Alan Quotes

I would think that you are more fluent with the rational. It has its appeal. But the irrational permits a greater exercise of ... shall we say, power.

In a world without future, each moment is the end of the world.

I think Joe Leiberman has been one of the leaders of the country... people have such a broad respect for him as a moral force.

I have too many friends who tell me that they spend the first hour of every morning going through their e-mail messages. I'd like to use my time more carefully.

As I understand it, a universe is a ... well, a totality. A universe is everything that is, as far as the inside of the thing.

No one ever expects poetry to sell...

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

Scientists will forever have to live with the fact that their product is, in the end, impersonal.

We often do not see what we do not expect to see.

Time is a rigid, bonelike structure, extending infinitely ahead and behind, fossilizing the future as well as the past.

Events, once happened, lose reality, alter with a glance, a storm, a night. In time, the past never happened. But who could know? Who could know that the past is not as solid as this instant.

A world with one month is a world of equality.

In a world in which time is a circle, every handshake, every kiss, every birth, every word, will be repeated precisely.

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.

I should have written books instead of reading them.

The target of power is more interesting than its quantity.

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

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.

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.

As a scientist, I don't believe science will ever discover whether God exists. Nor do I believe religion will ever prove it.

I have a number of vague ideas where I just have the core or kernel of the idea. I feel like I need some time for my mind to fill up again. I feel empty. Right now.

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

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.

For my students who are trying to learn the craft of writing in a writing class - contemporary literature is what's most useful.

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

A writer is someone who has a one-man tent in the desert and occasionally he sees the footprint of an other writer - in the form of a review or something.

I consider myself an essayist and a fiction writer. In the essays, I certainly have been influenced by some of the leading science essayists. Like Loren Eiseley, Stephen Jay Gould, Lewis Thomas.

One day I'm going to write a book about osprey. It has really gotten deep into my bloodstream. So when you ask what else I do, I feel like this is part of what I do....is to watch these birds.

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

I love the fact publishers are still publishing unprofitable material. It's a challenge to the powers that be. It's saying there is a real literature in this country and we will keep publishing it.

Writers read essays and serious thinkers and serious readers... that is a small population.

I think it is always a long shot getting a book made into a film. Making that book into a film is going to be quite a challenge.

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

In fiction writing ideas have to be handled extremely carefully. You can't let your characters just be mouthpieces for your ideas. They have to live and breathe on their own.

Franz Kafka is an idea person. His books begin and end in ideas. Ideas have always been important to me in my writing. To the point that I have to be careful that they don't take over.

In fiction writing, I would say there are several different strands that have been woven through my own writing, and each influenced by a different group of writers.

Those who deny human-caused climate change offer no compelling evidence to better explain the undeniable rise in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and global temperature.

I live and die for the Buckeyes. I also love to play racquetball.

Human-caused climate change threatens almost every aspect of human existence.

I'm passionate about the issues that I care about and I'm a really good listener.

The ultimate leaders develop followers who will surpass them.

To endow clock time with numinous meaning [is] hardly a fit occupation for an intelligent person.

Stephen Hunt's goals are priceless... that's why he's worth £ 4 million

If we are to fulfill the promise of this great Nation that everybody in our society has equal access to the law, obviously having the resources to have access to the law is extremely important.

The things we do without the fear of failure and the desire for success are the purest acts we'll ever do

You see, there's the way things seemed and then there's the way things were and one is so often the total reverse of the other.

As I come to understand Vietnam and what it implies about the human condition, I also realize that few humans will permit themselves such an understanding.

Technology is always a two-edged sword. It will bring in many benefits, but also many disasters.

People have asked me why I made the first chapter of my first novel so long, and in an invented English. The only answer I can come up with that satisfies me is, 'To keep out the scum.'

For whatever the future holds, one thing is certain... It just won't be the same.