Quotes By Author: Alan Lightman

“But what is the past? Could it be, the firmness of the past is just illusion? Could the past be a kaleidoscope, a pattern of images that shift with each disturbance of a sudden breeze, a laugh, a thought? And if the shift is everywhere, how would we know?”

“While people brood, time skips ahead without looking back.”

“Each time is true, but the truths are not the same.”

“Time is the clarity for seeing right and wrong.”

“Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone.”

“Two men who had never seen each other before and would not likely see each other again. But their sincerity and sweetness, their sharing an instant in a fleeting life. It was almost as if a secret had passed between them. Was this some kind of love? I wanted to follow them, to touch them, to tell them of my happiness. I wanted to whisper to them: ‘This is it. This is it'”.”

“Will these millions of children, for generations upon future generations, know that some of their atoms cycled through this woman? […] Will they feel what she felt in her life, will their memories have flickering strokes of her memories, will they recall that moment long ago when she stood by the window, guilt ridden and confused, and watched as the tadr bird circled the cistern? No, it is not possible. […] But I will let them have their own brief glimpse of the Void, just at that moment they pass from living to dead, from animate to inanimate, from consciousness to that which has no consciousness. For a moment, they will understand infinity.”

“If a person holds no ambitions in this world, he suffers unknowingly. If a person holds ambitions, he suffers knowingly, but very slowly.”

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