Jonathan Lethem Quotes

I don't want to indulge myself in the luxury of writing beautiful paragraphs just for the sake of making beautiful writing. That doesn't interest me. I want everything to be essential.

I prefer old books and find them more relevant. I dislike new books. It's like drinking wine that's not ready.

For me, music is sort of the art that I can't incorporate into my person the way I want to.

By removing the stories from the morass of things that surround us, I'm hoping to achieve some kind of purer approach to emotional life.

Yes! I'm the slowest comic-book writer on Earth.

I listen to music all the time. I write while listening to music. And I tell myself that the music nourishes the art forms that I do master and domesticate, and have authority over.

I want what we all want, " said Carl. "To move certain parts of the interior of myself into the exterior world, to see if they can be embraced.

You could harbor a man in your bed or your body, play on his nervous system like Paderewski at the keyboard, and not shift his brain one inch out of the concrete of dogma. (p. 5)

There is nothing Tourettic about the New York City subways.