Alan Lightman Quotes About Books

Quotes about: Books

• Originality is also very important to a writer. And all of the writers I've mentioned, of course, are original, but it's important to me that every book that I do be really a completely fresh and new look at the world. And of course, that makes it frightening to start a new book because you can't really depend upon what you've done with previous books.

  Alan Lightman

  Book, Important, Looks

  "Alan Lightman Interview". Interview with Alex Burack, www.literarytraveler.com. May 4, 2007.

• Every reader gets something different from a book and every reader, in a sense, completes it in a different way.

  Alan Lightman

  Book, Different, Way

  Interview with Robert Birnbaum, www.identitytheory.com. November 16, 2000.

• 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.

  Alan Lightman

  Book, Writing, Bird

  Interview with Robert Birnbaum, www.identitytheory.com. November 16, 2000.

• I'm still happy with the way Einstein's Dreams came out. That book came out of a single inspiration. I really felt like I was not creating the words, that I was hearing the words. That someone else was speaking the words to me and I was just writing them down. It was a very strange experience. That can happen with a short book. I don't think it could happen with a long book.

  Alan Lightman

  Dream, Book, Inspiration

  Interview with Robert Birnbaum, www.identitytheory.com. November 16, 2000.

• 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.

  Alan Lightman

  Book, Tragedy, Diagnosis

  Interview with Robert Birnbaum, www.identitytheory.com. November 16, 2000.

• I re-read a lot of books that I like a lot. There are some books that I try to reread every couple of years. A good book changes for you every few years because you are in a different place in your own life.

  Alan Lightman

  Couple, Book, Years

  Source: www.identitytheory.com

• I should have written books instead of reading them.

  Alan Lightman

  Book, Reading, Should Have

  Alan Lightman (2007). “Reunion”, p.129, Vintage

• "The Diagnosis" is by far my most ambitious book. I such great hopes for it... there was so much I wanted to do with the book. I was extremely insecure about it for several years. Just didn't know whether I would finish the book much less for it to come close to what I intended. I think that for any novel you never know exactly how the book is going to turn out...

  Alan Lightman

  Book, Insecure, Thinking

  Interview with Robert Birnbaum, www.identitytheory.com. November 16, 2000.

• I'm humbled and enormously grateful to be connected to [Franz] Kafka in a any way. He is one of the writers I admire. I think he has been a big influence on me. I appreciate the idea of the individual person battling the society - which is true in all his books.

  Alan Lightman

  Book, Grateful, Thinking

  Interview with Robert Birnbaum, www.identitytheory.com. November 16, 2000.

• 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.

  Alan Lightman

  Book, Character, Plot

  Interview with Robert Birnbaum, www.identitytheory.com. November 16, 2000.

• "The Diagnosis" had ten drafts of very significant changing, where I went through the whole book, wholesale and changed everything. Then the last year or so it was making small changes. I would do something and let it sit for three months... just brood about and decide I needed to slightly change something here or there. Or one character wasn't quite right. But I think everybody goes through this.

  Alan Lightman

  Book, Character, Thinking

  Interview with Robert Birnbaum, www.identitytheory.com. November 16, 2000.

• 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.

  Alan Lightman

  Book, Writing, Ideas

  Interview with Robert Birnbaum, www.identitytheory.com. November 16, 2000.

• 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.

  Alan Lightman

  Book, Creative, Way

• I think what gets you through a small writing project, is just one burst of inspiration. A book, especially a longer book, it's a different kind of force that pushes you through it. It's a vision of the whole thing.

  Alan Lightman

  Book, Inspiration, Writing

  Interview with Robert Birnbaum, www.identitytheory.com. November 16, 2000.

• 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.

  Alan Lightman

  Book, Thinking, Long

  Interview with Robert Birnbaum, www.identitytheory.com. November 16, 2000.

• 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.

  Alan Lightman

  Book, Years, Two

  Interview with Robert Birnbaum, www.identitytheory.com. November 16, 2000.

• When I used to play golf. It's a terrible miserable game. It's incredibly frustrating. In 18 holes you make 150 horrible shots off in the woods, in the water...You make one good shot and it brings you back the next time. With writing a long book there has to be at least one bit that has some magic in it that you can go back to.

  Alan Lightman

  Book, Writing, Golf

  Interview with Robert Birnbaum, www.identitytheory.com. November 16, 2000.

• The Book of Telling tells of a woman's journey to uncover the secret life of her father and to find herself in the process, an unusual counterpoint between personal history and the history of a young nation. Haunting, powerful, and beautifully written.

  Alan Lightman

  Powerful, Father, Book

• You say, "Something important really happened here. I really had hold of something I was visited by the muse." And that's enough to make you continue the months and years to finish the whole book.

  Alan Lightman

  Book, Years, Important

  Interview with Robert Birnbaum, www.identitytheory.com. November 16, 2000.

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