Alan Lightman

As both a scientist and a humanist myself, I have struggled to understand different claims to knowledge, and I have eventually come…

— Alan Lightman

My writings are an exploration, and I think a lot of writers would tell you this, but in writing, you're not simply…

— Alan Lightman

So many little lives, amounting to nothing. I ask you: What is infinity multiplied by zero? It is hardly worth our discussion.

— Alan Lightman

A person who cannot imagine the future is a person who cannot contemplate the results of his actions. Some are thus paralyzed…

— Alan Lightman

I think all tragedies are best told with some humor. You have to relieve the darkness to let the reader get through…

— Alan Lightman

“Arriving home, each man finds a woman and children waiting at the door, introduces himself, helps with the evening meal, reads stories…

— Alan Lightman

It is a world of impulse. It is a world of sincerity. It is a world in which every word spoken speaks…

— Alan Lightman

“And I think of the night-blooming cereus, a plant that looks like a leathery weed most of the year. But for one…

— Alan Lightman

I think that the scienti?c way of looking at the world, and the humanistic way of looking at the world are complementary.…

— Alan Lightman

It's exciting having a student who is not used to expressing their emotional side and bringing that out in them and see…

— Alan Lightman

“Consider a world in which cause and effect are erratic. Sometimes the first precedes the second, and sometimes the second the first.…

— Alan Lightman

Thoughts are no more than electrical surges in the brain. Sexual arousal is no more than a flow of chemicals to certain…

— Alan Lightman

One cannot walk down an avenue, converse with a friend, enter a building, browse beneath the sandstone arches of an old arcade…

— Alan Lightman

If I were not a writer, I would spend more time doing the things that I am already doing, which include doing…

— Alan Lightman

If you over-plot your book you strangle your characters. Your characters have to have enough freedom and life to be able to…

— Alan Lightman

My second novel, "Good Benito", was not finished. I wished that I had spent another year with it.

— 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…

— Alan Lightman

“Consider a world in which cause and effect are erratic. Sometimes the first precedes the second, sometimes the second the first.... Each…

— Alan Lightman

The world is moving faster and faster, but where are we going?

— Alan Lightman

But what is the past? Could it be, the firmness of the past is just illusion? Could the past be a kaleidoscope,…

— Alan Lightman

I wouldn't overall say that "The Diagnosis" is a funny book. I would say that it has comic moments. It's a modern…

— Alan Lightman

Such is the cost of immortality. No person is whole. No person is free. Over time, some have determined that the only…

— Alan Lightman

There is a place where time stands still ...illuminated by only the most feeble red light, for light is diminished to almost…

— Alan Lightman

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

— Alan Lightman

I've taken a philosophical position on e-mail. Although I think it's a wonderful communication technology, and it has a lot of good…

— Alan Lightman