Alan Lightman Quotes, Character Quotes, Giving Quotes

That's the fine balance of a fiction writer...to be able to give your characters enough freedom to surprise you and yet still maintain some kind of artistic control.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , Character Quotes , Giving Quotes

The time-deaf are unable to speak what they know. For speech needs a sequence of words, spoken in time.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , Needs Quotes , Speech Quotes

Except for a God who sits down after the universe begins, all other gods conflict with the assumptions of science.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , Assumption Quotes , Conflict Quotes

Writers are a loosely knit community - community is an overstated word. Writers don't see each other very much.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes

A good book changes for you every few years because you are in a different place in your own life. That's a sign of a good novel. Not only will two different readers get something different but so will a single reader at different points in his life.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , Book Quotes , Years Quotes

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

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , Action Quotes , Imagine Quotes

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.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , Believe Quotes , Thinking Quotes

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.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , Book Quotes , Character Quotes

Nature is purposeless. Nature simply is. We may find nature beautiful or terrible, but those feelings are human constructions. Such utter and complete mindlessness is hard for us to accept. We feel such a strong connection to nature. But the relationship between nature and us is one-sided. There is no reciprocity. There is no mind on the other side of the wall.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , Beautiful Quotes , Strong Quotes

Music is, of course, a universal emotional experience, cutting across cultures and languages. I studied piano for ten years as a child and consider that experience one of the most valuable in my life.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , Children Quotes , Cutting Quotes

The book is finished by the reader. A good novel should invite the reader in and let the reader participate in the creative experience and bring their own life experiences to it, interpret with their own individual life experiences. Every reader gets something different from a book and every reader, in a sense, completes it in a different way.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , Book Quotes , Creative Quotes

I think e-mail is representative of our fast food mentality in the United States, where everything has gotten faster and faster, and we're required to respond to inputs more quickly with less time for thought and reflection. I believe that we need to slow down.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , Believe Quotes , Reflection Quotes

With a background in science I am extremely interested in the meeting ground of science, theology, and philosophy, especially the ethical questions at the border of science and theology.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , Philosophy Quotes , Ethical Questions Quotes

Thoughts are no more than electrical surges in the brain. Sexual arousal is no more than a flow of chemicals to certain nerve endings. Sadness is no more than a bit of acid transfixed in the cerebellum. In short, the body is a machine, subject to the same laws of electricity and mechanics as an electron or clock.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , Sadness Quotes , Law Quotes

It's the Platonic philosophy in The Republic that philosophers should lead the country.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , Country Quotes , Philosophy Quotes

A world with one month is a world of equality.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , World Quotes

I still will sit down at the piano and play when I am wrestling with something emotionally or just want to move into the musical world.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , Moving Quotes , Wrestling Quotes

For me, consciousness is the most interesting unsolved problem of science, and, in fact, we may never know what it is about a particular arrangement of neurons that gives rise to consciousness. Our consciousness, like the air we breathe or like the passage of time, is central to our existence as intelligent beings.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , Intelligent Quotes , Air Quotes

People are content to live in contradictory worlds, so long as they know the reason for each.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , Long Quotes , People Quotes

Oh, love is very much a physical thing.... I realize that it's very complicated, and I'm sure it can't be traced to individual neurons and hormones, but I think it's very much a physiological sensation that takes place in the brain.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Lightman Quotes , Love Is Quotes , Thinking Quotes