Poetry is supposed to be musical. But people don't understand prose. They're so used to reading journalism - clunky, functional sentences that… — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share Image
One of the things that novels have tended not to concentrate on over the centuries is the fact that people read books. — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share Image
When the civil rights battle was won, all the Jews and hippies and artists were middle class white people and all the… — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share Image
Some people have things written all over their faces; the big guy had a couple of words misspelled in crayon on his. — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share Image
When people call something "original," 9 out of 10 times they just don't know the references or original sources involved. — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share Image
I have no one to blame for the construction for myself, of course, but I'm always surprised and slightly sulky when I… — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share Image
Making books has always felt very connected to my bookselling experience, that of wanting to draw people's attention to things that I… — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share Image
I don't know why the world has changed so much that writers are now expected to appear in public and talk about… — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share Image
As a child growing up in pre-gentrification Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, I went everywhere by bicycle. My bike was in many ways the… — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share Image
I've been an advocate against the view of the writer as a partitioned genius hanging in conceptual space, or up on a… — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share Image
Listen to me. I’m shy. I’m not stupid. I can’t meet people’s eyes. I don’t know if you understand what that’s like.… — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share Image
I'm not a sociologist, and the novel has often concerned itself with sociology. It's one of the generating forces that's made fiction… — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share Image
It was often this way, life consisted of a series of false beginnings, bluff declarations of arrival to destinations not even glimpsed. — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share
I've been an advocate against the view of the writer as a partitioned genius hanging in conceptual space, or up on a mountain, a… — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share
“I suppose there was never a reason for tearing down a cabin or scrapping a stopped automobile, if you had all those acres.” — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share
My heart, to put it more simply, got nostalgic for the present. Always a bad sign. — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share
It's impossible to overstate how my relationship to music forms a preserve for the esoteric or even spiritual aspect of my relationship to cultural… — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share
“If. If Mingus Rude could be kept in this place, kept somehow in Dylan's pocket, in his stinging, smudgy hands, then summer wouldn't give… — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share
I had always wanted to be a writer who confused genre boundaries and who was read in multiple contexts. — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share
“Mingus Rude, Arthur Lomb, Gabriel Stern and Tim Vandertooth, even Aaron K. Doily: Dylan never met anyone who wasn't about to change immediately into… — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share
I try to write every day. I don't beat myself up about word counts, or how many hours are ticking by on the clock… — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share
“Enough of this. Does every conversation with you have to be the director's cut? Get out of the car.” — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share
“The stumbling block will turn out to be the traditional one for students of consciousness: the flashlight is incapable of shining on itself, so… — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share
