Literature often gets taught nowadays as a record of the sins and shortcomings of the past. I see literature and the arts… — Brian Boyd Art Copy Share Image
“Writing of Pushkin, Nabokov once observed quite accurately that his subject was the threefold formula of human life: the irretrievability of the… — Brian Boyd Human life Copy Share Image
I would be very surprised if on another planet we discovered a species as intelligent as humans that didn't have narrative, or… — Brian Boyd Art Copy Share Image
“Interviewer: What surprises you in life? Nabokov: ...the marvel of consciousness- that sudden window swinging open on a sunlit landscape amidst the… — Brian Boyd Life Copy Share Image
Scientists, to give them credit, do not think of the humanities in a negative way. It's the bureaucrats who want to cut… — Brian Boyd Copy Share Image
Any artist who really engages with the problems in their medium at that moment and tries to deepen the problems is likely… — Brian Boyd Art Copy Share Image
In fiction the story lives the more everyone comes to life, the more each character seems to exist in his or her… — Brian Boyd Character Copy Share Image
It seems to me to make as much sense to talk about literature as a large-scale human phenomenon without bringing in evolution… — Brian Boyd Books Copy Share Image
I guess both Nabokov and Popper had, in different ways, immunized me against the fashion for French-influenced literary theory in the '70s,… — Brian Boyd Copy Share Image
I think that's an important part of art in general. Especially in literature, in stories, we play with eventualities that may put… — Brian Boyd Art Copy Share Image
Literature and the other arts play with pattern - our brains understand our world by recognizing patterns - and with possibility. The… — Brian Boyd Art Copy Share Image
Everything is humanities. The sciences are a form of the humanities. They involve traditions of inquiry; they involve social engagement with ideas.… — Brian Boyd Brain Copy Share Image
There's a young Danish guy who has done a lot of work from an evolutionary perspective, Mathias Clasen. Basically, his argument is… — Brian Boyd Argument Copy Share Image
Perhaps the most demanding trick in all of art is to know ways that are going to capture the attention of an… — Brian Boyd Art Copy Share Image
I think like almost everything in evolution, the old forms persist. New forms come along - not always, of course; there are… — Brian Boyd Evolution Copy Share Image
Art and literature need extreme sociality to a degree that even dolphins don't have. We are the only large mammalian species that… — Brian Boyd Art Copy Share Image
Popper and Nabokov are very different people in some ways - and I'm ready to devote large chunks of my life to… — Brian Boyd Copy Share Image
There is behavioral ecology, which looks closely at the difference different ecologies make to behavior and other features of animals and humans.… — Brian Boyd Animal Copy Share Image
If an artwork never gets any attention from anybody, then obviously it's got problems. If it gains attention from a very small… — Brian Boyd Attention Copy Share Image
“Whenever a noise exceeds our processing abilities—we can’t decipher all the different sound waves hitting our hair cells— the mind . .… — Brian Boyd Human brain Copy Share Image
