Adam Langer > Quotes

“I have the same fantasy every time I read a book I love, no matter who wrote it, no matter when it was written. That the author has written his book only for me.”
― Adam Langer, The Salinger Contract

“The story’s what matters; spelling’s overrated.”
― Adam Langer, The Salinger Contract

“...there was a certain comfort in surrender.”
― Adam Langer, The Salinger Contract

“Every criminal would be an artist if he had the talent, and every artist would become a criminal if he had the guts.”
― Adam Langer, The Salinger Contract

“He had no idea who bought his books, how they acquired the money to buy them. Perhaps they were saints, perhaps they were criminals...”
― Adam Langer, The Salinger Contract

“True love never has to end so why shouldn't our story continue after the last page has been written”
― Adam Langer, The Thieves of Manhattan

“Isn’t that why all writers write? To inspire their readers?”
― Adam Langer, The Salinger Contract

“Had J.D. Salinger known who John Hinckley and mark David Chapman were before they bought his books or took them out of the library? Would it have mattered if he had? Had he returned the royalties he received from those purchases?”
― Adam Langer, The Salinger Contract

“...he still wondered what it would be like to be so intriguing that people would actually care if he disappeared.”
― Adam Langer, The Salinger Contract

“He admired writers whose own stories were as interesting as the ones they wrote.”
― Adam Langer, The Salinger Contract

“...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.”
― Adam Langer, The Salinger Contract

“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?”
― Adam Langer, The Salinger Contract

“Sometimes all a story needed was one or two people to read or listen to it to make it matter.”
― Adam Langer, The Salinger Contract

“Maybe authors shouldn't write more than one or two books. Maybe you just keep writing the same book over and over anyway.”
― Adam Langer, The Salinger Contract

“I was wondering how Ms. Hetley, who seemed to occupy just about every slot on the New York Times hardback, paperback, and e-book bestseller lists, had managed to wring eight five-hundred-page installments out of the concept of wars between rival gangs of vampires and wizards when it seemed obvious to me that all a wizard would have to do to kick a vampire's ass was pounce on it during the day while it was sleeping. How could anyone take this stuff seriously, I wondered. Hetley's graphic depictions of wizard-on-vampire sex, which was creating a bloodthirsty, mutant race of evil, soulless 'vampards', seemed absurd.”
― Adam Langer, The Salinger Contract

“That the author is speaking only to us, that he is writing only for us, that no one on Earth has the same relationship to that author as we do. I have the same fantasy every time I read a book I love, no matter who wrote it, no matter when it was written. That the author has written his book only for me.”
― Adam Langer

“I do listen fairly well, though, a talent people often mistake for trustworthiness.”
― Adam Langer, The Salinger Contract

“Jokes were a good way to talk about something while acting like you weren’t really talking about it.”
― Adam Langer, Cyclorama

“Sometimes in fiction you had to mute reality in order to make it seem more believable.”
― Adam Langer

“He used to love newsrooms: the ones he had visited when his father was alive, the ones where he had interned when he was starting out—AP and UPI wire machines buzzing and clicking; typewriters clacking; reporters on phones, conducting interviews, badgering sources; heated arguments about politics in the commissary and by the vending machines. But entering the Tomorrow building was like walking into a war-torn city after a neutron bomb had gone off. Half the offices were empty or filled with their downsized occupants’ detritus. Eerie silence predominated; cubicles were occupied by beaten-down millennials scrolling Twitter, listening to music through headphones, surreptitiously filling out job applications or updating their CVs on LinkedIn. People barely talked, just messaged each other on Slack.”
― Adam Langer, Cyclorama