WATTS

In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about th...
ALAN WATTS

I owe my solitude to other people.
ALAN WATTS

We identify in our exerience a differentiation between what we do and what happens to us.
ALAN WATTS

Saints need sinners.
ALAN WATTS

You are that vast thing that you see far, far off with great telescopes.
ALAN WATTS

Reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot, you know.
ALAN WATTS

No work for love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans fo...
ALAN WATTS

Technology is destructive only in the hands of people who do not realize that they are one and the s...
ALAN WATTS

How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instr...
ALAN WATTS

The religious idea of God cannot do full duty for the metaphysical infinity.
ALAN WATTS

Bureaucracies are inherently antidemocratic. Bureaucrats derive their power from their position in t...
ALAN KEYES

Arsenal paid a lot of money for him a few years ago but he found it difficult to claim a first-team ...
ALAN CURBISHLEY

It was a great night for us and a great achievement. Who knows what will happen in the next round. I...
ALAN CURBISHLEY

There has not really been a lot going on for Stephan, he has not had many saves to make. I want to h...
ALAN CURBISHLEY

There may be players wanting to leave, and obviously I have a surplus in the forward area, so this w...
ALAN CURBISHLEY

I like working on things that are very different and that involve different disguises.
ALAN CUMMING

Actually I like working kind of fast, because if you got it, why bother doing it over and over?
ALAN CUMMING

It's a sort of anti-Broadway musical. It's odd, disjointed and spiky.
ALAN CUMMING

Nowadays people don't know how to handle it if all the ends aren't tied up and they're not told what...
ALAN CUMMING

It's really rare for film directors to be that interested in things other than themselves.
ALAN CUMMING

It is not hard to feel like an outsider. I think we have all felt like that at one time or another.
ALAN CUMMING

When Brian went by me, I thought he was some guy that jumped on the course.
ALAN CULPEPPER

In Athens, I was running in long sleeves and pants in the summertime to acclimate as much as I could...
ALAN CULPEPPER

At this point, our office is going to prepare to go to trial again, ... We believe the jury will com...
ALAN CURRY

We haven't made a decision yet. I think there's several options open to us and that's something work...
ALAN CURRY

Andrea Yates knew precisely what she was doing, ... She knew that it was wrong.
ALAN CURRY

He has come here to gain experience, and nothing can happen until December anyway. I believe Gary Ne...
ALAN CURBISHLEY

I left some of the boys out completely to have a rest,
ALAN CURBISHLEY

We moved in straight away, and although he was publicly linked with other clubs, we were always conf...
ALAN CURBISHLEY

Danny is a player we have been tracking for some time, but he only became available last week,
ALAN CURBISHLEY

Claus had one year remaining on his contract and made it clear that he didn't wish to renew his deal...
ALAN CURBISHLEY

The player wanted to come to us and we are very pleased to welcome him.
ALAN CURBISHLEY

We don't believe isolated testimony on cross examination by one of our witnesses had such an impact ...
ALAN CURRY

We are hopeful that we can now finally place our complete focus upon going to trial.
ALAN CURRY

The case has already been reversed once, so we want to make sure we proceed correctly and appropriat...
ALAN CURRY

I would anticipate this case is going to have to be retried.
ALAN CURRY

It's just a matter of our blokes lifting their game. They haven't been playing to their usual standa...
ALAN DAVIDSON

We?re pleased with the vitality we're seeing in the UK market. Our company accounted for close to a ...
ALAN CURTIS

One can always hope, but I worry this will be a repeat of that experience. After the 1960 riots, the...
ALAN CURTIS

[Some found Bush's words reassuring. Others worried that they would not resonate far into the future...
ALAN CURTIS

But the major mistake is to take the census report as a one-year phenomenon. This is the fourth stra...
ALAN CURTIS

If anything, the numbers out of the Census Bureau underestimate the problem of poverty in America,
ALAN CURTIS

This is an unusual case, but the state has previously shown that the defendant knew that her conduct...
ALAN CURRY

It is kind-of the same issue, but they have added a couple of different elements to it, a couple of ...
ALAN CURRY

The case was reversed on appeal. She's gotten a new trial. She's gained the relief she's entitled to...
ALAN CURRY

He had a fool proof plan for not getting a job - In the event of an interview wear flip-flops.
ALAN DAVIES

I think a lot of people feel it would be a mistake.
ALAN DAVIDSON

Consumers need to be notified when and what location information is collected,
ALAN DAVIDSON

Consumers won't use systems they don't trust. Location services monitor movement and habits, somethi...
ALAN DAVIDSON

From a group that cares about civil liberties and cares about kids, this is the right answer.
ALAN DAVIDSON

This finding, if it's true, still doesn't change the basic argument we're having about the standards...
ALAN DAVIDSON

They admitted to making a huge mistake and they said they'd pay the money back, ... They showed some...
ALAN DAVIDSON

it was a mixed day for the Internet on Capital Hill.
ALAN DAVIDSON

We ought to build systems that encourage 911 location services but that are not just personal tracki...
ALAN DAVIDSON

