Every reader gets something different from a book and every reader, in a sense, completes it in a different way. — Alan Lightman Book Copy Share Image
Writers read essays and serious thinkers and serious readers... that is a small population. — Alan Lightman Books Copy Share Image
We live in a highly polarized society. We need to try to understand each other in respectful ways. To that end, I… — Alan Lightman Atheist Copy Share Image
“It never occurred to me that she might travel from one man to the next to avoid being abandoned. Or to avoid… — Alan Lightman Copy Share Image
A life is a moment in season. A life is one snowfall. A life is one autumn day. A life is the… — Alan Lightman Copy Share Image
I re-read a lot of books that I like a lot. There are some books that I try to reread every couple… — Alan Lightman Book Copy Share Image
You say, "Something important really happened here. I really had hold of something I was visited by the muse." And that's enough… — Alan Lightman Book Copy Share Image
The urge to discover, to invent, to know the unknown, seems so deeply human that we cannot imagine our history without it. — Alan Lightman Discovery Copy Share Image
If a person holds no ambitions in this world, he suffers unknowingly. If a person holds ambitions, he suffers knowingly, but very… — Alan Lightman Ambition Copy Share Image
Every essay - the subject matter of every essay - is ultimately about the essayist; him or herself. That ultimately, every essayist… — Alan Lightman Essayists Copy Share Image
Novels aren't pedagogical instruments, or instructions in law or physics or any other discipline. A novel has to be an emotional experience,… — Alan Lightman Books Copy Share Image
For me, consciousness is the most interesting unsolved problem of science, and, in fact, we may never know what it is about… — Alan Lightman Copy Share Image
Although technology is proceeding at a dizzying pace, I believe that the human mind will always have control of itself. And since… — Alan Lightman Copy Share Image
I have for a long time loved fabulist, imaginative fiction, such as the writing of Italo Calvino, Jose Saramago, Michael Bulgakov, and… — Alan Lightman Copy Share Image
In a world of fixed future, life is an infinite corridor of rooms, one room lit at each moment, the next room… — Alan Lightman Dark Copy Share Image
I consider myself a spiritual atheist. I certainly believe there are forces bigger than ourselves, and that we should be searching, individually,… — Alan Lightman Atheist Copy Share Image
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 Creating Copy Share Image
“I've decided that has been the great achievement of our age: to so thoroughly flood the planet with megabits that every image… — Alan Lightman Achievement Copy Share Image
“In fact, this is a world without future. In this world, time is a line that terminates at the present, both in… — Alan Lightman Future Copy Share Image
And at the place where time stands still, one sees lovers kissing in the shadows of buildings, in a frozen embrace that… — Alan Lightman Copy Share Image
“A world without memory is a world of the present. The past exists only in books, in documents...A spinster sees the face… — Alan Lightman Books Copy Share Image
The relationship between science and the humanities is two-way. Science changes our view of the world and our place in it. In… — Alan Lightman Astronomy Copy Share Image
For me, spirituality includes the belief in things larger than ourselves, an appreciation of nature and beauty, a sensitivity to the world,… — Alan Lightman Appreciation Copy Share Image
One cannot walk down an avenue, converse with a friend, enter a building, browse beneath the sandstone arches of an old arcade… — Alan Lightman Across the universe Copy Share Image
Events, once happened, lose reality, alter with a glance, a storm, a night. In time, the past never happened. But who could… — Alan Lightman Events Copy Share Image
I have too many friends who tell me that they spend the first hour of every morning going through their e-mail messages.… — Alan Lightman Copy Share Image
For my students who are trying to learn the craft of writing in a writing class - contemporary literature is what's most… — Alan Lightman Books Copy Share Image
Who would fare better in this world of fitful time? Those who have seen the future and live only one life? Or… — Alan Lightman Copy Share Image
I think Joe Leiberman has been one of the leaders of the country... people have such a broad respect for him as… — Alan Lightman Copy Share Image
“He feels himself falling. He wants to spend every minute with her, he wants to possess her, her purity, her body, her… — Alan Lightman Copy Share Image
I still will sit down at the piano and play when I am wrestling with something emotionally or just want to move… — Alan Lightman Copy Share Image
“He had a problem, like any other problem. The problem just hadn't been well posed. The problem was: Should he leave Penny… — Alan Lightman Problem Copy Share Image
So many little lives, amounting to nothing. I ask you: What is infinity multiplied by zero? It is hardly worth our discussion. — Alan Lightman Copy Share Image
I would think that you are more fluent with the rational. It has its appeal. But the irrational permits a greater exercise… — Alan Lightman Copy Share Image
“Those of religious faith see time as evidence of god. For surely nothing could be created without a creator. Nothing could be… — Alan Lightman Absolutes Copy Share Image
“Well-being and need are purely relative concepts. There is no such thing as poverty in itself, suffering in itself, unhappiness in itself.… — Alan Lightman Health Copy Share Image
A writer is someone who has a one-man tent in the desert and occasionally he sees the footprint of an other writer… — Alan Lightman Desert Copy Share Image
Music is, of course, a universal emotional experience, cutting across cultures and languages. I studied piano for ten years as a child… — Alan Lightman Children Copy Share Image
I love the fact publishers are still publishing unprofitable material. It's a challenge to the powers that be. It's saying there is… — Alan Lightman Books Copy Share Image
I have a number of vague ideas where I just have the core or kernel of the idea. I feel like I… — Alan Lightman Copy Share Image
