A. J. Langer Quotes

All persistent practices in art have a creative function. They may serve several ends, but the chief one is the shaping of the work.

Speech is the mark of humanity. It is the normal terminus of thought.

Philosophizing is a process of making sense out of experience.

Is it conceivable that mysticism is a mark of inadequate art?

The development of beings with minds is probably the highest individuation the world has ever known, and its prehistory is the history of life on earth.

Common-sense knowledge is prompt, categorical, and inexact.

The intellectual treatment of any datum, any experience, any subject, is determined by the nature of our questions, and only carried out in the answers.

Cinema is like dream.

...every writer I had ever known wrote his best work when he had his back up against the wall and thought he would never write another word.

And yet, wasn't the terrific thing about stories the fact that they joined readers together, that they made people realize they were not alone in their hopes, dreams, and fears?

Behavior makes sense from the actor's perception or else the actor wouldn't do it. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, you know, today I'm going to be conforming, mistaken, nasty, and so on.

Isn’t that why all writers write? To inspire their readers?

Every criminal would be an artist if he had the talent, and every artist would become a criminal if he had the guts.

Sometimes in fiction you had to mute reality in order to make it seem more believable.

Boredom can be just another construct of the mind....There is always something new to notice.

...there was a certain comfort in surrender.