I think there are huge land mines with wireless ahead.
ALAN DAVIDSON

It's been a long time coming. Thank God for this day.
ALAN CROTZER

Here I am trying to build a life and I have nothing to build it with. It's wrong, just wrong.
ALAN CROTZER

If you really want the truth, leave no stone unturned.
ALAN CROTZER

There ain't no compensation for what they done to me. But I'm not bitter.
ALAN CROTZER

Especially when it comes to sex offenses, history is a big predictor of the future,
ALAN CROPSEY

When he was in the United States Senate, he was noted as an intellectual powerhouse,
ALAN CROPSEY

Our rights are not given to us by society, ... My view is that our rights come from God. We start ou...
ALAN CROPSEY

He's a very formidable personality when it comes to Washington, D.C.
ALAN CROPSEY

When you have a chance to make plays and don't, you can almost be assured the final score will not f...
ALAN CRAWFORD

You must give Campbell credit. When we had runners in scoring position, they either made plays or th...
ALAN CRAWFORD

Look, we have that problem solved, because there are only three of them in the Olympics. We got 187 ...
ALAN CULPEPPER

The Olympic Games tends to be a little more of a coming together of all the nations, so it's differe...
ALAN CULPEPPER

Our sport needs spectator friendly and all the help it can get on that side. That adds to the allure...
ALAN CULPEPPER

There was a moment there when we were getting concerned,
ALAN CULPEPPER

Most countries around the world, they just don't think that way. They think, 'I'm just going to get ...
ALAN CULPEPPER

I feel like the bad conditions and the tough course is to my advantage, just because a lot of people...
ALAN CULPEPPER

Every time we tried to get going there was some factor -- weather, wind or turns. I think we all suf...
ALAN CULPEPPER

For Athens and Boston, I had really prepared for tough conditions, whereas here you can just prepare...
ALAN CULPEPPER

Basically I'm from the old school. We try to score one run an inning in any fashion. A lot of times ...
ALAN CRAWFORD

Our defense has been real inconsistent. We've got five weeks to fix it. Hopefully by district tourna...
ALAN CRAWFORD

They're nice kids to coach. They work hard. They hit their spots. They don't try to strike everybody...
ALAN CRAWFORD

I don't think just scaring people is enough. That worked during the freeze days to a major extent, b...
ALAN CRANSTON

I don't feel any need for redemption. I'm satisfied with what I did in the Senate. I don't look back...
ALAN CRANSTON

I don't think there's any one definition, but to do effective political work you have to have vision...
ALAN CRANSTON

Unless you have a sense of values that's shared by people and turns them loose to do certain things ...
ALAN CRANSTON

The idea of being a foreign correspondent and wandering the world and witnessing great events, havin...
ALAN CRANSTON

The American people are much more concerned about taxes, welfare, the deficit, crime, education, dru...
ALAN CRANSTON

It's important to recognize that many people working together can do things which individuals workin...
ALAN CRANSTON

There will always be nations. The United States will last a long, long time, I believe. France and G...
ALAN CRANSTON

For [customers] it means that they can shop for 'Linux applications' without having to worry about w...
ALAN COX

I do enjoy grinning manically at passing people while waving an axe around attempting to kill off un...
ALAN COX

What matters are the applications.
ALAN COX

I'm going to Disneyland!
ALAN COX

It's all right to cry. It's all right to hurt. It's all right to be confused, ... Hope will rebuild ...
ALAN COX

He's a great kid.
ALAN COX

They put over 100 million gates/transistors on a tiny piece of silicon. On that piece of silicon the...
ALAN COX

I figure lots of predictions is best. People will forget the ones I get wrong and marvel over the re...
ALAN COX

Live fast, die old, and make very sure everyone knows you were there.
ALAN COX

The promoter is all you need for activation and silencing. It's the main site of action where everyt...
ALAN COWMAN

The promoter is all you need for activation and silencing.
ALAN COWMAN

This is the first time anyone has actually been able to infiltrate an antigenic variation program. W...
ALAN COWMAN

It's like a leopard being able to change its spots. New forms come up, and the immune system beats t...
ALAN COWMAN

I still believe there's someone out there for our film.
ALAN COOKE

If we'd made it in the conventional way, we would have lost a lot of the feeling that came from thin...
ALAN COOKE

We wanted to make something that spoke from the heart to the heart.
ALAN COOKE

From the beginning there was an element of fate about the project.
ALAN COOKE

It's an individual taking a journey, that's the perspective. It happened here, but it could happen a...
ALAN COOKE

In the 13 years I served, we never had a problem. But I feel we are going downhill.
ALAN COOKE

We know it's going to be a difficult challenge, we're under no illusion.
ALAN COOKE

It is a niche opportunity for National Savings, it won't have a big impact on us.
ALAN COOK

Ultimately, they still had to sell. You have to give them credit for realizing they weren't going to...
ALAN COOK

The problem before was that the chapter was in over its head with this building,
ALAN COOK

Alan Lightman

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